What do you do if you're the anti-establishment candidate but have now become part of that establishment?
If you're Rick Scott, you pivot to criticizing a government that's less popular than Tallahassee Republicans — that would be Washington Democrats. And if you're a Republican who campaigned and spent money against the person now leading your ticket, you emphasize what you have in common, with the key word at Monday's Florida Republican Party "unity" event being "principles" which was invoked by several speakers.
The afternoon rally took place at a steamy airport hangar in Tampa, where the RPOF's newly nominated candidate for governor said in a brief speech and later to CL that he will make Alex Sink's support for the federal health care reform legislation an issue in their election for governor (Sink did ultimately support the bill, albeit in an extremely tepid fashion).
Sounding like he was running for office in Washington instead of Tallahassee, Scott said that "My commitment is to do everything I can to make sure that every state candidate wins, and that we continue what we've started, so we can change this country. We're going to start with the state of Florida, but we're going to change back away from the socialist policies of the Obama administration and we're going to start right here in Florida. ..if we do all these things, the rest of the country will have to compete with us, and we'll change all of America."
In a session with reporters that followed his speech, CL asked Scott if he intends to tie President Obama to Sink, he replied, "My opponent has supported the principles of this administration, which are devastating for our economy and for Americans," before asserting that she also supported the federal health care reform legislation. As a private citizen last year, Scott put together a political action committee (called Conservatives for Patience Rights) to oppose the legislation.
"In this race there's going to be a clear choice," he added. "Someone that supports the Obama administration: government takeover of health care, higher taxes, large deficits, or someone who's a conservative outsider, who's spent his entire career building jobs…"
When asked if by winning the GOP nomination for governor he's no longer an outsider, which no doubt aided him in the primary in an era when the public appears sick of insiders, Scott insisted that he was still a "conservative outsider." But that might seem a bit incongruous when a slew of Tampa Bay area Republican elected officials and candidates were all standing behind him as he spoke, as well as those inseparable ones, incoming House Speaker Dean Cannon and Senate President Mike Haridopolos, who confessed that "Dean and I were not on the Rick Scott team a couple of weeks ago. But he showed a lot of grace to Dean and I, and we're going to be with him the next two months."
This article appears in Aug 26 – Sep 1, 2010.