Former Florida Governor Charlie Crist announced his intention to get his old job back Monday morning, kicking off what is sure to be one of the highest profile races in the 2014 cycle. Crist, long adored by the local press corps for his accessibility (many reporters had his personal cell phone number) is running this time as a Democrat, after being elected in 2006 as a Republican, then running unsuccessfully for Senate as an Independent in 2010, losing to Marco Rubio.

One of the issues Crist cited in his announcement Monday was current Florida Governor Rick Scott’s decision to reject $2.4 billion in federal dollars for the construction of a high-speed rail system that would run between Orlando and Tampa.

The Hill, in an article on Crist’s announcement, noted Crist’s previous advocacy for the railway and advanced Crist’s trademark populist narrative in it’s discussion of the issue:

The quashed railway figures to play a central role in the clash between Crist and Scott because the newly minted Democratic candidate campaigned for the money when he was Florida governor, from 2007 to 2011. Crist foreshadowed the high-speed rail attack in an interview last week with the News Service of Florida before his announcement on Monday.  

"Unbelievable. That could have created tens of thousands of jobs," Crist said of the stalled high-speed rail proposal.

"Have you driven on I-4? I wonder if he has," Crist continued in the interview. "He doesn't have to. He flies over it in his jet. How does he have a clue what we're feeling? It's hard to have empathy if you haven't suffered like that and been on I-4. I'm on it once a week, man."

Scott was one of three Republican governors who turned down money from the administration in 2011 in a high-profile rejection of President Obama's push to build a nationwide network of railways he said would eventually rival the U.S. interstate highway system.

What the article failed to mention, however, is that the current Florida governor may have made the right decision in declining the money.

Scott declined the federal dollars, citing concerns over the long term financial viability of the project and what he said was the strong possibility that cost projections were inaccurate. And another state’s experience thus far has appeared to validate those concerns.

California passed a voter referendum in 2008 to build the nation’s first high-speed rail system. What has happened since has been called “a financial Vietnam”, with cost projections almost tripling before the project was scaled back, still settling in at an estimated cost of more than 150% of initial projections.

But Crist didn't mention any of that in his speech Monday. And neither did The Hill.