Barry Carson’s brief trip to the men’s room spared Gov. Charlie Crist the embarrassment of being censured by Palm Beach County’s Republican Party last week.

Carson, a Republican Executive Committee member from Jupiter, was out of the room and missed the vote when the rest of the committee split 65-65 on a resolution Wednesday night to rebuke Crist for his various departures from GOP orthodoxy.

The tie vote means the resolution failed.

Carson said he would have voted for censure.

But after hours of debate and an earlier vote on whether to table the censure resolution, Carson went to the men’s room. When he got back, his name had been passed in the roll call of Republican committee members.

Carson said he told party leaders he was back and wanted to vote before the roll call was complete, but was ignored by county GOP Chairman Sid Dinerstein and others who opposed censure.

“Sid didn’t want the resolution and because of my prostate problem he found a way to get it (defeated),” Carson told the Politics column.

Dinerstein said he didn’t know of Carson’s wish to vote until it was too late.

“This guy didn’t say a word until our vote was finished and recorded,” Dinerstein said. “To me it was a little like sending in your absentee ballot late.”

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The Republican Party of Florida, which is chaired by close Crist ally Jim Greer, took an interest in the censure vote. Carla Rivera, a field rep from the state GOP, attended the meeting and videotaped the county GOP’s deliberations.

“We do that a lot of times when we go to events,” state GOP spokeswoman Katie Gordon said. “It’s not sort of Big Brother overseeing what the local parties are doing. We’re all on the same team.”

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State Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, is bolstering her Palm Beach County support as she runs for the Palm Beach-Broward state Senate district now held by CFO-seeking state Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach.

Bogdanoff is already backed by House Majority Leader Adam Hasner, R-Delray Beach. And the hosts for a Bogdanoff fund-raiser later this month include some big Boca Raton names: Mayor Susan Whelchel, Boca Councilwoman Susan Haynie, GOP activist Jack Furnari and former county Republican Chairman Tom Sliney.

Bogdanoff faces two Palm Beach County rivals — state Rep. Carl Domino of Jupiter and businessman Nick Loeb of Delray Beach — in a Republican primary in which about 64 percent of Republican voters live in Palm Beach County.

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Retired educator Vincent Goodman, a Republican who was one of Crist’s four finalists for the Palm Beach County commission appointment that eventually went to Democrat Priscilla Taylor, has opened a campaign to run for the seat in 2010. Democrats have a 4-to-1 registration edge over Republicans in Taylor’s minority-dominated District 7.

Our Jennifer Sorentrue offers this account of Wednesday night’s drama at the Palm Beach County Republican Executive Committee meeting, where a motion to censure Gov. Charlie Crist failed on a 65-to-65 tie vote.

“Maybe by divine justice it came out a tie,” county GOP Chairman Sid Dinerstein said.

WEST PALM BEACH — A motion to censure Gov. Charlie Crist for bucking the GOP on a variety of issues failed tonight on a 65-to-65 vote at a Palm Beach County Republican Executive Committee meeting, our Jennifer Sorentrue reports.

Committee member Steven Ledewitz proposed the partisan reprimand because Crist embraced the $787 billion Democratic stimulus package, failed to campaign for some local Republican candidates in 2008 and has appointed liberals and Democrats to various posts.

Volusia County’s Republican Executive Committee passed a resolution censuring Crist earlier this month.

The 65-to-65 censure vote came after a motion to table the resolution failed on a 64-to-64 vote with four absentions. There were no abstentions in the 65-to-65 vote, Sorentrue reports, but apparently two committee members were out of the room.

Watch palmbeachpost.com for more details later.

WEST PALM BEACH — Big drama tonight as Palm Beach County’s Republican Executive Commitee considers a motion to censure Gov. Charlie Crist for bucking his party on a variety of issues.

A motion to table the censure resolution just failed on a 64-64 vote with four abstentions, our Jennifer Sorentrue reports.

That should pave the way for a vote on the censure resolution itself.

More details to come…..

Palm Beach County’s Republican Executive Committee tonight will consider a resolution to censure Gov. Charlie Crist for bucking the GOP on a variety of matters.

Crist has been criticized by members of his own party for appearing with President Obama at a Fort Myers rally to promote the $787 billion economic stimulus plan. He’s been faulted for not campaigning for some local Republican candidates in 2008 and for appointing Democrats to various posts — including Priscilla Taylor to fill a Palm Beach County commission vacancy last month.

Across Florida. Republican executive committee members tend to be more conservative than the average GOP voter, just as Democratic committee members tend to be more liberal than the average Democrat. Crist has been censured by the Volusia County GOP and lost straw polls of GOP committee members in Highlands, Pasco and Lee counties to Marco Rubio, his rival in the 2010 Republican U.S. Senate primary.

Palm Beach County Republican Chairman Sid Dinerstein and other local GOP leaders oppose the motion to censure Crist. But there’s no telling how the entire committee, which has roughly 120 members, will vote.

Crist shrugged off the Volusia censure earlier this month, saying it had “not much” meaning to him.

Don’t expect any YouTubed confrontations when U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, hosts a town hall meeting later this month to discuss the 1,018-page House Democratic health care bill.

Klein is planning a “telephone town hall” that he says will reach far more constituents than an in-the-flesh event.

Republican challenger Allen West says Klein’s a chicken.

“The unwillingness to stand in front of your constituents can only be called cowardice,” said West.

Klein dismissed West’s claim. He said the teleconference has been planned for weeks and was not a reaction to the recent transformation of town hall events from soporific C-SPAN affairs to shout-fests that go viral on the Internet.

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