Remember back to those halcyon days of oh, about six weeks ago, when it was Rick Scott against the Tallahassee establishment, and all of the GOP's insiders (with a few exceptions, such as Paula Dockery) were firmly behind their guy, Attorney General Bill McCollum?
We all know that was so summer of 2010-ish, as the state's Republican poohbahs are now firmly behind the former health care chain executive in his extremely competitive race against Democrat Alex Sink (see new poll results below).
Sure there were some dismissive comments made by McCollum aficionados, but that was explained away as simply campaign rhetoric made in the heat of the battle.
But not everybody in the party is getting behind their gubernatorial candidate so far this year.
We all know that McCollum himself has remained mum about any type of endorsement.
Alex Villalobos of Miami has also crossed party lines, not only in endorsing Alex Sink this week, but last week when he supported his former law firm colleague at Akerman Sentefitt, Dan Gelber, for Attorney General.
So we're intrigued to learn that Tampa Republican state Senator Victor Crist, term limited out this year and running for a spot on the Hillsborough County Commission, is one of the few GOP legislators who also has yet to come out for Scott.
As Dara Kam reports on the Palm Beach Post's website:
Scott released a list of campaign co-chairmen that included nearly all of the state legislature’s Republicans, some of whom backed McCollum in the primary and objected at the time that Scott, who spent $50 million of his own money in the primary, couldn’t be trusted.
McCollum has refused to endorse Scott in the general election against Democrat Alex Sink.
The list of GOP legislators who haven’t signed on either, according to the campaign document, include:
Senate Majority Leader Alex Diaz de la Portilla, Sens. Victor Crist, Nancy Detert, Rudy Garcia, Steve Oelrich, and Alex Villalobos, who publicly endorsed Sink this week.
CL spoke with Senator Crist after he one of over 100 people crammed into the Tampa Club for Scott's coming out speech in Tampa earlier this year. This is what he said to us at that time:
"Government is about relationships. It’s different than businesses,” Crist said. “In business you either own it and call the shots yourself, or you’re a COO who answers to a board of directors which is relatively small. In government, you have three branches. And for a governor to be effective you have to develop a relationship and win the support of the legislature. And both have to depend on an independent judiciary, so it’s like a three point triangle, and I didn’t hear a whole lot of working knowledge of how that triangle works. And that troubles me, because as governor they need to hit the road running right out of the get go and they need to understand the process and how to work it in order to facilitate their agenda.”
Meanwhile, a CNN-Time poll released last night shows that Scott and Sink are in a statistical tie in the race for Governor. Among likely voters, Scott's up by 2%, 47%-45%. Among registered voters, it's Sink, 46%-45%.
As we wrote yesterday, it appears to us that as the Tea Party continues to get more acceptance within the Republican Party (and to a smaller extent to mainstream America), candidates like Scott will reap those benefits, in a way that he wouldn't (and with his baggage, couldn't) in a "normal" political year. But that's why 2010 is hard for all Democrats, even those who are running away from President Obama, like Alex Sink.
This article appears in Sep 30 – Oct 6, 2010.