Get this governor season tickets for the Dolphins. Though his desk is in Tallahassee, Charlie Crist is in South Florida more than Joe Lieberman was during the never-ending 2000 presidential campaign.

Is it his newfound cravings for cortaditos and Jewish deli? Weekly strategy sessions with the politically beleaguered Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez? A sizable credit at Books & Books in Coral Gables?

Not likely. Crist has been increasingly racking up mileage on the Palmetto Expressway and Interstate-595 ever since he married the owner of a posh Fisher Island condo and started running for an open seat in the U.S. Senate. You don't raise a record-breaking $4.3 million in 50 days without putting down roots in donor-rich South Florida.

Thank goodness for those new express lanes on Interstate-95.

``I'm down here a lot, and what they are doing to open up I-95 even more I'm very pleased about,'' Crist said during a recent visit to the Department of Transportation office in Miami.

A review of Crist's official schedule found that since he launched his Senate campaign on May 12, he has spent about 29 workdays in South Florida, compared to roughly 40 in Tallahassee. By Monday, he will have spent about twice as many weekdays in South Florida as he did in Tallahassee so far this month.

Poor, neglected Tampa Bay. Crist's old stomping grounds -- where his St. Petersburg apartment sits empty and where Mom and Dad still live -- have hosted him for only about 10 workdays since mid-May.

``He's got to multi-task,'' said state Rep. Juan Zapata, who is co-hosting a $500-per-person fundraiser for Crist Monday on Miami Beach. ``If you can make the wife happy, raise some money and take care of the governor's business in one place, it's a win-win.''

An added bonus of Crist's frequent South Florida visits is local television exposure in Republican rival Marco Rubio's backyard. In the past four months, he visited every county courthouse from Miami to West Palm Beach, rode an airboat in the Everglades, mingled with school children from Little Haiti to North Lauderdale and released a manatee and a sea turtle back into the wild. Next stop: Miami Metrozoo!

On Wednesday, he and first lady Carole Crist were spotted shopping in the ladies' department at Bloomingdale's in the Aventura Mall. I thought I saw them sipping grande chai tea lattes at the Starbucks on Flagler Street and waiting for a table at the Cheesecake Factory on Las Olas Boulevard, but I can't be sure.

Now there's nothing wrong with the governor being out and about, but with the state's unemployment rate at 10.7 percent, he might want to spend a little more time at the home office.

South Florida politicians have long complained that it doesn't make any sense to have a state capital that's practically in Georgia. The city's far flung location, connected to Florida's major cities by few direct flights, makes it hard for constituents to air their grievances in the state's corridors of power. It's cheaper and faster to fly all the way to Washington.

Why Tallahassee anyway? History books tell us the spot was chosen in 1824 because legislators were sick of schlepping their files back and forth between the two old Florida capitals of St. Augustine and Pensacola.

Location, location, location.

Perhaps Crist will be the governor who finally leads the charge to move the state capital down south. I've got the perfect spot in downtown Miami. I mean, how hard could it be to find another site for a Florida Marlins stadium?

Beth Reinhard is the political writer for The Miami Herald.

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