I t was a classic Charlie Crist kind of day.

After a couple of short morning meetings, the governor hammed it up for the Tallahassee press corps participating in Take Your Child to Work Day and posed for pictures with their kids.

Then it was time for a ''communications briefing'' before fleeing the gloomy budget climate in Tallahassee for sunny Miami, where he mugged for the television cameras at an elementary school he said would benefit from a gambling deal with the Seminole Tribe.

Crist wrapped up the workday with one more staff meeting at the swank Eden Roc hotel in Miami Beach before glad-handing and taking pictures with donors who had given at least $10,000 to a pro-Israel lobbying group.

Say cheese!

Yes, Thursday was a perfect day for the popular governor of Florida. And a day that exposed the potential U.S. Senate candidate's political skills and vulnerabilities.

First, his skills.

Most state legislators scoffed at Crist's proposal that would allow the tribe to expand its gambling empire in exchange for a $1.1 billion down payment.

But instead of haggling over the details -- which most voters are unlikely to process anyway -- Crist honed his pitch and wrapped it in cute school uniforms and sing-song voices.

He delivered it at Riverside Elementary Community School, where nearly all of the students are the children and grandchildren of Hispanic immigrants. The school's improving test scores boosted its overall grade from the state from a ''C'' to a ''B'' this year, defying the poverty that allows 97 percent of the students to qualify for free or discounted lunch.

''It certainly works out very well as a backdrop to the importance of accepting the compact money,'' Crist said before visiting the school. ``$1.1 billion over the next two years is an enormous lift for Florida . . . and going to a school really illustrates the point.''

When two of the television cameras momentarily swept away from the governor and onto a couple of second-graders rapping their multiplication tables, Crist walked behind the kids and poked his head in between them.

Say cheese!

Crist is also reaping positive exposure from a television campaign bankrolled by the tribe that urges lawmakers to accept the deal. An environmental group that backs his proposed Everglades land purchase recently sent out campaign-like mailings graced with a handsome 8-by-10 photo of the governor.

A Quinnipiac University pollster has dubbed him ''Teflon Charlie'' because he seems to be insulated against a recession-fueled political backlash.

Will it last, even if Crist tries to trade up to the most exclusive political club in Washington? It could, but Crist is not without liabilities in a Senate race or even a reelection campaign.

As Thursday shows, Crist manages to keep a light schedule at a time when many Floridians are worrying about their jobs and homes. The Senate arm of the Democratic Party is already hammering him for taking weekdays off and planning a weekend fishing trip with Republican party donors in the middle of a budget crisis.

A sturdy political opponent could exploit such details, along with his recent marriage to a New York socialite with posh addresses in Fisher Island and the Hamptons.

Remember when he took then-fiancée Carole Rome on a trade mission to Europe partly funded by taxpayers last summer?

The worst thing that could happen to the self-proclaimed ''people's governor'' is to stop looking like a man of the people.

Beth Reinhard is the political writer for The Miami Herald.

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