Tropical Storm Isaac has upended Republican Florida Gov. Rick Scott's
chance to be in the spotlight tonight on the opening night of the
2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa. But even if the governor hadn't
canceled his speech, his standing with the party, and the man GOP delegates
will formally nominate for president, are anything but settled.
Scott was not the choice of the GOP establishment to be governor of one
of the country's most prized battleground states in the contest for president.
A wealthy former hospital executive and political outsider, he stunned the
party two years ago with his win in the Republican primary over Bill McCollum,
the state's attorney general and a former congressman.
Scott went on to a narrow general election victory over Democrat Alex
Sink with the backing of the Tea Party, the same faction of voters whom Romney
is actively wooing. But there is considerable distance between the two men, as
there still is between Scott and most of the Florida Republican Party. "The
governor is further right than the GOP mainstream," says Charles Barrilleaux,
a political science professor at Florida State University.
"People here say that the GOP organizers are basically holding their
noses while trying to appear gracious," adds Anthony Brunello, a political
scientist at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg. "The RNC organizers are seeking
to avoid 'drama,'" he says, "but it is a wary relationship."
Romney campaigned in Florida numerous times this year before agreeing to
appear on the same stage with Scott. When a reporter from local station WPTV
asked Scott earlier this summer if he thought Romney was "dissing" him by not
appearing with him, the governor replied, "I know he's working to become
president and I'm working hard to become a very successful governor; so we are
both busy."
Scott also has rejected a report from the Bloomberg news organization
that Romney asked Scott to tone down his statements about Florida's economic
improvements because they clash with the presumptive Republican nominee's
message that the nation is suffering under President Obama.
Scott says this isn't true and in more recent statements has tried to
address it. "Even though we have a president that is making it much, much more
difficult to do well, in Florida our economy is getting better," Scott said,
according to The Miami Herald, when the governor made his August 13 appearance
with Romney in St. Augustine. "Just think what the state could do then if we
had the right president."
Only last week, Scott touted that Florida's unemployment rate had dropped
the fastest in the nation, but the governor is far from keeping pace with his
campaign promise to create 700,000 jobs in seven years. As of June, Scott's
jobs added count was 105,500, according to PolitiFact.com.
Tea Party Man
Some of Scott's most notable policies have only elevated his Tea Party
credentials.
He was one of the first governors to vow to opt out of expanding Medicaid
after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the legality of President Obama's
federal health care law. He has pushed to require drug testing for welfare
recipients. He defends a state law that makes it a crime for doctors to ask
patients if they own guns, known as "Docs vs. Glocks." He is intent on purging
non-citizens from voter registration rolls before the November 6 elections,
and he wants to limit early voting.
But Scott is among the least popular governors in the country, with 52
percent of Florida voters saying they disapprove of the job he is doing,
according to results from a Quinnipiac University/ CBS News/New York Times
Swing State Poll. One poll earlier this summer from Public Policy Polling
reported that Scott would lose to Sink if the elections were held today and
that former Republican governor Charlie Crist, now an independent, also could
easily defeat Scott.
Scott's lack of political experience may be hurting him. "He's a
businessman, he's not a politician, not before now," says Lance deHaven-Smith,
a public policy professor at Florida State University. "He may be right from a
business point of view, but from a political point of view, it doesn't work."
For example, Scott closed the state's only tuberculosis hospital in the midst
of a TB outbreak and participated in a Special Olympics event on the same day
that he signed a bill cutting public programs for the disabled. He also cut
funding of services for the mentally ill, including children. "It looked
awful," says deHaven-Smith.
Given far more prominent roles at the convention are U.S. Senator Marco
Rubio, who made his name as the speaker of the Florida House and will
introduce Romney as the nominee, and former governor Jeb Bush who is still
popular in Florida. And New Jersey Governor Chris Christie will give the
keynote address.
But for now, that hardly matters. Scott declared a state of emergency on
Saturday and then later that evening announced he was canceling his speech and
all other scheduled convention-related activities on Sunday through Tuesday so
that he could respond to storm-related matters.
It's unclear whether Scott will continue to be able to play the role of
the unconventional outsider in a way he had planned. The governor has agreed
to blog this week from the convention for The Huffington Post, considered to
be a left-leaning news site.
"It's another channel to communicate with folks. It's not strictly
liberal," Scott's spokesman Brian Burgess confirmed to WPTV."I think it's
important that we take advantage of opportunities like that. It has a lot of
reach."
