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to Fitzgerald, Crist has the opportunity to peel away independent-minded Republican voters turned off by the sharp rightward turn the party has taken since President Barack Obama's election. That doesn't mean winning 20 or 30 percent of GOP votes, Fitzgerald said, but if Crist can pick up 1,000 Republicans in Sarasota County and in other counties like it, he has a good chance of winning. Indeed, while Sarasota County is a Republican stronghold, with a 43-31 advantage over the Democrats in voter registration, Sarasota Republicans are less reflexively hard right than in other parts of Florida. Even with that severe registration advantage, Scott only defeated Democrat Alex Sink 50-46 in Sarasota County in 2010; and Crist drew 40 percent of the vote in the county as an independent that year in the U.S. Senate race, preventing the eventual Republican winner, Marco Rubio, from earning a majority. Fitzgerald said Crist's transition from R e p u b l i c a n t o D e m o c r a t h a s n 't b e e n "extreme" at all. He remembers attend- ing Crist's first State of the State speech in Tallahassee. Democrats in the back row were applauding, while Republicans up at the front were silent. "Working with Charlie was always a joy," Fitzgerald told the News Leader. "He's not a party guy. He follows his conscience." An example: In 2010, shortly after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Fitzgerald and then-state Rep. Rick Kriseman, a Democrat, approached Crist about calling a special leg- islative session with the purpose of banning offshore oil drilling. While the plan failed During a Sarasota fundraiser for Crist, former Democratic state Rep. Keith Fitzgerald speaks about working with Crist in the state Legislature. Sarasota News Leader July 25, 2014 Page 27