There’s no lack of irony here. Maybe more than a hint of karma too.
First, let’s reflect back on the gubernatorial race of 2010. That’s the one that would have belonged to incumbent Gov. Charlie Crist had he not decided that a career move trumped staying on the job as Florida was hammered by the Great Recession. Absent that Faustian miscalculation, there would have been no Rick Scott challenge.
Stuff happens.
Recall the consensus that the subsequent election was Alex Sink’s to lose, as they say. After all, this was Florida, and how do you lose to a weirdo, charisma-challenged, political outsider, no matter how wealthy, with Medicare fraud and the deposition from hell on his record? To repeat: MEDICARE. FRAUD. FLORIDA. That campaign, however, was a Sinkhole and that which was hers to lose was, indeed, lost.
Fast forward to now.
Scott trails in most polls to Charlie Crist, but the margin has been clearly narrowing.
If enough Floridians credit Scott with the improved economy and forget that his “7-7-7” (“7 Steps over 7 Years for 700,000 jobs”) plan is modestly at odds with the big-picture context of the Florida Legislature’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research projections, then he draws ever closer. And if too many Democrats are voter no-shows because Charlie Crist really isn’t one of them–or too many bother to read Jim Greer’s Crist-and-tell book–then Scott wins.
It could be Scott’s to lose by Labor Day.
And yet.
More stuff will happen. Bet on it.
In fact, note what just occurred in Orlando. Both Crist and Scott had been invited to speak at the GOP-leaning Florida Council of 100’s spring meeting. The one that does not permit media coverage. But at the last minute, out of deference to Scott, Crist–a life member of the council–was unceremoniously disinvited.
Cue: “The GOPster Mash.” The politically astute Crist showed up anyway and turned a blatant snub with peripheral media coverage into a free media coup.
Crist may not be ideological, but he is logical. And no Florida pol can take campaign lemons and turn them into lemon vodka spritzers quite like Charlie Crist.
At his well-attended, ad hoc press conference, he worked in his boilerplate points and added new material such as the merits of working to open Cuba to Florida’s advantage.
But he also accomplished something else. The council snub enabled him to juxtapose himself to Scott-supporting, business types. It was a perfect forum for Crist’s populist, for-the-people pitch. It’s the approach that otherwise uninspired Democrats most want to see.
And now look who’s back.
It’s Jennifer Carroll, Scott’s erstwhile lieutenant governor, who’s still looking for an apology for being told to quit last year over her embarrassing association with Internet cafe scams. She’s been giving interviews–rife with uncomplimentary comments about Scott, his Medicare-fraud past and how his “good ol’ boy network” is not exactly minority-friendly.
Carroll also says she plans to write a tell-all book about what it was like for a black female in the Scott Administration. Ouch.
This has all the signs of a campaign stalker who doesn’t have to go away this time.
We know her background. She had her own public relations agency. She knows how to get attention and self promote. She’s media savvy, opportunistic and calculated. She is, for example, a member of both the NAACP and the NRA.
Recall that she agreed to be Scott’s black female token–after having chaired the statewide African-Americans for (Bill) McCollum group and throwing political haymakers at Scott. But who can account for epiphanies.
Now she’s carping about Scott’s “disloyalty” and reminding minorities about the governor’s GOB network. And all this just as Scott is trying to soften his image. Indeed, timing is everything.
Irony, karma? To be sure. Plus, add old-fashion nasty as this campaign really begins to heat up.