Interesting to see that a number of outsiders and pundits have been taken aback by Gov. Rick Scott’s abysmally low popularity numbers. As in: “He’s only doing what he said he would do. Shouldn’t promise-keeping, hardly the MO of most politicians, endear him to much more than 29 percent of the voters?”
(Scott presumably would agree, but he doesn’t, of course, care about polls, he insists. Surprising, then, that he actually has a staff pollster–moreover, that it is the nationally recognized Tony Fabrizio.)
Some theories on how this came about:
*Not to go all Fall-of-the-Roman Empire and to-hell-in-a-handcart here, but the Rick Scott candidacy was tailor made for an alarming, contemporary American reality: an increasingly ill-informed, lazy democracy. The combination of true-believing, anti-Obama Tea Partiers and their self-validating infotainment gurus plus those informed via $73 million worth of misleading, self-funded “Let’s get to work” Scott ads was telling. So much so that the candidate’s distain for skeptical media and involvement in a mega Medicare fraud case didn’t seem to matter.
*A lackluster campaign by his opponent, such that some frustrated Democrats would like to see a governor on any more gubernatorial ambitions by any member of the McBride family.
*Maintaining campaign glibness and repeating bullet points are not to be compared–or confused–with actually governing. Nobody’s against a more accountable government. Against streamlining the bureaucracy. Against eliminating “frivolous and wasteful spending.” Against attracting more business. Against creating more jobs. But voters can be less than approving of what a governor actually does in the good name of accountability, bureaucratic efficiency, prudent spending, business wooing and job creation.
Jettisoning thousands of public sector jobs, some of them teachers, won’t win universal plaudits, especially during times of high unemployment. Turning down $2.4 billion in high-speed rail funding–and all the redevelopment subplots and short-and long-term jobs scenarios–was never spelled out during the campaign. Nor was settling with BP for pennies on the oil-spill dollar. Voters, a number of whom were anxious about their own employment status, could only infer what Scott meant by “looking out for taxpayers.”
*Ironically, once Scott was in office it became apparent that his approach to quality, jobs-of-the-future recruiting was counterproductive. The most-sought after companies are not overly impressed that one of the lowest corporate-tax states in the country is doing further cuts. They want to see education commitments; smart anti-gridlock growth; quality-of-life enhancing ecological priorities; 21st century modes of transportation; and a political environment that doesn’t include rigid orthodoxy, a sense of instability and weekly material for the Colbert Report.
*It didn’t become fully apparent till he took office how arrogant Scott and his inner circle really were. Nor had it been clear to all how truly beholden Scott was to his Tea Party base and his favorite libertarian think tanks and the Koch Brothers. Self-congratulating robo calls and support for SunRail showed highly unflattering, hypocritical sides: “smaller government” could still be intrusive and “principle” wouldn’t get in the way of a more politically palatable, if less financially sensible, rail project.