#fangate

I was settled in on the couch last night, watching Modern Family. I was also scrolling through my Twitter feed on my phone when all of a sudden, every political reporter I follow was tweeting something about a fan.

The first one I saw, from Washington Post reporter Chris Cillizza, said "If I could have a fan with me at all times, I would. I am a sweater." That sounded kinda weird and it took me a few seconds to get that he meant "someone who sweats" and not "article of clothing your grandma knits for you." Before long tweets about fans were everywhere and as sure as the sun comes up in the morning, the hashtag appeared: #fangate. (This morning it's trending number 2 on Twitter.)

So what gives? The candidates for governor in Florida, incumbent Rick Scott, R, and used-to-be-and-wants-to-be-again challenger Charlie Crist, was an R, is now a D, were having a debate. At least they were supposed to have a debate, but at the appointed time, and with TV cameras rolling, Mr. Crist appeared on stage alone. No Mr. Scott. Then it was announced that Scott would not come on stage because Crist had a fan at his feet. You can read the rest of what happened here, here and here.

The most interesting part to me is that apparently Mr. Crist is fanatically (see what I did there?) obsessed about not appearing to sweat in public and is known for taking at least one, and sometimes two, fans with him everywhere he goes. Cillizza explains in this article from July, starting off with a great opening sentence: "This is a story of a man and his fan."

The fan even has its own Twitter account, Charlie Crist's Fan (@CCristFan.) As of this morning the fan has sent out 1,259 tweets and has 1,342 followers. See how much fun politics can be?