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“Register Mr Voter-Kill the Rats-pay your poll tax and Vote for Catts.” 

Charlie Crist is the only person in modern times to have been nominated by both major political parties for the states top job, but he isn’t the first.  Florida’s 22nd Governor ran for the top job from two political parties and did it in the same election.

This is the story of two Governors.

Charlie Crist, who won the job as a Republican in 2006, and Sidney J. Catts, who was elected 90 years earlier in 1916.

Catts was an outsider. He won the Democratic Primary in 1916 only to have it taken away from him in what the book Cracker Messiah calls a questionable recount.

So instead of giving up,  Catts got the nomination of the Prohibition party for the 1916 election.

He won the four way race with 43 percent of the vote. Catts became the first governor to run from two different parties and win.  His campaign posters proclaimed: Register Mr Voter-Kill the Rats-pay your poll tax and Vote for Catts.” 

Charlie Crist is the only Governor who was eligible for a second term and  didn’t seek it.

In May 2009, he announced he was running for the US Senate. “I believe I can best serve the people of Florida, if they are willing to allow me, as their next US Senator.”

Catts, after his only term in office, also ran for the US Senate. And like Charlie Crist, lost.

Now, Charlie Crist, once a Republican, is the nominee of Florida Democrats for the state’s top job.

“I am honored to be the nominee of the Florida Democrat Party for Governor” is what Crist told Democrats after winning the party primary on August 26th.

And like Charlie Crist, Catts ran for Governor again. Catts lost. For Crist, the race is too close to call.

Sidney J Catts could not have run from two parties under the rules in place today. State law requires a candidate to have been a member of the same political party for at least a year before qualifying for office.