Rick Scott's performance is more polished but his record has contradictions

Eighteen months into his first political job, Gov. Rick Scott has mastered one thing: the art of the perpetual campaign.

He has a political consultant and media strategist on retainer and speed dial. The Republican Party has run statewide television ads and hired a company to regularly update his Facebook page. He has warmed to the media, become adept at his talking points, learned to deflect tough questions and passed the most important test in Florida politics: Showing that he can raise money for his reelection, at $3.7 million so far.

The former health care CEO is still awkward on camera, so his advisors have steered him to friendly conservative talk-radio shows where he spends many early mornings as a regular call-in guest. The result: He has polished his patter.

“We know there are at least 100 non citizens registered to vote and at least 50 of them voted in past elections,’’ Scott succinctly told Bill Bennett June 14 on Town Hall Radio about the results of his push to purge non citizens from the voting rolls. “That’s a crime!”

The issue earned him face time on network television shows and won the support of 60 percent of Florida voters, according to a Quinnipiac poll released last week.

But every campaign must run on a record, and that’s where the governor’s carefully crafted image gets wobbly.

Scott has stopped touting the state’s job creation and instead brags that “we’ve had the biggest drop in unemployment of any state in the last 18 months.”

The statement implies that Floridians have gone back to work at faster pace than the rest of the nation, but the state’s top economists note that 75 percent of the drop is due to people dropping out of the labor force and who are no longer counted among the unemployed.

Other contradictions abound. The governor vowed to make education a priority, then signed the state budget that cut $300 million from universities and included a spending plan that assumed a 15 percent tuition increase and the creation of a 12th university. Last week he then urged the Board of Governors to make Florida “Number 1 in affordability” and reject the tuition hikes. They didn’t. More here.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/23/v-fullstory/2863600/scott-never-turns-campaign-off.html#storylink=cpy

Comments

[ZOOT]

Scott = doofuss....he's a loser on so many levels it's embarassing to be from Florida.

[Can't take anymore]

Now matter how much his media consultants try to enhance his image, their work with Scott is little more than polishing a turd. The real damage is being done by his political appointees in state agencies that are firing experienced cadre in virtually every department and replacing them with "know nothing" political hacks. These appointees are either fire-breathing Tea Bagggggers or out of state carpetbaggers sent to lead a rightwing jihad on public employees. Even a heartless laissez faire capitalist like Scott might recoil at what the long term effects his minions have wrought on Florida in less than two years.

[joe blow]

momma always said: "you CAN'T polish a TURD"! LOL!

[whasup]

No amount of knob polish will restore the shine on this Gov's political image ...

Nor will any amount remove the tarnish on government employees, especially the bureaucrats; nor from their union bosses; nor their leftist allies in the political struggle.

Oh, by the way, Republicans have been running Tallahassee for nearly 15 years now ...

So, my leftist friends, it's about time y'all realize that most of the government appointees, particularly from mid-level up, that this Gov is removing are either Jebusite or Cristican Republicans.

[Paul D]

“We know there are at least 100 non citizens registered to vote and at least 50 of them voted in past elections’’

If people want to commit vote fraud, it seems like it be very easy to register in another county as long as you have a mailing address there such as a rental property. Even if it's out of state, just vote absentee. I think efforts to purge illegal voter registrations would produce better results by looking for those. Then again, maybe they don't because a republican is far more likely to have multiple addresses to pull this off.

[Anti-Tallahassee]

I hope Floridians can differntiate between state and federal politics. Almost every Republican in Tallahassee needs to go. So few are good and it is best to just vote them ALL out of office. On the hand, President Obama and Senator Nelson need to go too. I just wish Scott was up for re-election - he is a piece of garbage and no amount of polish can make him more appealing

[Lindad]

scott is a loser and there will be no way that he'll win any election - boot him out!