the prada perspective.
Do Your Homework
It's time to excel!
You may feel pulled in two different directions when retrograde Mercury in practical Virgo connects with the ongoing Saturn-Uranus opposition with a conjunction to rule-maker Saturn on September 22, and an opposition to independent Uranus on September 23. And, in between, we mark the Fall Equinox on September 22 with the Sun's entrance into peaceful Libra.
anyone who has read this journal over the past few months could attest to the fact that my life has filled itself of late with a world of ironies since i lost my job: it stands to reason that i wouldn't have the ability to shake off these ironies after just one week in the working world and i haven't. the comic who writes my life has situated me in a position where i actually have to get up and go to work everyday however find myself subject to even more financial pressures as i no longer have the "i don't have a job" crutch to justify the continual deficit i experience with respect to my day-to-day expenses and income. in addition, i've started almost every paragraph with respect to my new job off with the following sentence: "i work with lowlifes and degenerates." in the orientation class, i once again had the overwhelming feeling that i belonged more with the management class and not the entry-level numb-nuts. now, i don't know if it's just because i have to prove myself or because my resume doesn't sing, but i feel wholly overqualified for this position and absolutely out of my element with people who i wouldn't associate with in a bar and who i left high school to avoid. there's literally someone with gang-like tattoos in the same class. on the second day, someone got fired for bringing a switchblade to work. with that said, if i worked in "cubicle city" before, i now work in "cubicle nation" and while i feel wholly undervalued in my current position, there's limitless social possibilities as the workforce's an average of twenty years younger than my old job and i know for a face many of them go to the only bar in town -- a phrase which has become so untrue since i first coined it that it's quite remarkable -- and i don't know if i'll be able to handle working at a place where my social life lays open like a wind-blown tabloid. also, i'm quite corpulent these days and while i'm totally into that look -- and let me just say, in the vein, that my exsomeone and i flirted with the possibility of what actually happened this past sunday -- it's not one that has resurged artistically -- i don't care what the press may want to make of lara stone -- so i need to diet. unfortunately, this means that besides my economic condition hampering my style, my looks have made me into this insecure guy who doesn't really feel comfortable being back on the prowl. speaking of the prowl, last thursday, i got an unexpected call from the p.r. girl asking me to come out and although i had just come from work at pier one, i turned around, change clothes, did a shot, and went to the new bar "flamingo" which stood as one of those venues that though not busy on a thursday night -- that's the only bar in town's best night -- that i know will hold many a crazy memory in the months to come -- but it turned out a wierd homecoming night because i learned that the p.r. girl had been in new jersey for a couple of months and had decided to move back to pursue more education. for two years. yes, this made for quite the emotional night and although i only had two drinks and a glass of wine, we somehow wound up in walmart in the wee hours of the morning following every whim of munch-able we could afford and then landed at the p.r. girl's house with her bartender roommie -- who ironically, i developed a crush on when they first moved down here when i encountered them altogether at the tradewinds resort that the flamingo has come to replace -- and cooked and talked and cried until day break when i went home to pass out for my last weekday before actually working. well, on saturday, i had to work, and on sunday, i did not, so i went over to my parent's for dinner and race over to the exsomeone's but we didn't wind up doing anything and the phone rang and i thought i was going to go crazy because i didn't understand why i came over only for nothing to happen and went home to watch "mad men" but then the exsomeone came over to borrow season three of "brothers and sisters" and although i needed to go to bed early to prepare for my first day at work and i didn't want to have to catch the encore episode of "mad men," the exsomeone and i broke out into some of the most intense in-the-kitchen-on-the-floor-eyes-roll-in-the-back-of-my-head sex we've had since we've started sleeping together again. and i don't have the words to describe the feeling i get from actually being wanted and actually experiencing that level of connection with someone. even if it is just for the moment. but it brings to the fore the larger issue in my life which is my loneliness: i'm currently entertaining crushes on my chipotle cashier and one of my peers in orientation. if you saw either, you'd understand what a sad state i'm in. and it's funny. my dream looks and acts somewhere between the star of the new ketel one commercials and the devil-wears prada boss on the new melrose place but i'm attracted to a classmate who knows me from pier one imports and the chipotle cashier who always flirts and makes eye contact and who i bonded with over the fact that we're both so broke. dreamboat du jour. that's about all going on in my life. that and the fact that i can't get my sleep schedule in check after this week. i'm nearly addicted to simply sleep and diet moutain dew. without one, i get the desired effect of the other. this morning, i got up at half past three o' clock. and it's not the first time this week. yes, i feel asleep at like ten o' clock, but it's like i can't sleep through the night without a sleeping pill and i can't stay awake the day. yeah, and i have to work this morning at nine o'clock.
in other news, of course, i have to miss milan and paris fashion weeks on account of work, but i did get in enough shows to see that it looks like michael kors, narciso rodriguez, donna karan, francisco costa, and miuccia prada colluded together to shove this faux-futuristic moment on us with the greatest hits from each others' collections. michael kors did calvin klein, narcisco rodriguez and francisco costa (for calvin klein) did donna karan, and donna karan did herself to perfection. and then, miuccia prada did the collection michael kors wanted to do but couldn't execute -- i do believe those men were stepping on the back of their shoes because they didn't fit? -- and did it with more soul than any collection i've seen so far. it takes a true designer to imbue something as staid and out-of-season as sharp grey suiting and make it super-timely and transportive. and yes, i plan to completely co-opt this look with my own grey suiting and the clear oversized oliver peoples' specs i've acquired. also, i love the idea that there's something cheap and obvious about her rendition of transparency -- a true subversive statement about wealth in our current economic morass. and a statement about some people so nakedly hungry for power and position as to put on a show so obvious that it's apparent to everyone but themselves what they're doing.
Meet Carole Rome, the governor's fiancee
Stephanie Hayes and Ben Montgomery, Times Staff Writers
Published Saturday, July 12, 2008
The governor had the evening planned.
He bought the ring on a Wednesday from a jeweler near Publix in northeast St. Petersburg. He took his date to Ceviche on Beach Drive that evening, and outside were the city lights and the warm breeze off the bay. They would eat tapas and stroll to his apartment, where the 51-year-old bachelor would ask the woman to marry him.
But alas, a couple who live in his building saw them, said hello, and asked if they'd like to come up and watch the Rays play the Red Sox.
The governor did not get his job by disappointing people, so he and his date watched the Rays come from behind with six runs in the seventh inning. By the time it was over, proposing marriage didn't feel quite right.
He waited till morning. She was sitting on the couch when he took a seat beside her.
He checked the clock: a few minutes before 11.
Nine months earlier, they met at an Italian restaurant in New York; five months earlier, he introduced the mystery woman publicly as "my girlfriend."
That morning, July 3, she saw that he was holding a small box. He opened it. She smiled.
With a word - Yes! - Carole Rome became Florida's first fiancee, the curiosity of a state.
Roslyn, N.Y., is picturesque suburbia, sandwiched between Manhattan grit and Hamptons glamor. Strip mall marquees have gold-leafing. Fancy restaurants look like Grandma's house. Even the liquor store has charm.
Roslyn was home to writer Michael Crichton and former Vermont first lady Judith Steinberg Dean.
It was home to Carole Rome, now 38.
She was the last of five babies born to Bob and Margaret Oumano. Carole was a sweet child with pretty brown eyes who toddled around in pink sundresses. She was doted on, captured in photos her older sister showed off at summer camp.
"I was very proud of her," said Michele Oumano Powell, 51.
Bob Oumano operated his father's gag gift business. He loaded boxes and crunched numbers. He pitched hooting owls and whoopee cushions to novelty shops, hoping they'd carry his stock. His kids helped; tales swirl that a young Carole drove the forklift in his warehouse.
He brought home samples - the girls especially loved plastic Hope diamond rings. But at home after his long commute, Bob had little energy for banana peel slapstick.
"We used to call him the unconscious comedian, because he'd make jokes when he didn't even realize," said Carole's sister. "He wasn't really the practical joke type who was testing out new products at home. He worked hard."
At Roslyn High, Carole cheered for the varsity squad in her sweater vest and shoe poms. She made honor society. She had big bangs and 1980s power curls.
She wrote cryptic notes under her 1987 senior yearbook picture - WOW!WhatATrip! RHShasNEverSeen Such A WildBunch!... Mom&Dad:Thx4Evrythg-URThe Best!LY!
She left for Georgetown University, unsure what to become. She earned a business and accounting degree, graduating with honors. She moved to Manhattan to start her career, and in 1993 married Todd Rome, now president of a private jet company, Blue Star Jets. Three years later, they had their first daughter, Jessica. In 1998, they had Skylar.
Carole juggled family life with work. She was an auditor at an accounting firm. She didn't love it. She worked in high-end real estate. She didn't love it.
Her father, ailing from heart problems, wanted Carole to run the family business, Franco American Novelty Co. She was dynamic and high energy. She was the baby. She could carry on the legacy.
Bob Oumano died in 2000. Before, he gave the family his blessing to take the company in a new direction, focused on costumes.
Carole dived in. She invented a slogan: "Where Fashion Meets Halloween." She designed figure-flattering costumes, including a red goddess dress. A sequined child's devil outfit became a top seller.
Dressed exquisitely in suits, she strutted into the company's modest office in Glendale, a quirky Queens neighborhood surrounded by cemeteries. She got her hands dirty, unpacking boxes. Once, while feet of snow fell outside, she stayed overnight working out finances.
"She'll get you motivated," said David Arce, Franco's warehouse manager. "On days that were real hot, she'd say, 'Go get ice, get sodas, get water. … Get the air-conditioning on, buy fans.' Anything to keep the morale going."
Under her lead, the company turned in record profits.
Her life outside was lavish. She and Todd Rome owned homes all over New York City. They built a townhouse on Manhattan's exclusive Upper East Side. They had a 10,000-square-foot vacation home in Southampton. Carole decorated it with a palette of pale blue, white and silver.
The couple threw fundraisers for the Red Cross and other charities, raising thousands of dollars by auctioning trips, cruises, jewelry, paintings, a Gucci bag, a diamond bracelet.
Carole hobnobbed with Tommy Hilfiger, John McEnroe, Patty Smyth, Kelly Clarkson, the Hilton family. She appeared in the society pages wearing flowing baby doll dresses she designed with Erisa Dilo, design director at Franco.
"She loves custom-made dresses," Dilo said. "She loves Roberto Cavalli, which is also my favorite designer, which I think is why Carole and I click. That's why when I design for her, she loves it."
She frequented Nobu, a New York restaurant co-owned by Robert De Niro, and Pink Elephant, a bar that offers Krug Clos du Mesnil champagne for $2,100. She had her long, wavy hair styled on Madison Avenue.
• • •
The governor and his fiancee sit for an interview in a comfy poolside room on a private island south of Miami Beach, where the sand is imported from the Bahamas and caged toucans squawk under a giant banyan tree. You can reach Fisher Island only by boat, helicopter or ferry, and according to the 2000 census, its 1,400 residents had the highest per capita income in the United States.
Carole Rome has a 3,690-square-foot, $4.1-million condo.
She moved from New York to Florida with her children in 2006, when her marriage was in trouble.
"In a million years, I never understood why she wanted to move out of New York, except for what she said, which is, she wanted a simpler life for her children," said Carole's friend Jill Zarin, a cast member on the Bravo reality series The Real Housewives of New York City. "She wanted to slow down, which is funny, because now she's on a treadmill."
In their Florida divorce file, Todd Rome alleges that Carole took the kids to Miami without his blessing, lured him to Florida to work out the marriage - and then served him with divorce papers.
He says Carole became inexplicably unhappy with their $6-million Upper East Side townhouse. She wasn't happy with any of their homes, he says.
"No sooner was a new home built, bought or rented, but that defendant became dissatisfied with it," Todd Rome says in the records. "In the first 11 years of our marriage, we lived for an average period of one to two years in a succession of no less than five apartments and three houses. … We also have had a total of four vacation houses in the Hamptons."
Todd Rome, who is now engaged to be married, did not return calls for an interview.
As news of the divorce spread through society circles, so did whispers that he couldn't abide Carole's spending. The society press delighted in the rumor.
"That's just gossip," said Zarin. "The truth is, I like to shop, so do you; everyone likes to shop. She gives a lot of money to charity. … She doesn't just write a check. She does a lot of the work at these events. Carole Rome has no problem rolling up her sleeves."
• • •
Florida's wedding of the year will most likely be in the spring. The newlyweds will divide their time among Fisher Island, Crist's rented condo in St. Petersburg, and the Governor's Mansion in Tallahassee. Carole and her former husband share custody of their children, according to Todd Rome's lawyer. They go to a private school in Miami.
"The girls are wonderful," Crist said, "and I think the world of them and I look forward to spending a lot of time with them."
In the hourlong interview on Fisher Island, Crist and his fiancee never stop touching. He rubs her hands and her back and her shoulders. She squeezes his thigh and stares at his face.
"We just kind of hit it off from the get-go," he says. "It was classic."
They met in late September, when mutual friends got them together to talk about GOP fundraising at an Italian restaurant in New York, a romantic place called Campagnola, on the Upper East Side. They sat next to each other.
She thought he was handsome and sincere. He thought she was beautiful, sweet, smart.
They talked about politics and sports. They hit a club after dinner and listened to music. They ended the night with a kiss. She gave him her number, told him to call.
The next day, he had to deliver a lecture at Bill Clinton's Global Climate Initiative, but he couldn't get the woman out of his head.
Crist was faced with the most human of challenges: How long should I wait before I call?
He saw her again that Friday, at a fundraiser in South Florida.
There was an immediate connection.
"I felt it," he says.
"I did, too," she says.
"She was so friendly, so sweet, and so knowledgeable about a lot of stuff," he says. "It was very nice to find someone so beautiful, so brilliant, and so sweet as well. So I fell in love."
"I find him to be the most handsome man," she says. "I just so enjoyed his personality, his charm, his grace, his goodness."
They began seeing each other more regularly, and the news media eventually caught on. But the girlfriend remained mostly a mystery.
• • •
"We're not identical," the governor says, "but I've never met someone more like myself in a woman than Carole."
This from a man known for eating one meal a day, a man who rents an apartment and carries no credit card debt, a man whose entire net worth - $457,262 - might not be enough to buy him a nice condo in any of the neighborhoods his fiancee is used to living in. Is this a case of opposites attracting?
"My parents were very simple people," she says, "and always instilled that in their children, and I always valued that. And that really is my core and my roots. Meeting Charlie, and seeing the life of a public servant and somebody who's so selfless and is not driven by material things and by money, and is so simple and so humble and so pure, was really something that was very attractive to me, and it reminded me very much of my upbringing."
She says Crist has changed her. "Maybe it's more accurate to say I'm getting back to my roots and my solid foundation of who I really am and what's really important in life," she says.
So was hobnobbing with the rich and famous insincere?
"I don't have any regrets whatsoever," she says. "I think in life it's important to experience all things. But at the end of the day you need to come to terms with who you are and what really fulfills you and inspires you, and I have found great inspiration and fulfillment through Charlie."
She says she loves St. Petersburg. She loves eating shrimp salad at Fish Tales and dining at Fred's at the Vinoy and going out on Crist's boat on Tampa Bay.
"I find it to be the most beautiful, wholesome, wonderful community," she says. "I love St. Petersburg."
"Can't beat the 'burg," Crist says.
Crist has heard skeptics say his wedding proposal was politically motivated. He has heard the speculation that he's marrying to make himself a more appealing vice presidential candidate. He says those people are wrong.
"It's all about being in love with Carole."
They stand, hold hands, walk outside near the pool. Pausing in front of a bougainvillea, they embrace. Then, as a photographer snaps pictures, they kiss.
Ben Montgomery can be reached at bmontgomery@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8650. Stephanie Hayes can be reached at shayes@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8857. Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report.
© 2009 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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The not-so-public Mrs. Crist
By Steve Bousquet and Shannon Colavecchio, Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Published Saturday, September 19, 2009
TALLAHASSEE
She's the first lady most Floridians never see. Nine months after Carole Rome married Gov. Charlie Crist before hundreds of guests in downtown St. Petersburg, the woman once so visible in the Hamptons now cautiously tiptoes around the limelight. Former first ladies Columba Bush and Rhea Chiles championed the arts or the well-being of children, but Mrs. Crist has yet to embrace a popular cause to improve life in Florida. "This is all so new for me - the political, public life," Mrs. Crist said Saturday, holding hands with her husband in the lobby of a Gainesville hotel, before heading to the UF-Tennessee football game. "So I just wanted to be sure to take it slow and be sure that before I take on too much, that whatever I do that I can be effective and feel good about it." Her infrequent appearances as first lady include attending a holiday party for foster children and a Menorah lighting at the Governor's Mansion less than two weeks after the December 2008 wedding; welcoming the king and queen of Spain in an official visit to Pensacola in February, watching Gov. Crist give his State of the State speech to the Legislature in March; and joining him at a Clearwater Regional Chamber of Commerce event in May.
She has joined the Republican governor at several fundraisers for his U.S. Senate campaign, including Friday at the Gainesville home of Democratic lawyer Danny Ponce, whom Crist appointed to the UF board of trustees. But she has not hosted a state event since April, when she and the governor invited foster children to the mansion for an annual Easter egg hunt.
Gov. and Mrs. Crist say they divide their time between his rented condo in downtown St. Petersburg, her home on tony Fisher Island in Miami, and the Governor's Mansion in Tallahassee, where he typically lives during the week. It's unclear how much of that time is spent together.
Last week, after the Times/Herald started asking about her public schedule, Mrs. Crist unexpectedly accompanied the governor to a school visit in Miami's Little Haiti. She was asked if she would do more as first lady in the future.
"I hope to, yes. I do the best I can. I try," said Mrs. Crist, 39.
A Georgetown University graduate and longtime New York businesswoman, Mrs. Crist has skipped high-profile annual events that traditionally were the province of former first ladies.
When Gov. Crist, 53, inducted three new members into the Florida Women's Hall of Fame in March, an event that drew some 300 guests to Tallahassee, Mrs. Crist was not there. Last Monday, in the courtyard outside the Capitol building, Gov. Crist attended the annual Missing Children's Day ceremony, handing a yellow rose to each family member of a missing or murdered child. His wife was not there.
Asked why Mrs. Crist did not attend the missing children's event, Gov. Crist said: "Because she's with our children," a reference to her two daughters from a previous marriage to jet company owner Todd Rome.
Rome said the girls, 12-year-old Jessica and 11-year-old Skylar, live with him in New York, where they attend a private, all-girls school.
"She sees the children every other weekend," he said. "We live in New York City, and she lives in Florida. I don't follow her schedule."
Charitable intents
The governor's official Web site features a page titled "Meet the First Lady," which details her New York upbringing and her successful education and business career. It notes that "as Florida's First Lady, Carole will focus on the state's most critical issues, as well as continuing her philanthropic work."
But so far, that philanthropy has been mostly elsewhere.
In New York, Mrs. Crist has been active in raising money for foster children through events like "ARTrageous," a celebrity auction she and Gov. Crist attended in May 2008 to benefit the Edwin Gould Services for Children and Families in New York. While married to Rome, she was known for hosting charity galas and other events in New York City and the Hamptons.
At the mansion holiday party for foster children shortly after their wedding, Mrs. Crist told reporters that she planned to use her role as first lady in a positive way - for children in particular.
She echoed that sentiment Wednesday at the Miami school.
"There are many great, worthy causes," she said. "But first and foremost, I believe children, education, helping our children, doing whatever we can to support them and love them and lift them, and whatever I can do to be a part of that and move that forward and keep us moving, Florida getting to the top in the country is what I'm very eager to do."
'Pace yourself'
Unlike most first ladies, Mrs. Crist had no exposure to Florida politics before marrying the governor. And she chose as a spouse the ambitious, can't-sit-still chief executive of the nation's fourth-largest state, who memorably spent part of their brief honeymoon working the phones on an Everglades land acquisition deal.
Like her husband, Mrs. Crist is attractive, upbeat, polite and gracious - and given to sometimes vague answers, delivered with minimum animation or emotion.
On a football Saturday, sitting down to an interview with the Times/Herald, Mrs. Crist wore a light blue polo shirt and tan slacks, while her husband wore a horizontal-striped, dark blue polo shirt and tan slacks.
Mrs. Crist said her priorities are to "be supportive of Charlie and my children."
Describing how she balances a marriage, his responsibilities as governor and U.S. Senate candidate, and two children in New York, Mrs. Crist said: "It's a lot. Don't take on too much, and pace yourself."
"And she does it very well," the governor added.
In recent years, Mrs. Crist has helped run Franco American Novelty Co., a family-owned New York business specializing in exotic Halloween costumes. Her sister, a company vice president, handles day-to-day affairs, while Mrs. Crist weighs in on planning and strategy, she said. Occasionally, she plays tennis and golf.
At her Fisher Island address, accessible only by boat or helicopter, she's registered to vote (Republican) under the name Carole Rome, which also is the name listed on property records showing her ownership of the $3.2 million, 3,690-square-foot condo.
Gov. Crist now spends less time in St. Petersburg -an observation noted by his Bayfront Tower neighbors - and more time in the Miami area with his bride.
"Miami is beautiful and I have grown to appreciate it more than I ever have before, thanks to Carole," Gov. Crist said.
Mrs. Crist said she is most often in Tallahassee during the spring legislative session and during the winter holidays, when the official residence is a popular spot for receptions.
With her husband on a frenetic fundraising pace, one way for Mrs. Crist to see him is at those fundraisers. Last week, they slipped away for a one-hour jaunt in Gov. Crist's boat, docked in St. Petersburg.
"It really just settles us. It makes us very happy," she said.
The governor said his wife is "tremendously understanding of what I do - more than I ever could have imagined."
Impromptu appearance
People who meet Mrs. Crist invariably rave.
"I've only met her a couple of times, but she seems to be very charming, delightful and engaged," said former Tallahassee City Commissioner Allan Katz, a Democratic fundraiser who attended a December Hanukkah reception hosted by the Crists at the Governor's Mansion. "She creates a very warm impression."
During her visit with the governor last week to Toussaint L'Ouverture Elementary in Miami, she was animated, applauding students, making a thumbs-up gesture and mouthing "Wow!"
The Crists held hands as he gave students a pep talk about hurricane preparedness.
The media advisory for the governor's visit, released the previous evening to reporters, made no mention of Mrs. Crist's attendance. Media advisories for previous events that she attended specifically noted the first lady would be there with the governor. The press release issued after the visit also did not note her.
"I was conveniently in the area and it sounded like a really great opportunity to come and visit with the kids," Mrs. Crist said as the event wrapped up. "I just enjoy being with the kids to learn more about what they are doing."
Before reporters could ask more questions, the governor said, "C'mon, sweetie," grabbed her hand and walked her away.
The two were spotted shopping at Bloomingdale's later that afternoon, when Gov. Crist's schedule had him doing "work and call time."
Historic comparison
In the state that her husband will govern for 16 more months, Mrs. Crist has yet to embrace a public cause. That sets her apart from her predecessors, said historian Patricia Clements.
The wives of Jeb Bush, Lawton Chiles, Bob Graham and Claude Kirk used the role of first lady to champion issues ranging from elder care to volunteerism and the arts, Clements said. Columba Bush also did a lot of work for the historic Mission San Luis in Tallahassee, and she was an advocate for substance abuse treatment and education, Clements said.
"The role of first lady is such an opportunity for service and I think most of them have done it," said Clements, who is editing a book on Florida first ladies. "It's an opportunity because people want to please the first lady, and they want to please the governor."
She said Mrs. Crist is different from her predecessors in many ways, given her corporate background and the timing of when she became first lady - two years into his term, and just months before he made official his plans to run for the U.S. Senate.
"They weren't married when he ran for office, and even with the influence of the office it would be hard for her to start a foundation or a group with only a year or so left," Clements said.
Katz said anyone who expects a first lady to just hold onto the past traditions of tea parties and such is not necessarily being fair or realistic.
"We're living in a different time," Katz said. "I think anyone who thinks otherwise is just kind of living in the past."
Allure of big city
Mrs. Crist does not have a staff person assigned to help manage her schedule or events, unlike most former first ladies. On occasion, she has asked the governor's office to e-mail her a copy of his schedule for events she considered attending.
Mrs. Crist occasionally exchanges e-mails with staffers on travel, events and matters such as her official bio on the National Governors Association spouses' Web site.
Last month, she tried to coordinate the governor's schedule to include an event in Palm Beach for the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund. "Pls. read below," Mrs. Crist wrote to chief of staff Eric Eikenberg. "I spoke to Governor. He is interested. Let's try to coordinate a date for lunch with something else in Palm Beach in September if we can."
From the moment she and Gov. Crist got engaged, there was political and media speculation that the marriage was largely a calculated political move aimed at making him more attractive as a national candidate. At the time, he was in the running to be Republican Sen. John McCain's vice presidential nominee, so a storyline of the lifelong bachelor finally meeting his match had appeal.
The first lady's rare public appearances in the state capital have fueled a perception that she prodded her husband to forgo a re-election bid in favor of a run for U.S. Senate and possible move to the more fashionable nation's capital. Gov. Crist maintains she voiced no such preference.
"The buzz has always been that she would prefer Washington, D.C., to Tallahassee," said Democratic state Sen. Dave Aronberg. "She went to Georgetown University. She's used to living in big cities."
Mrs. Crist called Tallahassee "a great town, very exciting," but her eyes brightened when she was asked about being able to live in Washington.
"I think it would be great. It's a fabulous city," she said, as her husband interjected: "But we've got to win first."
Times/Herald staff writers Beth Reinhard and Marc Caputo and St. Petersburg Times staff writer Mary Jane Park contributed to this report. Steve Bousquet can be reached at sbousquet@sptimes.com or (850) 224-7263. Shannon Colavecchio can be reached at scolavecchio@sptimes.com.
Fast Facts
First lady Carole Crist's events
At the request of the Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau, the governor's press office prepared this list of events attended by Mrs. Crist as first lady.
Dec. 21: Holiday book drive event, Governor's Mansion, Tallahassee; Menorah lighting, Governor's Mansion, Tallahassee.
Dec. 24: Tallahassee Senior Center visit.
Jan. 20: National Governor's Association breakfast, Washington, D.C.; President-elect Barack Obama's swearing-in ceremony, Washington, D.C.; President Barack Obama's inaugural parade, Washington, D.C.
Feb. 19: Royal visit by His Majesty King Juan Carlos I
and Her Majesty Queen Sophia of Spain: legislative breakfast and greeting with governor, Pensacola Beach; Fort George wreath-laying ceremony, history-marker ceremony, visit to T.T. Wentworth Museum and luncheon, Pensacola; VIP reception in honor of king and queen of Spain followed by dinner, Biltmore Hotel, Coral Gables.
Feb. 22: Reception honoring the nation's governors, White House, Washington, D.C.
Feb. 23: Session at U.S. Supreme Court, Washington, D.C.; spouses' luncheon with first lady Michelle Obama, Washington, D.C.
Feb. 24: Governor's Baseball Dinner, Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg.
Feb. 25: Florida Bankers Association dinner, JW Marriott, Miami.
Feb. 26: Scripps Florida grand opening, Jupiter.
March 3: State of the state address, the Capitol, Tallahassee; state of the state barbecue, Governor's Mansion.
March 4: Legislative spouses luncheon, Governor's Mansion.
March 10: Governor's Symphony, Governor's Mansion.
March 30: Alonzo Mourning jersey retirement, American Airlines Arena, Miami.
April 8: Easter egg hunt, Governor's Mansion.
April 9: Tallahassee Memorial Hospital 26th annual Golden Gala, Tallahassee.
April 11: Universal Health Care open house, the Coliseum, St. Petersburg.
May 7: Clearwater Chamber of Commerce roundtable; Florida Council of 100 dinner, Sandpearl Resort, Clearwater Beach.
Aug. 19: Visit to Boeing Cecil Field facility, Jacksonville.
Sept. 16: Hurricane preparedness school visit, Toussaint L'ouverture Elementary, Miami.
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Posted on Advocate.com September 22, 2009 09:09:28 AM
It seems that Mrs. Charlie Crist, who married the Florida governor last year, shows little interest in the role of first lady.
By Julie Bolcer
The sexual orientation of Florida governor Charlie Crist may be off-limits for most media, but a publication in his state recently asked about the increasingly scant public presence of his new wife, Carole Crist.
Carole Rome, the New York socialite who married Governor Crist last December, rarely attends public events with the governor, according to the St. Petersburg Times, and unlike her predecessors as first lady of the Sunshine State, she appears disinterested in philanthropic causes.
The posture leads some to speculate about the status of Mrs. Crist’s marriage to the governor, whose alleged affairs with men were a subject of the Kirby Dick documentary Outrage.
”Gov. and Mrs. Crist say they divide their time between his rented condo in downtown St. Petersburg, her home on tony Fisher Island in Miami, and the governor's mansion in Tallahassee, where he typically lives during the week,” reported the St. Petersburg Times. "It's unclear how much of that time is spent together.”
However, the report makes no mention of the persistent rumors that Crist, now a candidate for U.S. Senate, is gay. Instead, it suggests that questions about Mrs. Crist revolve around the suspicion that she controls her husband’s political career.
“The first lady's rare public appearances in the state capital have fueled a perception that she prodded her husband to forgo a reelection bid in favor of a run for U.S. Senate and possible move to the more fashionable nation's capital,” reported the St. Petersburg Times. “Gov. Crist maintains she voiced no such preference.”
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CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS - POLITICS
May 5, 2009 - 12:48 p.m.
Republican Rubio Enters Florida Senate Race
By Rachel Kapochunas, CQ Staff
Florida Republican Marco Rubio, a former state House Speaker, announced Tuesday that he is a candidate for the U.S. Senate seat of retiring one-term Republican Mel Martinez .
Rubio’s announcement pre-empted a highly anticipated decision by Republican Gov. Charlie Crist , who is expected to reveal within days whether he will run for a second term as the state’s chief executive in 2010 or instead bid for the Senate seat.
In an announcement video posted on his Web site, Rubio criticized political leaders in Washington, D.C., as supporting larger government and increased spending.
“The majority of us don’t agree with that view, and we deserve a voice in American politics. And that’s why I want to serve in the United States Senate, because I want to be a part of offering an alternative,” Rubio said.
Rubio alluded to Crist in his announcement, stating, “I’m under no illusions about how difficult this will be. I know that there are people more famous than I who may enter this race.”
Rubio’s entry defied the conventional wisdom that the field for the Senate contest was frozen pending Crist’s decision, and that other Republicans would defer to Crist if he decided to enter that race.
Crist, who has had strong approval ratings since his election as governor in 2006, has said consistently that he will not publicly state a decision about his 2010 plans until after the Florida legislature adjourns its annual session. That adjournment is now expected to occur on May 8.
It is no secret that Crist is pondering which office to pursue next year. He emerged as the most prominent potential Republican Senate candidate since January, when former Gov. Jeb Bush - regarded by many Republicans as their “dream” Senate candidate - stated that he would not run.
His backers say his popularity would give the GOP a leg up on holding a seat that the slumping national party needs to win avoid slipping deeper into the minority in the chamber.
Rubio was not deterred by the possibility of a Crist bid for the Senate.
Like the outgoing incumbent, Rubio is a prominent member of Florida’s politically potent Cuban-American constituency.
Seen by a number of Republicans as a rising star in the party, Rubio was elected to the state House from a Miami district in 2000 when he was 28 years old, and served as Speaker from 2006 to 2008 while in his mid-30s.
Rubio will turn 38 on May 28; Crist, who formerly served in the state Senate and as state education commissioner and Attorney General, will turn 53 on July 24.
Though Crist has been courted by many leading Republicans to run for the Senate, his relatively moderate positioning has irritated some conservatives. This friction increased when Crist endorsed the Democratic-drafted economic stimulus legislation and appeared with President Obama at a Florida rally in February aimed at building public support for a measure than drew near-unanimous opposition from Republicans in Congress.
Democrats, meanwhile, say they intend to seriously challenge for the seat. They take encouragement from the fact that Obama, as the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee, defeated Republican John McCain by 51 percent to 48 percent to claim the state’s big prize of 27 electoral votes.
Democratic Rep. Kendrick B. Meek of the Miami-area 17th District has been campaigning for his party’s nomination. Former President Bill Clinton has attended fundraisers for the four-term congressman.
Democratic state Sen. Dan Gelber also is waging an active campaign for the Democratic nomination.
Recent polls show that the Democrats currently campaigning for the Senate seat and those discussed as potential candidates remain largely unknown to many voters. But a Quinnipiac University poll conducted April 6-13 found that name identification was also a problem for prospective candidates on the Republican side, barring an entry by Crist.
CQ Politics rates the race Toss Up.
Bob Benenson contributed to this story.
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UPDATED: Alleged Crist Paramour Accused of Stealing Wedding Ring From Pastor's Daughter
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/08/alleged_crist_paramour_accused.php
By Bob Norman
Monday, Aug. 10 2009 @ 9:46AM
Jason Wetherington, the young Republican staffer who boasted to numerous witnesses of having an affair with Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and was recently featured in the movie Outrage, has been booked on felony charges related to a theft from the daughter of Pastor Larry Thompson, who leads the large and influential First Baptist Church of Fort Lauderdale.
UPDATED: Wetherington was charged on August 5 with grand larceny, dealing in stolen property, and false verification of ownership, said Fort Lauderdale Police Sgt. Frank Sousa.
Pastor Thompson's daughter, Jennifer Thompson Jones, reported to police that Wethington, a longtime family friend and member of her father's church, was housesitting her Las Olas condo in late July. When she returned, he was gone -- along with three rings, including her wedding and engagement rings, worth a total of $19,000, according to the probable-cause affidavit.
Police investigated and found that Wetherington had pawned the rings at a shop called Diamonds by the Cove in Deerfield Beach on July 20, according to the affidavit.
I contacted Wetherington, who is apparently living in Georgia, on the phone and asked him about the criminal charges.
"Let me stop you now," Wetherington said. "I'm going to tell you that I don't have any comment, and I'm going to pass your number to my attorney, and he'll get in contact with you."
The story goes deeper. The Pulp was sent a Facebook posting on Sunday written by Thompson Jones warning friends about Wetherington. In it she claims Wetherington admitted to stealing her wedding rings and that he also rifled $5,000 from Pastor Thompson's family safe. The latter allegation is not mentioned in the police reports. From Jones' Facebook posting:
I won't go into all the details but eventually Jason Wetherington confessed to stealing my ring and selling it as well as stealing $5000 from my parents safe, and stealing from many other people who I do not have the right to share.
Jason clearly has serious problems that go beyond substance abuse which does not stop with his friendships. He expressed to me that he feels better by hurting those who have helped him and supported him. I am pressing felony charges against Jason. As a counselor I recognize the reality of continuing to help someone who never has to face any consequences. I can not be an enabler to Jason. I pray for Jason and I hope that he gets the help he needs.
The 24-year-old Wetherington has long been a member of Thompson's prominent downtown church and, however this shakes out, it's a sad case. Wetherington was a rising GOP star as a teen, serving as a page in Tallahassee and as the student liaison for the Broward County School Board. From there, he served as an aide to state Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff and as a regional field director for Katherine Harris' U.S. Senate campaign.
It was while working for Harris that he told numerous independent sources that he was having an affair with Crist and came out as gay to Pastor Thompson.
When I confronted him about his boasts, Wetherington admitted he knew Crist and had applied for a job in the governor's office but denied making the boasts.
Crist denied knowing Wetherington at all. When I wrote about Wetherington and another Harris staffer who claimed to have had an affair with Crist (Bruce Carlton Jordan, a felon himself), Hollywood attorney Todd Payne swooped in to represent Wetherington, who was removed from the state prior to Crist's election.
More recently, the Wetherington story was featured in the documentary Outrage, a powerful film about gay hypocrisy in the Republican Party. The last time I heard from Wetherington was two years ago, when he had a bizarre concern regarding his Match.com page. Here's Thompson-Jones' entire Facebook note:
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Subject: Jason W
Please read this important message:
Hello.
This is a strange and difficult e-mail for me to write. I apologize it's through facebook but it was the easiest way for me to get in contact with most of you. I want to begin by letting you know I do not write this to defame or gossip, I am writing this out of concern for those who could potentially be hurt as I and my family have been.
As many of you saw and expressed concern, I had a very difficult time earlier this week. All of you know that my marriage was ended this year .... I have lost my husband, my home, all my friends in TX and a life that I had many dreams about. My wedding ring and my beautiful son are really the only two signifigant pieces of my marriage I had left ... Also, as a single mom I was holding on to the ring in case there was ever a time when I may need to sell it to help support [my son] and I.
This week I found out my engagement and wedding ring were stolen.
I won't go into all the details but eventually Jason Wetherington confessed to stealing my ring and selling it as well as stealing $5000 from my parents safe, and stealing from many other people who I do not have the right to share.
Jason clearly has serious problems that go beyond substance abuse which does not stop with his friendships. He expressed to me that he feels better by hurting those who have helped him and supported him. I am pressing felony charges against Jason. As a counselor I recognize the reality of continuing to help someone who never has to face any consequences. I can not be an enabler to Jason. I pray for Jason and I hope that he gets the help he needs.
As Jason has expressed no remorse for taking from those who care about him, I felt it was appropriate for me to let you know as his friends to be cautious of how you open yourself up to him.
Jen
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©2009 Village Voice Media All rights reserved.
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September 25, 2009
Special Report
Prada Not So Crystal Clear
By SUZY MENKES
MILAN - With wall projections switching from a sparkling chandelier to a sun-drenched beach, Prada’s collection illuminated the Milan summer 2010 season on Thursday.
Chunks of crystal dripping from shoes or worn as a chain mail over brief shorts competed with prints of life as a beach - an unexpected combination typical to the modern but mysterious vision of its founder/designer.
“Beach and antiquity - high and low - it is all the same,” said Miuccia Prada backstage. “It is supposed to be an ironic take - sometimes nostalgic, for a contemporary take on antiquity for those who don’t understand the beauty of the past.”
But this was Prada’s weird, edgy take on beauty: child women with Bambi limbs, scarlet lips and parts down the back of their messy hair. They came out first in steel-gray silk shorts cut high, the jackets wide, often with a raw edge and a float of fabric at the rear. Transparent plastic bags, perhaps with crystal snaps, competed with the chandelier shoes.
The clothes were as light as the winter collection had been thick and heavy. But there was the same sense of dangerous sexuality, as a model came out in a romper suit under a cape top. The beach theme was an excuse not so much for the palm tree and sunbathing prints as for a sportiness that ran through the collection. Shake off the sparkles - like the open-work crystal dresses that closed the show - and you just had a top and a pair of curvy shorts.
This was one of Ms. Prada’s more oblique collections, for the mismatch of historical glamour and clothes that seemed both ordinary and unfinished were a puzzle. It looked like the designer, who has been showing grown-up clothes of late, wanted to capture an elusive moment of youth.
Copyright 2009
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Prada Spring 2010
June 22, 2009
The quotes that dressed the set came from old black-and-white movies that highlighted conflicted masculinity. (Twelve Angry Men, anyone?) The backstage drink was a Black Russian, stark black and white, just like the canapés that were served. (You can work wonders with cream cheese and pumpernickel.) But if such things suggested absolutes, Miuccia Prada knows that in a black-and-white movie, it's the grays that count. This singular fact shaped the film noir show she mounted for Spring 2010. "Men are stuck with gray suits," she decided, so she set out to test the limits of that cliché. Suits, yes, but pared to their barest bones, perforated, stripped of sleeves and any traditional accompaniment. Shirts? Fuggedaboudit. The option was a raw-hemmed, silky V-neck. The fact that it looked like ragged lingerie played right into Miuccia's wicked yen to unhinge masculinity, to introduce a way for the trapped urban male to, as she put it, "feel sexier, more beautiful, more sensitive-he wants to be vulnerable." Perforating this poor guy's clothes was one way to open him up, so Miuccia made a mesh of coats, jackets, pants, even shoes.
Perverse (or commercially astute) as she is, she also offered suits untrammeled by trickiness. There was even a briefcase that was just about as "straight" as anything she's ever offered (almost as if she wanted to reassure the guy whose sense of self she'd just punched holes in). But if there was one caveat in Prada's mesmerizing new collection, it was in its physical presentation, which was ineffably, airily for the young. Not the young at heart-the young! It's their world. We just live in it.
- Tim Blanks
Prada Spring 2010 Ready-to-Wear
MILAN, September 24, 2009
By Sarah Mower
It's a measure of Miuccia Prada's reputation as one of fashion's great intellectuals that we can be thrown into a mild tizzy when she's being (relatively) light and straightforward. For Spring, there weren't any of the brooding, disconcerting undercurrents we expect from her; no hard-to-read subtextual brain teasing. Instead, Prada did "business to beach," a representation, she said, of "how life is today. High and low, palazzos, and the popular," and, she smiled, "I really liked it."
Her girl was chic and together looking, with a teased, side-swept hairdo and shiny vermilion lips, making her way through a high-tech fantasy set on which projections of sumptuous Italianate interiors-checkered marble floors, pillars, chandeliers-alternated with fragments from touristy beach scenes. The merging of modernity and classicism played in the fabric of the opening "business" section: precise, angular gray duchesse satin and nylon coats, jackets, vests, and Bermudas that had been scissored off to leave raw edges. Manipulated photographic prints showing palm trees, beach umbrellas, and lounging holidaymakers were then applied to jackets, short shorts, and panties-seemingly an evocation of the fifties and sixties, though actually, according to Prada, drawn from images of a man-made resort in Japan. "It took me ages to find the right one," she said.
In other words, there was plenty of the wearable Prada in there (ignoring the panties and the section of semi-sheer cloque baby-doll things), pieces to appease both the seekers of minimal daywear and the collectors of her decorative print-y things. In the finale, too, there were offerings of the embellishment overload that is also an essential part of Prada, including silver- and crystal-embroidered tops and showpieces made of strung-together chandelier components. No existential-political angst about the state of the world, then? Not at all-and that, Prada concluded, is just her point. "When things are bad, you have to come out from that. Optimism," she declared, "is a choice."
Michael Kors Spring 2010 Ready-to-Wear
NEW YORK, September 16, 2009
By Nicole Phelps
Madonna and Lady Gaga may have been on the soundtrack, but Michael Kors' show was decidedly not meant for the pants-less set. Explaining that he was thinking about architectural shapes, he sent out a sleek collection that, save for a few missteps, played like an ode to the city in springtime, along with its high-powered inhabitants. The strong yet rounded shoulders of his jackets and vests put the power in power suit. Overall, though, he was more interested in sleeveless shift dresses, a favorite of his most high-profile client of all, Michelle Obama. They came in silver crinkle lamé, crushed techno taffeta, draped jersey, and glove leather, but the most interesting was a radzimir number in sky blue with origamilike folds. Kors created surface interest elsewhere with zipper accents that zigzagged around the torso of a mint green asymmetric-neckline sheath, or with bold cutouts that exposed a flash of rib on a cocktail dress.
Occasionally, Kors' enthusiasm got the better of him. Dresses with graphic plastic insets might pinch, were some gal to wear them longer than it takes to make a circuit of the runway. And a further detour into deconstruction and high concept-via cashmere knits with slashes at necklines and hems, along with a trio of sweaters with extra sleeves-was off-key. But the show ended on a high note, with a pair of trompe-l'oeil sequined dresses, their graphic shapes evoking a nighttime skyline.
Michael Kors Spring 2010
September 16, 2009
If the women were exhorted to be "Gaga-gorgeous" on Michael Kors' catwalk, the Lady's glacial spaciness also infected the designer's menswear. Sleeveless jackets and knits with zipped seams or waistbands sliced away had a futuristic-even avant-garde-tinge, which was compounded by the icy precision of a suit in sky-blue stretch cotton (both here and in the womenswear, a rare use of pastels for Kors), or the utilitarian detailing of parachute pants and a drawstring-equipped utility jacket. The clothes were informed by Kors' innate appreciation of luxury-those slashed knits were cashmere-but there was an edge that felt like a sidestep from previous collections. One suit had a bleach-splatter print, another a marble pattern that looked like camo. And the man whose affection for classic American glamour is so ingrained that he called his new perfume "Very Hollywood" closed with a distinctly skewed take on the tux. It was sleeveless.
- Tim Blanks
http://www.latimes.com/features/image/la-et-milan26-2009sep26,0,3891938.story
It's time to excel!
You may feel pulled in two different directions when retrograde Mercury in practical Virgo connects with the ongoing Saturn-Uranus opposition with a conjunction to rule-maker Saturn on September 22, and an opposition to independent Uranus on September 23. And, in between, we mark the Fall Equinox on September 22 with the Sun's entrance into peaceful Libra.
anyone who has read this journal over the past few months could attest to the fact that my life has filled itself of late with a world of ironies since i lost my job: it stands to reason that i wouldn't have the ability to shake off these ironies after just one week in the working world and i haven't. the comic who writes my life has situated me in a position where i actually have to get up and go to work everyday however find myself subject to even more financial pressures as i no longer have the "i don't have a job" crutch to justify the continual deficit i experience with respect to my day-to-day expenses and income. in addition, i've started almost every paragraph with respect to my new job off with the following sentence: "i work with lowlifes and degenerates." in the orientation class, i once again had the overwhelming feeling that i belonged more with the management class and not the entry-level numb-nuts. now, i don't know if it's just because i have to prove myself or because my resume doesn't sing, but i feel wholly overqualified for this position and absolutely out of my element with people who i wouldn't associate with in a bar and who i left high school to avoid. there's literally someone with gang-like tattoos in the same class. on the second day, someone got fired for bringing a switchblade to work. with that said, if i worked in "cubicle city" before, i now work in "cubicle nation" and while i feel wholly undervalued in my current position, there's limitless social possibilities as the workforce's an average of twenty years younger than my old job and i know for a face many of them go to the only bar in town -- a phrase which has become so untrue since i first coined it that it's quite remarkable -- and i don't know if i'll be able to handle working at a place where my social life lays open like a wind-blown tabloid. also, i'm quite corpulent these days and while i'm totally into that look -- and let me just say, in the vein, that my exsomeone and i flirted with the possibility of what actually happened this past sunday -- it's not one that has resurged artistically -- i don't care what the press may want to make of lara stone -- so i need to diet. unfortunately, this means that besides my economic condition hampering my style, my looks have made me into this insecure guy who doesn't really feel comfortable being back on the prowl. speaking of the prowl, last thursday, i got an unexpected call from the p.r. girl asking me to come out and although i had just come from work at pier one, i turned around, change clothes, did a shot, and went to the new bar "flamingo" which stood as one of those venues that though not busy on a thursday night -- that's the only bar in town's best night -- that i know will hold many a crazy memory in the months to come -- but it turned out a wierd homecoming night because i learned that the p.r. girl had been in new jersey for a couple of months and had decided to move back to pursue more education. for two years. yes, this made for quite the emotional night and although i only had two drinks and a glass of wine, we somehow wound up in walmart in the wee hours of the morning following every whim of munch-able we could afford and then landed at the p.r. girl's house with her bartender roommie -- who ironically, i developed a crush on when they first moved down here when i encountered them altogether at the tradewinds resort that the flamingo has come to replace -- and cooked and talked and cried until day break when i went home to pass out for my last weekday before actually working. well, on saturday, i had to work, and on sunday, i did not, so i went over to my parent's for dinner and race over to the exsomeone's but we didn't wind up doing anything and the phone rang and i thought i was going to go crazy because i didn't understand why i came over only for nothing to happen and went home to watch "mad men" but then the exsomeone came over to borrow season three of "brothers and sisters" and although i needed to go to bed early to prepare for my first day at work and i didn't want to have to catch the encore episode of "mad men," the exsomeone and i broke out into some of the most intense in-the-kitchen-on-the-floor-eyes-roll-in-the-back-of-my-head sex we've had since we've started sleeping together again. and i don't have the words to describe the feeling i get from actually being wanted and actually experiencing that level of connection with someone. even if it is just for the moment. but it brings to the fore the larger issue in my life which is my loneliness: i'm currently entertaining crushes on my chipotle cashier and one of my peers in orientation. if you saw either, you'd understand what a sad state i'm in. and it's funny. my dream looks and acts somewhere between the star of the new ketel one commercials and the devil-wears prada boss on the new melrose place but i'm attracted to a classmate who knows me from pier one imports and the chipotle cashier who always flirts and makes eye contact and who i bonded with over the fact that we're both so broke. dreamboat du jour. that's about all going on in my life. that and the fact that i can't get my sleep schedule in check after this week. i'm nearly addicted to simply sleep and diet moutain dew. without one, i get the desired effect of the other. this morning, i got up at half past three o' clock. and it's not the first time this week. yes, i feel asleep at like ten o' clock, but it's like i can't sleep through the night without a sleeping pill and i can't stay awake the day. yeah, and i have to work this morning at nine o'clock.
in other news, of course, i have to miss milan and paris fashion weeks on account of work, but i did get in enough shows to see that it looks like michael kors, narciso rodriguez, donna karan, francisco costa, and miuccia prada colluded together to shove this faux-futuristic moment on us with the greatest hits from each others' collections. michael kors did calvin klein, narcisco rodriguez and francisco costa (for calvin klein) did donna karan, and donna karan did herself to perfection. and then, miuccia prada did the collection michael kors wanted to do but couldn't execute -- i do believe those men were stepping on the back of their shoes because they didn't fit? -- and did it with more soul than any collection i've seen so far. it takes a true designer to imbue something as staid and out-of-season as sharp grey suiting and make it super-timely and transportive. and yes, i plan to completely co-opt this look with my own grey suiting and the clear oversized oliver peoples' specs i've acquired. also, i love the idea that there's something cheap and obvious about her rendition of transparency -- a true subversive statement about wealth in our current economic morass. and a statement about some people so nakedly hungry for power and position as to put on a show so obvious that it's apparent to everyone but themselves what they're doing.
Meet Carole Rome, the governor's fiancee
Stephanie Hayes and Ben Montgomery, Times Staff Writers
Published Saturday, July 12, 2008
The governor had the evening planned.
He bought the ring on a Wednesday from a jeweler near Publix in northeast St. Petersburg. He took his date to Ceviche on Beach Drive that evening, and outside were the city lights and the warm breeze off the bay. They would eat tapas and stroll to his apartment, where the 51-year-old bachelor would ask the woman to marry him.
But alas, a couple who live in his building saw them, said hello, and asked if they'd like to come up and watch the Rays play the Red Sox.
The governor did not get his job by disappointing people, so he and his date watched the Rays come from behind with six runs in the seventh inning. By the time it was over, proposing marriage didn't feel quite right.
He waited till morning. She was sitting on the couch when he took a seat beside her.
He checked the clock: a few minutes before 11.
Nine months earlier, they met at an Italian restaurant in New York; five months earlier, he introduced the mystery woman publicly as "my girlfriend."
That morning, July 3, she saw that he was holding a small box. He opened it. She smiled.
With a word - Yes! - Carole Rome became Florida's first fiancee, the curiosity of a state.
Roslyn, N.Y., is picturesque suburbia, sandwiched between Manhattan grit and Hamptons glamor. Strip mall marquees have gold-leafing. Fancy restaurants look like Grandma's house. Even the liquor store has charm.
Roslyn was home to writer Michael Crichton and former Vermont first lady Judith Steinberg Dean.
It was home to Carole Rome, now 38.
She was the last of five babies born to Bob and Margaret Oumano. Carole was a sweet child with pretty brown eyes who toddled around in pink sundresses. She was doted on, captured in photos her older sister showed off at summer camp.
"I was very proud of her," said Michele Oumano Powell, 51.
Bob Oumano operated his father's gag gift business. He loaded boxes and crunched numbers. He pitched hooting owls and whoopee cushions to novelty shops, hoping they'd carry his stock. His kids helped; tales swirl that a young Carole drove the forklift in his warehouse.
He brought home samples - the girls especially loved plastic Hope diamond rings. But at home after his long commute, Bob had little energy for banana peel slapstick.
"We used to call him the unconscious comedian, because he'd make jokes when he didn't even realize," said Carole's sister. "He wasn't really the practical joke type who was testing out new products at home. He worked hard."
At Roslyn High, Carole cheered for the varsity squad in her sweater vest and shoe poms. She made honor society. She had big bangs and 1980s power curls.
She wrote cryptic notes under her 1987 senior yearbook picture - WOW!WhatATrip! RHShasNEverSeen Such A WildBunch!... Mom&Dad:Thx4Evrythg-URThe Best!LY!
She left for Georgetown University, unsure what to become. She earned a business and accounting degree, graduating with honors. She moved to Manhattan to start her career, and in 1993 married Todd Rome, now president of a private jet company, Blue Star Jets. Three years later, they had their first daughter, Jessica. In 1998, they had Skylar.
Carole juggled family life with work. She was an auditor at an accounting firm. She didn't love it. She worked in high-end real estate. She didn't love it.
Her father, ailing from heart problems, wanted Carole to run the family business, Franco American Novelty Co. She was dynamic and high energy. She was the baby. She could carry on the legacy.
Bob Oumano died in 2000. Before, he gave the family his blessing to take the company in a new direction, focused on costumes.
Carole dived in. She invented a slogan: "Where Fashion Meets Halloween." She designed figure-flattering costumes, including a red goddess dress. A sequined child's devil outfit became a top seller.
Dressed exquisitely in suits, she strutted into the company's modest office in Glendale, a quirky Queens neighborhood surrounded by cemeteries. She got her hands dirty, unpacking boxes. Once, while feet of snow fell outside, she stayed overnight working out finances.
"She'll get you motivated," said David Arce, Franco's warehouse manager. "On days that were real hot, she'd say, 'Go get ice, get sodas, get water. … Get the air-conditioning on, buy fans.' Anything to keep the morale going."
Under her lead, the company turned in record profits.
Her life outside was lavish. She and Todd Rome owned homes all over New York City. They built a townhouse on Manhattan's exclusive Upper East Side. They had a 10,000-square-foot vacation home in Southampton. Carole decorated it with a palette of pale blue, white and silver.
The couple threw fundraisers for the Red Cross and other charities, raising thousands of dollars by auctioning trips, cruises, jewelry, paintings, a Gucci bag, a diamond bracelet.
Carole hobnobbed with Tommy Hilfiger, John McEnroe, Patty Smyth, Kelly Clarkson, the Hilton family. She appeared in the society pages wearing flowing baby doll dresses she designed with Erisa Dilo, design director at Franco.
"She loves custom-made dresses," Dilo said. "She loves Roberto Cavalli, which is also my favorite designer, which I think is why Carole and I click. That's why when I design for her, she loves it."
She frequented Nobu, a New York restaurant co-owned by Robert De Niro, and Pink Elephant, a bar that offers Krug Clos du Mesnil champagne for $2,100. She had her long, wavy hair styled on Madison Avenue.
• • •
The governor and his fiancee sit for an interview in a comfy poolside room on a private island south of Miami Beach, where the sand is imported from the Bahamas and caged toucans squawk under a giant banyan tree. You can reach Fisher Island only by boat, helicopter or ferry, and according to the 2000 census, its 1,400 residents had the highest per capita income in the United States.
Carole Rome has a 3,690-square-foot, $4.1-million condo.
She moved from New York to Florida with her children in 2006, when her marriage was in trouble.
"In a million years, I never understood why she wanted to move out of New York, except for what she said, which is, she wanted a simpler life for her children," said Carole's friend Jill Zarin, a cast member on the Bravo reality series The Real Housewives of New York City. "She wanted to slow down, which is funny, because now she's on a treadmill."
In their Florida divorce file, Todd Rome alleges that Carole took the kids to Miami without his blessing, lured him to Florida to work out the marriage - and then served him with divorce papers.
He says Carole became inexplicably unhappy with their $6-million Upper East Side townhouse. She wasn't happy with any of their homes, he says.
"No sooner was a new home built, bought or rented, but that defendant became dissatisfied with it," Todd Rome says in the records. "In the first 11 years of our marriage, we lived for an average period of one to two years in a succession of no less than five apartments and three houses. … We also have had a total of four vacation houses in the Hamptons."
Todd Rome, who is now engaged to be married, did not return calls for an interview.
As news of the divorce spread through society circles, so did whispers that he couldn't abide Carole's spending. The society press delighted in the rumor.
"That's just gossip," said Zarin. "The truth is, I like to shop, so do you; everyone likes to shop. She gives a lot of money to charity. … She doesn't just write a check. She does a lot of the work at these events. Carole Rome has no problem rolling up her sleeves."
• • •
Florida's wedding of the year will most likely be in the spring. The newlyweds will divide their time among Fisher Island, Crist's rented condo in St. Petersburg, and the Governor's Mansion in Tallahassee. Carole and her former husband share custody of their children, according to Todd Rome's lawyer. They go to a private school in Miami.
"The girls are wonderful," Crist said, "and I think the world of them and I look forward to spending a lot of time with them."
In the hourlong interview on Fisher Island, Crist and his fiancee never stop touching. He rubs her hands and her back and her shoulders. She squeezes his thigh and stares at his face.
"We just kind of hit it off from the get-go," he says. "It was classic."
They met in late September, when mutual friends got them together to talk about GOP fundraising at an Italian restaurant in New York, a romantic place called Campagnola, on the Upper East Side. They sat next to each other.
She thought he was handsome and sincere. He thought she was beautiful, sweet, smart.
They talked about politics and sports. They hit a club after dinner and listened to music. They ended the night with a kiss. She gave him her number, told him to call.
The next day, he had to deliver a lecture at Bill Clinton's Global Climate Initiative, but he couldn't get the woman out of his head.
Crist was faced with the most human of challenges: How long should I wait before I call?
He saw her again that Friday, at a fundraiser in South Florida.
There was an immediate connection.
"I felt it," he says.
"I did, too," she says.
"She was so friendly, so sweet, and so knowledgeable about a lot of stuff," he says. "It was very nice to find someone so beautiful, so brilliant, and so sweet as well. So I fell in love."
"I find him to be the most handsome man," she says. "I just so enjoyed his personality, his charm, his grace, his goodness."
They began seeing each other more regularly, and the news media eventually caught on. But the girlfriend remained mostly a mystery.
• • •
"We're not identical," the governor says, "but I've never met someone more like myself in a woman than Carole."
This from a man known for eating one meal a day, a man who rents an apartment and carries no credit card debt, a man whose entire net worth - $457,262 - might not be enough to buy him a nice condo in any of the neighborhoods his fiancee is used to living in. Is this a case of opposites attracting?
"My parents were very simple people," she says, "and always instilled that in their children, and I always valued that. And that really is my core and my roots. Meeting Charlie, and seeing the life of a public servant and somebody who's so selfless and is not driven by material things and by money, and is so simple and so humble and so pure, was really something that was very attractive to me, and it reminded me very much of my upbringing."
She says Crist has changed her. "Maybe it's more accurate to say I'm getting back to my roots and my solid foundation of who I really am and what's really important in life," she says.
So was hobnobbing with the rich and famous insincere?
"I don't have any regrets whatsoever," she says. "I think in life it's important to experience all things. But at the end of the day you need to come to terms with who you are and what really fulfills you and inspires you, and I have found great inspiration and fulfillment through Charlie."
She says she loves St. Petersburg. She loves eating shrimp salad at Fish Tales and dining at Fred's at the Vinoy and going out on Crist's boat on Tampa Bay.
"I find it to be the most beautiful, wholesome, wonderful community," she says. "I love St. Petersburg."
"Can't beat the 'burg," Crist says.
Crist has heard skeptics say his wedding proposal was politically motivated. He has heard the speculation that he's marrying to make himself a more appealing vice presidential candidate. He says those people are wrong.
"It's all about being in love with Carole."
They stand, hold hands, walk outside near the pool. Pausing in front of a bougainvillea, they embrace. Then, as a photographer snaps pictures, they kiss.
Ben Montgomery can be reached at bmontgomery@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8650. Stephanie Hayes can be reached at shayes@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8857. Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report.
© 2009 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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The not-so-public Mrs. Crist
By Steve Bousquet and Shannon Colavecchio, Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Published Saturday, September 19, 2009
TALLAHASSEE
She's the first lady most Floridians never see. Nine months after Carole Rome married Gov. Charlie Crist before hundreds of guests in downtown St. Petersburg, the woman once so visible in the Hamptons now cautiously tiptoes around the limelight. Former first ladies Columba Bush and Rhea Chiles championed the arts or the well-being of children, but Mrs. Crist has yet to embrace a popular cause to improve life in Florida. "This is all so new for me - the political, public life," Mrs. Crist said Saturday, holding hands with her husband in the lobby of a Gainesville hotel, before heading to the UF-Tennessee football game. "So I just wanted to be sure to take it slow and be sure that before I take on too much, that whatever I do that I can be effective and feel good about it." Her infrequent appearances as first lady include attending a holiday party for foster children and a Menorah lighting at the Governor's Mansion less than two weeks after the December 2008 wedding; welcoming the king and queen of Spain in an official visit to Pensacola in February, watching Gov. Crist give his State of the State speech to the Legislature in March; and joining him at a Clearwater Regional Chamber of Commerce event in May.
She has joined the Republican governor at several fundraisers for his U.S. Senate campaign, including Friday at the Gainesville home of Democratic lawyer Danny Ponce, whom Crist appointed to the UF board of trustees. But she has not hosted a state event since April, when she and the governor invited foster children to the mansion for an annual Easter egg hunt.
Gov. and Mrs. Crist say they divide their time between his rented condo in downtown St. Petersburg, her home on tony Fisher Island in Miami, and the Governor's Mansion in Tallahassee, where he typically lives during the week. It's unclear how much of that time is spent together.
Last week, after the Times/Herald started asking about her public schedule, Mrs. Crist unexpectedly accompanied the governor to a school visit in Miami's Little Haiti. She was asked if she would do more as first lady in the future.
"I hope to, yes. I do the best I can. I try," said Mrs. Crist, 39.
A Georgetown University graduate and longtime New York businesswoman, Mrs. Crist has skipped high-profile annual events that traditionally were the province of former first ladies.
When Gov. Crist, 53, inducted three new members into the Florida Women's Hall of Fame in March, an event that drew some 300 guests to Tallahassee, Mrs. Crist was not there. Last Monday, in the courtyard outside the Capitol building, Gov. Crist attended the annual Missing Children's Day ceremony, handing a yellow rose to each family member of a missing or murdered child. His wife was not there.
Asked why Mrs. Crist did not attend the missing children's event, Gov. Crist said: "Because she's with our children," a reference to her two daughters from a previous marriage to jet company owner Todd Rome.
Rome said the girls, 12-year-old Jessica and 11-year-old Skylar, live with him in New York, where they attend a private, all-girls school.
"She sees the children every other weekend," he said. "We live in New York City, and she lives in Florida. I don't follow her schedule."
Charitable intents
The governor's official Web site features a page titled "Meet the First Lady," which details her New York upbringing and her successful education and business career. It notes that "as Florida's First Lady, Carole will focus on the state's most critical issues, as well as continuing her philanthropic work."
But so far, that philanthropy has been mostly elsewhere.
In New York, Mrs. Crist has been active in raising money for foster children through events like "ARTrageous," a celebrity auction she and Gov. Crist attended in May 2008 to benefit the Edwin Gould Services for Children and Families in New York. While married to Rome, she was known for hosting charity galas and other events in New York City and the Hamptons.
At the mansion holiday party for foster children shortly after their wedding, Mrs. Crist told reporters that she planned to use her role as first lady in a positive way - for children in particular.
She echoed that sentiment Wednesday at the Miami school.
"There are many great, worthy causes," she said. "But first and foremost, I believe children, education, helping our children, doing whatever we can to support them and love them and lift them, and whatever I can do to be a part of that and move that forward and keep us moving, Florida getting to the top in the country is what I'm very eager to do."
'Pace yourself'
Unlike most first ladies, Mrs. Crist had no exposure to Florida politics before marrying the governor. And she chose as a spouse the ambitious, can't-sit-still chief executive of the nation's fourth-largest state, who memorably spent part of their brief honeymoon working the phones on an Everglades land acquisition deal.
Like her husband, Mrs. Crist is attractive, upbeat, polite and gracious - and given to sometimes vague answers, delivered with minimum animation or emotion.
On a football Saturday, sitting down to an interview with the Times/Herald, Mrs. Crist wore a light blue polo shirt and tan slacks, while her husband wore a horizontal-striped, dark blue polo shirt and tan slacks.
Mrs. Crist said her priorities are to "be supportive of Charlie and my children."
Describing how she balances a marriage, his responsibilities as governor and U.S. Senate candidate, and two children in New York, Mrs. Crist said: "It's a lot. Don't take on too much, and pace yourself."
"And she does it very well," the governor added.
In recent years, Mrs. Crist has helped run Franco American Novelty Co., a family-owned New York business specializing in exotic Halloween costumes. Her sister, a company vice president, handles day-to-day affairs, while Mrs. Crist weighs in on planning and strategy, she said. Occasionally, she plays tennis and golf.
At her Fisher Island address, accessible only by boat or helicopter, she's registered to vote (Republican) under the name Carole Rome, which also is the name listed on property records showing her ownership of the $3.2 million, 3,690-square-foot condo.
Gov. Crist now spends less time in St. Petersburg -an observation noted by his Bayfront Tower neighbors - and more time in the Miami area with his bride.
"Miami is beautiful and I have grown to appreciate it more than I ever have before, thanks to Carole," Gov. Crist said.
Mrs. Crist said she is most often in Tallahassee during the spring legislative session and during the winter holidays, when the official residence is a popular spot for receptions.
With her husband on a frenetic fundraising pace, one way for Mrs. Crist to see him is at those fundraisers. Last week, they slipped away for a one-hour jaunt in Gov. Crist's boat, docked in St. Petersburg.
"It really just settles us. It makes us very happy," she said.
The governor said his wife is "tremendously understanding of what I do - more than I ever could have imagined."
Impromptu appearance
People who meet Mrs. Crist invariably rave.
"I've only met her a couple of times, but she seems to be very charming, delightful and engaged," said former Tallahassee City Commissioner Allan Katz, a Democratic fundraiser who attended a December Hanukkah reception hosted by the Crists at the Governor's Mansion. "She creates a very warm impression."
During her visit with the governor last week to Toussaint L'Ouverture Elementary in Miami, she was animated, applauding students, making a thumbs-up gesture and mouthing "Wow!"
The Crists held hands as he gave students a pep talk about hurricane preparedness.
The media advisory for the governor's visit, released the previous evening to reporters, made no mention of Mrs. Crist's attendance. Media advisories for previous events that she attended specifically noted the first lady would be there with the governor. The press release issued after the visit also did not note her.
"I was conveniently in the area and it sounded like a really great opportunity to come and visit with the kids," Mrs. Crist said as the event wrapped up. "I just enjoy being with the kids to learn more about what they are doing."
Before reporters could ask more questions, the governor said, "C'mon, sweetie," grabbed her hand and walked her away.
The two were spotted shopping at Bloomingdale's later that afternoon, when Gov. Crist's schedule had him doing "work and call time."
Historic comparison
In the state that her husband will govern for 16 more months, Mrs. Crist has yet to embrace a public cause. That sets her apart from her predecessors, said historian Patricia Clements.
The wives of Jeb Bush, Lawton Chiles, Bob Graham and Claude Kirk used the role of first lady to champion issues ranging from elder care to volunteerism and the arts, Clements said. Columba Bush also did a lot of work for the historic Mission San Luis in Tallahassee, and she was an advocate for substance abuse treatment and education, Clements said.
"The role of first lady is such an opportunity for service and I think most of them have done it," said Clements, who is editing a book on Florida first ladies. "It's an opportunity because people want to please the first lady, and they want to please the governor."
She said Mrs. Crist is different from her predecessors in many ways, given her corporate background and the timing of when she became first lady - two years into his term, and just months before he made official his plans to run for the U.S. Senate.
"They weren't married when he ran for office, and even with the influence of the office it would be hard for her to start a foundation or a group with only a year or so left," Clements said.
Katz said anyone who expects a first lady to just hold onto the past traditions of tea parties and such is not necessarily being fair or realistic.
"We're living in a different time," Katz said. "I think anyone who thinks otherwise is just kind of living in the past."
Allure of big city
Mrs. Crist does not have a staff person assigned to help manage her schedule or events, unlike most former first ladies. On occasion, she has asked the governor's office to e-mail her a copy of his schedule for events she considered attending.
Mrs. Crist occasionally exchanges e-mails with staffers on travel, events and matters such as her official bio on the National Governors Association spouses' Web site.
Last month, she tried to coordinate the governor's schedule to include an event in Palm Beach for the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund. "Pls. read below," Mrs. Crist wrote to chief of staff Eric Eikenberg. "I spoke to Governor. He is interested. Let's try to coordinate a date for lunch with something else in Palm Beach in September if we can."
From the moment she and Gov. Crist got engaged, there was political and media speculation that the marriage was largely a calculated political move aimed at making him more attractive as a national candidate. At the time, he was in the running to be Republican Sen. John McCain's vice presidential nominee, so a storyline of the lifelong bachelor finally meeting his match had appeal.
The first lady's rare public appearances in the state capital have fueled a perception that she prodded her husband to forgo a re-election bid in favor of a run for U.S. Senate and possible move to the more fashionable nation's capital. Gov. Crist maintains she voiced no such preference.
"The buzz has always been that she would prefer Washington, D.C., to Tallahassee," said Democratic state Sen. Dave Aronberg. "She went to Georgetown University. She's used to living in big cities."
Mrs. Crist called Tallahassee "a great town, very exciting," but her eyes brightened when she was asked about being able to live in Washington.
"I think it would be great. It's a fabulous city," she said, as her husband interjected: "But we've got to win first."
Times/Herald staff writers Beth Reinhard and Marc Caputo and St. Petersburg Times staff writer Mary Jane Park contributed to this report. Steve Bousquet can be reached at sbousquet@sptimes.com or (850) 224-7263. Shannon Colavecchio can be reached at scolavecchio@sptimes.com.
Fast Facts
First lady Carole Crist's events
At the request of the Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau, the governor's press office prepared this list of events attended by Mrs. Crist as first lady.
Dec. 21: Holiday book drive event, Governor's Mansion, Tallahassee; Menorah lighting, Governor's Mansion, Tallahassee.
Dec. 24: Tallahassee Senior Center visit.
Jan. 20: National Governor's Association breakfast, Washington, D.C.; President-elect Barack Obama's swearing-in ceremony, Washington, D.C.; President Barack Obama's inaugural parade, Washington, D.C.
Feb. 19: Royal visit by His Majesty King Juan Carlos I
and Her Majesty Queen Sophia of Spain: legislative breakfast and greeting with governor, Pensacola Beach; Fort George wreath-laying ceremony, history-marker ceremony, visit to T.T. Wentworth Museum and luncheon, Pensacola; VIP reception in honor of king and queen of Spain followed by dinner, Biltmore Hotel, Coral Gables.
Feb. 22: Reception honoring the nation's governors, White House, Washington, D.C.
Feb. 23: Session at U.S. Supreme Court, Washington, D.C.; spouses' luncheon with first lady Michelle Obama, Washington, D.C.
Feb. 24: Governor's Baseball Dinner, Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg.
Feb. 25: Florida Bankers Association dinner, JW Marriott, Miami.
Feb. 26: Scripps Florida grand opening, Jupiter.
March 3: State of the state address, the Capitol, Tallahassee; state of the state barbecue, Governor's Mansion.
March 4: Legislative spouses luncheon, Governor's Mansion.
March 10: Governor's Symphony, Governor's Mansion.
March 30: Alonzo Mourning jersey retirement, American Airlines Arena, Miami.
April 8: Easter egg hunt, Governor's Mansion.
April 9: Tallahassee Memorial Hospital 26th annual Golden Gala, Tallahassee.
April 11: Universal Health Care open house, the Coliseum, St. Petersburg.
May 7: Clearwater Chamber of Commerce roundtable; Florida Council of 100 dinner, Sandpearl Resort, Clearwater Beach.
Aug. 19: Visit to Boeing Cecil Field facility, Jacksonville.
Sept. 16: Hurricane preparedness school visit, Toussaint L'ouverture Elementary, Miami.
© 2009 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111
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Posted on Advocate.com September 22, 2009 09:09:28 AM
It seems that Mrs. Charlie Crist, who married the Florida governor last year, shows little interest in the role of first lady.
By Julie Bolcer
The sexual orientation of Florida governor Charlie Crist may be off-limits for most media, but a publication in his state recently asked about the increasingly scant public presence of his new wife, Carole Crist.
Carole Rome, the New York socialite who married Governor Crist last December, rarely attends public events with the governor, according to the St. Petersburg Times, and unlike her predecessors as first lady of the Sunshine State, she appears disinterested in philanthropic causes.
The posture leads some to speculate about the status of Mrs. Crist’s marriage to the governor, whose alleged affairs with men were a subject of the Kirby Dick documentary Outrage.
”Gov. and Mrs. Crist say they divide their time between his rented condo in downtown St. Petersburg, her home on tony Fisher Island in Miami, and the governor's mansion in Tallahassee, where he typically lives during the week,” reported the St. Petersburg Times. "It's unclear how much of that time is spent together.”
However, the report makes no mention of the persistent rumors that Crist, now a candidate for U.S. Senate, is gay. Instead, it suggests that questions about Mrs. Crist revolve around the suspicion that she controls her husband’s political career.
“The first lady's rare public appearances in the state capital have fueled a perception that she prodded her husband to forgo a reelection bid in favor of a run for U.S. Senate and possible move to the more fashionable nation's capital,” reported the St. Petersburg Times. “Gov. Crist maintains she voiced no such preference.”
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CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS - POLITICS
May 5, 2009 - 12:48 p.m.
Republican Rubio Enters Florida Senate Race
By Rachel Kapochunas, CQ Staff
Florida Republican Marco Rubio, a former state House Speaker, announced Tuesday that he is a candidate for the U.S. Senate seat of retiring one-term Republican Mel Martinez .
Rubio’s announcement pre-empted a highly anticipated decision by Republican Gov. Charlie Crist , who is expected to reveal within days whether he will run for a second term as the state’s chief executive in 2010 or instead bid for the Senate seat.
In an announcement video posted on his Web site, Rubio criticized political leaders in Washington, D.C., as supporting larger government and increased spending.
“The majority of us don’t agree with that view, and we deserve a voice in American politics. And that’s why I want to serve in the United States Senate, because I want to be a part of offering an alternative,” Rubio said.
Rubio alluded to Crist in his announcement, stating, “I’m under no illusions about how difficult this will be. I know that there are people more famous than I who may enter this race.”
Rubio’s entry defied the conventional wisdom that the field for the Senate contest was frozen pending Crist’s decision, and that other Republicans would defer to Crist if he decided to enter that race.
Crist, who has had strong approval ratings since his election as governor in 2006, has said consistently that he will not publicly state a decision about his 2010 plans until after the Florida legislature adjourns its annual session. That adjournment is now expected to occur on May 8.
It is no secret that Crist is pondering which office to pursue next year. He emerged as the most prominent potential Republican Senate candidate since January, when former Gov. Jeb Bush - regarded by many Republicans as their “dream” Senate candidate - stated that he would not run.
His backers say his popularity would give the GOP a leg up on holding a seat that the slumping national party needs to win avoid slipping deeper into the minority in the chamber.
Rubio was not deterred by the possibility of a Crist bid for the Senate.
Like the outgoing incumbent, Rubio is a prominent member of Florida’s politically potent Cuban-American constituency.
Seen by a number of Republicans as a rising star in the party, Rubio was elected to the state House from a Miami district in 2000 when he was 28 years old, and served as Speaker from 2006 to 2008 while in his mid-30s.
Rubio will turn 38 on May 28; Crist, who formerly served in the state Senate and as state education commissioner and Attorney General, will turn 53 on July 24.
Though Crist has been courted by many leading Republicans to run for the Senate, his relatively moderate positioning has irritated some conservatives. This friction increased when Crist endorsed the Democratic-drafted economic stimulus legislation and appeared with President Obama at a Florida rally in February aimed at building public support for a measure than drew near-unanimous opposition from Republicans in Congress.
Democrats, meanwhile, say they intend to seriously challenge for the seat. They take encouragement from the fact that Obama, as the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee, defeated Republican John McCain by 51 percent to 48 percent to claim the state’s big prize of 27 electoral votes.
Democratic Rep. Kendrick B. Meek of the Miami-area 17th District has been campaigning for his party’s nomination. Former President Bill Clinton has attended fundraisers for the four-term congressman.
Democratic state Sen. Dan Gelber also is waging an active campaign for the Democratic nomination.
Recent polls show that the Democrats currently campaigning for the Senate seat and those discussed as potential candidates remain largely unknown to many voters. But a Quinnipiac University poll conducted April 6-13 found that name identification was also a problem for prospective candidates on the Republican side, barring an entry by Crist.
CQ Politics rates the race Toss Up.
Bob Benenson contributed to this story.
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UPDATED: Alleged Crist Paramour Accused of Stealing Wedding Ring From Pastor's Daughter
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/08/alleged_crist_paramour_accused.php
By Bob Norman
Monday, Aug. 10 2009 @ 9:46AM
Jason Wetherington, the young Republican staffer who boasted to numerous witnesses of having an affair with Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and was recently featured in the movie Outrage, has been booked on felony charges related to a theft from the daughter of Pastor Larry Thompson, who leads the large and influential First Baptist Church of Fort Lauderdale.
UPDATED: Wetherington was charged on August 5 with grand larceny, dealing in stolen property, and false verification of ownership, said Fort Lauderdale Police Sgt. Frank Sousa.
Pastor Thompson's daughter, Jennifer Thompson Jones, reported to police that Wethington, a longtime family friend and member of her father's church, was housesitting her Las Olas condo in late July. When she returned, he was gone -- along with three rings, including her wedding and engagement rings, worth a total of $19,000, according to the probable-cause affidavit.
Police investigated and found that Wetherington had pawned the rings at a shop called Diamonds by the Cove in Deerfield Beach on July 20, according to the affidavit.
I contacted Wetherington, who is apparently living in Georgia, on the phone and asked him about the criminal charges.
"Let me stop you now," Wetherington said. "I'm going to tell you that I don't have any comment, and I'm going to pass your number to my attorney, and he'll get in contact with you."
The story goes deeper. The Pulp was sent a Facebook posting on Sunday written by Thompson Jones warning friends about Wetherington. In it she claims Wetherington admitted to stealing her wedding rings and that he also rifled $5,000 from Pastor Thompson's family safe. The latter allegation is not mentioned in the police reports. From Jones' Facebook posting:
I won't go into all the details but eventually Jason Wetherington confessed to stealing my ring and selling it as well as stealing $5000 from my parents safe, and stealing from many other people who I do not have the right to share.
Jason clearly has serious problems that go beyond substance abuse which does not stop with his friendships. He expressed to me that he feels better by hurting those who have helped him and supported him. I am pressing felony charges against Jason. As a counselor I recognize the reality of continuing to help someone who never has to face any consequences. I can not be an enabler to Jason. I pray for Jason and I hope that he gets the help he needs.
The 24-year-old Wetherington has long been a member of Thompson's prominent downtown church and, however this shakes out, it's a sad case. Wetherington was a rising GOP star as a teen, serving as a page in Tallahassee and as the student liaison for the Broward County School Board. From there, he served as an aide to state Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff and as a regional field director for Katherine Harris' U.S. Senate campaign.
It was while working for Harris that he told numerous independent sources that he was having an affair with Crist and came out as gay to Pastor Thompson.
When I confronted him about his boasts, Wetherington admitted he knew Crist and had applied for a job in the governor's office but denied making the boasts.
Crist denied knowing Wetherington at all. When I wrote about Wetherington and another Harris staffer who claimed to have had an affair with Crist (Bruce Carlton Jordan, a felon himself), Hollywood attorney Todd Payne swooped in to represent Wetherington, who was removed from the state prior to Crist's election.
More recently, the Wetherington story was featured in the documentary Outrage, a powerful film about gay hypocrisy in the Republican Party. The last time I heard from Wetherington was two years ago, when he had a bizarre concern regarding his Match.com page. Here's Thompson-Jones' entire Facebook note:
--------------------
Subject: Jason W
Please read this important message:
Hello.
This is a strange and difficult e-mail for me to write. I apologize it's through facebook but it was the easiest way for me to get in contact with most of you. I want to begin by letting you know I do not write this to defame or gossip, I am writing this out of concern for those who could potentially be hurt as I and my family have been.
As many of you saw and expressed concern, I had a very difficult time earlier this week. All of you know that my marriage was ended this year .... I have lost my husband, my home, all my friends in TX and a life that I had many dreams about. My wedding ring and my beautiful son are really the only two signifigant pieces of my marriage I had left ... Also, as a single mom I was holding on to the ring in case there was ever a time when I may need to sell it to help support [my son] and I.
This week I found out my engagement and wedding ring were stolen.
I won't go into all the details but eventually Jason Wetherington confessed to stealing my ring and selling it as well as stealing $5000 from my parents safe, and stealing from many other people who I do not have the right to share.
Jason clearly has serious problems that go beyond substance abuse which does not stop with his friendships. He expressed to me that he feels better by hurting those who have helped him and supported him. I am pressing felony charges against Jason. As a counselor I recognize the reality of continuing to help someone who never has to face any consequences. I can not be an enabler to Jason. I pray for Jason and I hope that he gets the help he needs.
As Jason has expressed no remorse for taking from those who care about him, I felt it was appropriate for me to let you know as his friends to be cautious of how you open yourself up to him.
Jen
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©2009 Village Voice Media All rights reserved.
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September 25, 2009
Special Report
Prada Not So Crystal Clear
By SUZY MENKES
MILAN - With wall projections switching from a sparkling chandelier to a sun-drenched beach, Prada’s collection illuminated the Milan summer 2010 season on Thursday.
Chunks of crystal dripping from shoes or worn as a chain mail over brief shorts competed with prints of life as a beach - an unexpected combination typical to the modern but mysterious vision of its founder/designer.
“Beach and antiquity - high and low - it is all the same,” said Miuccia Prada backstage. “It is supposed to be an ironic take - sometimes nostalgic, for a contemporary take on antiquity for those who don’t understand the beauty of the past.”
But this was Prada’s weird, edgy take on beauty: child women with Bambi limbs, scarlet lips and parts down the back of their messy hair. They came out first in steel-gray silk shorts cut high, the jackets wide, often with a raw edge and a float of fabric at the rear. Transparent plastic bags, perhaps with crystal snaps, competed with the chandelier shoes.
The clothes were as light as the winter collection had been thick and heavy. But there was the same sense of dangerous sexuality, as a model came out in a romper suit under a cape top. The beach theme was an excuse not so much for the palm tree and sunbathing prints as for a sportiness that ran through the collection. Shake off the sparkles - like the open-work crystal dresses that closed the show - and you just had a top and a pair of curvy shorts.
This was one of Ms. Prada’s more oblique collections, for the mismatch of historical glamour and clothes that seemed both ordinary and unfinished were a puzzle. It looked like the designer, who has been showing grown-up clothes of late, wanted to capture an elusive moment of youth.
Copyright 2009
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Prada Spring 2010
June 22, 2009
The quotes that dressed the set came from old black-and-white movies that highlighted conflicted masculinity. (Twelve Angry Men, anyone?) The backstage drink was a Black Russian, stark black and white, just like the canapés that were served. (You can work wonders with cream cheese and pumpernickel.) But if such things suggested absolutes, Miuccia Prada knows that in a black-and-white movie, it's the grays that count. This singular fact shaped the film noir show she mounted for Spring 2010. "Men are stuck with gray suits," she decided, so she set out to test the limits of that cliché. Suits, yes, but pared to their barest bones, perforated, stripped of sleeves and any traditional accompaniment. Shirts? Fuggedaboudit. The option was a raw-hemmed, silky V-neck. The fact that it looked like ragged lingerie played right into Miuccia's wicked yen to unhinge masculinity, to introduce a way for the trapped urban male to, as she put it, "feel sexier, more beautiful, more sensitive-he wants to be vulnerable." Perforating this poor guy's clothes was one way to open him up, so Miuccia made a mesh of coats, jackets, pants, even shoes.
Perverse (or commercially astute) as she is, she also offered suits untrammeled by trickiness. There was even a briefcase that was just about as "straight" as anything she's ever offered (almost as if she wanted to reassure the guy whose sense of self she'd just punched holes in). But if there was one caveat in Prada's mesmerizing new collection, it was in its physical presentation, which was ineffably, airily for the young. Not the young at heart-the young! It's their world. We just live in it.
- Tim Blanks
Prada Spring 2010 Ready-to-Wear
MILAN, September 24, 2009
By Sarah Mower
It's a measure of Miuccia Prada's reputation as one of fashion's great intellectuals that we can be thrown into a mild tizzy when she's being (relatively) light and straightforward. For Spring, there weren't any of the brooding, disconcerting undercurrents we expect from her; no hard-to-read subtextual brain teasing. Instead, Prada did "business to beach," a representation, she said, of "how life is today. High and low, palazzos, and the popular," and, she smiled, "I really liked it."
Her girl was chic and together looking, with a teased, side-swept hairdo and shiny vermilion lips, making her way through a high-tech fantasy set on which projections of sumptuous Italianate interiors-checkered marble floors, pillars, chandeliers-alternated with fragments from touristy beach scenes. The merging of modernity and classicism played in the fabric of the opening "business" section: precise, angular gray duchesse satin and nylon coats, jackets, vests, and Bermudas that had been scissored off to leave raw edges. Manipulated photographic prints showing palm trees, beach umbrellas, and lounging holidaymakers were then applied to jackets, short shorts, and panties-seemingly an evocation of the fifties and sixties, though actually, according to Prada, drawn from images of a man-made resort in Japan. "It took me ages to find the right one," she said.
In other words, there was plenty of the wearable Prada in there (ignoring the panties and the section of semi-sheer cloque baby-doll things), pieces to appease both the seekers of minimal daywear and the collectors of her decorative print-y things. In the finale, too, there were offerings of the embellishment overload that is also an essential part of Prada, including silver- and crystal-embroidered tops and showpieces made of strung-together chandelier components. No existential-political angst about the state of the world, then? Not at all-and that, Prada concluded, is just her point. "When things are bad, you have to come out from that. Optimism," she declared, "is a choice."
Michael Kors Spring 2010 Ready-to-Wear
NEW YORK, September 16, 2009
By Nicole Phelps
Madonna and Lady Gaga may have been on the soundtrack, but Michael Kors' show was decidedly not meant for the pants-less set. Explaining that he was thinking about architectural shapes, he sent out a sleek collection that, save for a few missteps, played like an ode to the city in springtime, along with its high-powered inhabitants. The strong yet rounded shoulders of his jackets and vests put the power in power suit. Overall, though, he was more interested in sleeveless shift dresses, a favorite of his most high-profile client of all, Michelle Obama. They came in silver crinkle lamé, crushed techno taffeta, draped jersey, and glove leather, but the most interesting was a radzimir number in sky blue with origamilike folds. Kors created surface interest elsewhere with zipper accents that zigzagged around the torso of a mint green asymmetric-neckline sheath, or with bold cutouts that exposed a flash of rib on a cocktail dress.
Occasionally, Kors' enthusiasm got the better of him. Dresses with graphic plastic insets might pinch, were some gal to wear them longer than it takes to make a circuit of the runway. And a further detour into deconstruction and high concept-via cashmere knits with slashes at necklines and hems, along with a trio of sweaters with extra sleeves-was off-key. But the show ended on a high note, with a pair of trompe-l'oeil sequined dresses, their graphic shapes evoking a nighttime skyline.
Michael Kors Spring 2010
September 16, 2009
If the women were exhorted to be "Gaga-gorgeous" on Michael Kors' catwalk, the Lady's glacial spaciness also infected the designer's menswear. Sleeveless jackets and knits with zipped seams or waistbands sliced away had a futuristic-even avant-garde-tinge, which was compounded by the icy precision of a suit in sky-blue stretch cotton (both here and in the womenswear, a rare use of pastels for Kors), or the utilitarian detailing of parachute pants and a drawstring-equipped utility jacket. The clothes were informed by Kors' innate appreciation of luxury-those slashed knits were cashmere-but there was an edge that felt like a sidestep from previous collections. One suit had a bleach-splatter print, another a marble pattern that looked like camo. And the man whose affection for classic American glamour is so ingrained that he called his new perfume "Very Hollywood" closed with a distinctly skewed take on the tux. It was sleeveless.
- Tim Blanks
http://www.latimes.com/features/image/la-et-milan26-2009sep26,0,3891938.story