State GOP fights over opening its bank books

The Florida Republican Party talks a lot about being fiscally conservative, but leaders in the party want nothing of showing the public their financials. We wonder why the party that pounds its chest, saying how frugal it is, is so unwilling to show the public how well it spends its members' money.

Gov. Charlie Crist is encouraging the Florida GOP to open its records to the public. He wants to let everyone see how party money is being spent. That's not going over well with some of the leaders, such as Attorney General Bill McCollum, who wants to be our next governor, and others.

They say the GOP's records are not public record, and they are right about that. We just figure that the party that tells everyone how fiscally responsible they are would have nothing to hide. In fact, they would want to show how conservative they are with donors' money.

It appears the conservatism they brag about doesn't always carry over to how they spend the party's money. Some of the records include party credit cards and the expenditures on them for all kinds of things.

Crist clearly is playing political gamesmanship. Marco Rubio, who is challenging Crist for the open U.S. Senate seat, has a GOP credit card. Crist does not. But we don't care about political games. We just think it makes sense to open these records for everyone to see. We'd like the Democrats to do the same thing.

We're not asking for strategy notes or other nuts and bolts party information. We're just talking about internal financial records. Why not make that public? Don't members of the party have the right to see how their money's being used?

Yes, politics can get nasty, but the party that is the most transparent and has nothing to hide should have an advantage. As McCollum said so many times as a House prosecutor during former President Clinton's impeachment, "Doth protest too much." We believe he's protesting too much as well for something that makes sense - unless there's something to hide.