President Obama's secret weapon in Florida - Rick Scott

[cal04]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/55894.html

Six months ago, in the wake of the wipe-out midterm elections, moderate Florida Sen. Bill Nelson privately vented that President Barack Obama, weighed down by his health reform effort and muddled messaging, was “toxic” for Democrats back home.

Yet Obama’s approval rating has surged from 42 percent to 51 percent in the last month, and Nelson is now openly embracing the president, pronouncing himself dutifully “fired up” at an Obama-hosted Miami fundraiser this spring.

What’s changed? The killing of Osama bin Laden, slow but demonstrable improvements to the foreclosure-ravaged economy, a cooling of tea party passions and the toxic nature of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s Medicare overhaul in a state with one of the largest populations over the age of 55 in the nation — all are factors in Obama’s turnaround.

But Obama’s biggest asset in a critical swing state he won by a mere 2.8-percentage-point margin in 2008 might be Rick Scott, the wildly unpopular Republican governor Democrats are casting as Lex Luthor to Obama’s Clark Kent.

[Scuba]

1. Rick Scott should be sitting in a prison cell for defrauding Medicare...

...apparently preying on the sick and elderly is what Rick does best.



Hopefully Florida is awakening.

[Riley18]

2. Rick may have begun making his millions

off of the sick and elderly, but he has expanded his money grabbing skills to include the children and the poor of Florida as well. Also, firemen, policemen, teachers, and other public employees. Now that he has all of that money in place, he is now focused on destroying public funded hospitals in this state. By the time he is finished with us there will be little left. At this point, we only hope he leaves in the next governor's election. Which is why he is also rigging those as we speak. If the kids still have PBS, maybe Sesame Street will teach the little kiddies how to say "dictator"...

[Ineeda]

3. pRick Scott is the worst disaster to hit Florida since Charley...

(that's hurricane Charley, not Charlie Crist) or even Andrew.

[n2doc]

4. Hard to believe anyone could be worse than JEB

but pRick is sure trying.

[Doctor_J]

5. This sounds like wishful thinking

Regardless of how unpopular Scott is, he can easily disenfranchise enough voters so that Obama won't have a prayer next year. Unless someone actually does something about the corruption, the polls won't mean a thing.

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. Florida is full of ex-military retirees.

The bin Laden thing will play well because families lost loved ones because of Cheney's and Bush's ineptitude. Those idiots never stopped to think that no matter how much the families might brace for the worst when their loved ones go to war, they can never rationalize the death of a brother, son, husband or father. So, while Bush goes to retire in Crawford, and Cheney keeps showing up on television, the one thing that people will remember is that Obama was the one that delivered the mission, and in record time.

Obama can take Florida if he gives the state the one thing it doesn't have at any level of government: A competent leader.

[Coexist]

7. Powder is stealing all he can for him and his friends

and will move on to another gig as soon as he can.

But Floridians are really squirming at him slashing education to feed corporate tax cuts.

[DonCoquixote]

8. It is a weapon, BUT

As all Rick ran on was "I hate Obama, and my opponent loves him." Even though Alex Sink tried to do everything to disown Obama, they just played the soundbite where she offered him halfhearted praise, and to the teabaggers, it was like she was his concubine!

If Obama makes it like "a vote for the GOP is a vote for Rick, it might work, but there is a caveat. There are many "moderates" who insist that Rick Scott is misguided, but on the right path. These are the same folks that voted for jeb, and who are clamoring for him to run in 2012. As I have said before, it is no accident that Tampa is the home of the convention. Here is the deal. The GOP knows it has a bunch of DOGS, so, they will waste the next two years letting Newt and Sarah take all the damage, then, when it appears the party is in choas, look who comes in like Superman, ready to save the GOP.

I have some bad news, if jeb runs, he gets Florida, because the GOP is so desperate to see him as a savior. He also his all the corrupt types ready to pop, especially if he runs with Marco Rubio, the robin to his batman. Marco would hand Miami to them. The only hope is, oddly enough Rick Scott, as he represents the Tea party that blames the Bushes for getting a (very nasty word for Afro-American) elected. The line is that because they did not cut taxes enough, and did not cut enough services, they lost and gave the election to O, which is some form of end times warning from God. As ugly as that fight would be, I would love to see jeb and Rick at each other;s throats, as Jeb is still made that Rick ruined his chance to anoint Bill McCollum senator.

[underpants]

9. Just about to post this - some more parts (Rubio IS a threat if he runs)

Broward County political blogger Brandon Thorp summed it up this way: “If presidential and gubernatorial elections were held in Florida today, no declared Republican presidential candidate could unseat Obama, while Rick Scott would have a hard time beating (Cuban President) Raul Castro.”
:rofl:

Obama’s health reform law remains deeply unpopular, particularly in the Florida Panhandle. His deep cuts to NASA — including the elimination of a $40 million grant to laid-off space shuttle workers — have dented his popularity in Central Florida. And his recent comments about using Israel’s pre-1967 borders as the starting point for negotiations over a Palestinian state has made Florida’s influential and well-to-do Jewish population deeply uneasy.
--thanks Politico for never failing to get a few Drudge Report type comments in there.
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But their biggest long-term task is wooing Hispanics, especially if Rubio enters the race. At the moment, Democrats can take consolation in two facts: Rubio has said he’s not interested in being anybody’s No. 2 and Hispanic support for Obama in the state in 2008 — about 57 percent — was nearly identical to Rubio’s performance among Latinos in 2010.

“Marco’s a threat, no doubt,” said veteran Florida pollster Dave Beattie. “But Obama does about as well among Hispanics (as) Rubio does.”



Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/55894_Page3.html#ixzz1Ns8XRDVh