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Political Hay
Sunshine Slugfest
The Republican primary for governor in Florida has gotten ugly.
Lately it’s been stormy in the Sunshine State. First, the Republican contest for U.S. Senate resulted in Gov. Charlie Crist leaving the party. While that race has gotten most of the national attention, Florida’s GOP primary for governor has become one of the nastiest in the country.
Tomorrow’s primary is a match-up between Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, a former ten-term congressman, and health care millionaire Rick Scott. To say there is no love lost between these two men would be an understatement. Scott has maintained that McCollum “is clearly abusing his power and he will do anything to win the race so he can hang on to his power” and has even labeled him “the Tonya Harding of Florida politics.”
While McCollum hasn’t hit anyone in the knee with a police baton, he hasn’t been shy about taking a few swings at Scott’s business record. Scott was CEO of Columbia/HCA until 1997, when he resigned amidst an FBI probe that led to the company being fined a record $1.7 billion for Medicare fraud. Federal agents raided 33 Columbia hospitals and offices in six states.
Scott wasn’t directly implicated in any wrongdoing. He released a statement saying, “An army of federal investigators spent seven years examining every aspect of this case. If they found any merit in these allegations… they would have certainly charged me, or at the very least questioned me — neither of which ever happened.” But eventually, Scott’s argument that he didn’t know what was going on at the company he ran began to undermine the reputation for executive competence on which he was basing his campaign.
McCollum has taken a few hits himself. Scott has aggressively tied him to former Florida GOP head Jim Greer, who was arrested and charged with six felonies — including fraud, theft, and money laundering — earlier this year. McCollum backed Greer’s re-election as state party chairman; Greer in turn served on the finance team for McCollum’s gubernatorial campaign. Scott has joined with Democrats in pounding McCollum for the Florida attorney general’s role in the Greer investigation.
Both men are running as staunch conservatives. McCollum is a cerebral policy wonk who was a firm Reaganite in the House. As attorney general, he has been a leader in a multi-state lawsuit to overturn the health care individual mandate. Scott rose to statewide prominence as the founder and leader of Conservatives for Patients Rights, an anti-Obamacare group.
That hasn’t prevented ideological infighting, however. Both candidates are pro-life, but McCollum has highlighted the fact that some Columbia/HCA hospitals performed elective abortions. Scott’s camp has similarly taken aim at McCollum’s pro-life bona fies, especially as concerns embryonic stem-cell research. “So Bill McCollum takes campaign contributions from lobbyists for Planned Parenthood yet now attacks about abortion,” Scott campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Baker said to reporters in response to one McCollum mailing. “What hypocrisy.” McCollum has also been criticized for supporting Rudy Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign.
Immigration has also emerged as a point of contention. When Arizona began debating its controversial law cracking down on illegal immigrants, McCollum was quoted as saying, “I don’t think Florida should enact laws like this — quite that far out.” McCollum later supported the Arizona law, but argues that he only did so once the language curbing racial profiling was tightened. Scott, an Arizona law backer, has countered that this is a flip-flop.
Upon his entry into the race, Scott overtook McCollum as the frontrunner — thanks in part to the $16 million the businessman spent on campaign ads contrasting his outsider status with McCollum’s connections to the state party hierarchy. But McCollum has been able to fight back, with late polls showing him reclaiming the lead. Jeff Greene, the billionaire running for Florida’s Democratic senatorial nomination, has seen a rise and fall similar to Scott’s.
“Money can only go so far,” Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, told Reuters. “It made two guys nobody ever heard of frontrunners. It can’t necessarily get you over the top.” The latest Quinnipiac poll has McCollum leading 44 percent to 35 percent, a 12-point jump from the last survey. But the primary beneficiary of the $50 million Republican ad war may be likely Democratic nominee Alex Sink, who edges both McCollum and Scott in recent polling despite the independent candidacy of Lawton “Bud” Chiles.
Whatever happens Tuesday, party unity will be sorely tested in a state where Republicans once believed they were on the upswing.
About the Author
W. James Antle, III, author of the new book Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped?, is editor of the Daily Caller News Foundation and a senior editor of The American Spectator. You can follow him on Twitter @jimantle.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (27) | Leave a comment
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John England| 8.23.10 @ 6:28AM
"A plague on both your houses." Our whole political system seems rotten and corrupt. (You didn't go into the baggage that Ms. Sink carries.)
I'm not voting for governor this year.
John England, registered Independent
Ken (Old Texican)| 8.23.10 @ 7:11AM
Well John,
Sit on your butt and pout while another communist, (pardon the shorthand), gets elected.
Can't Florida come up with at least acceptable candidates?
FakeEagle| 8.23.10 @ 8:33AM
As usual, the Old Texican has found the point. The Republican party would be in much better shape if it could find a way to offer us some decent candidates. I'm used to having to choose between the "lesser of two evils" on election day. It's a shame to be forced to the same decision tree in the primaries. Nevertheless, I'll be at the polls tomorrow. I'm not about to give up the last vestiges of my "voice" in this country.
Dai Alanye | 8.23.10 @ 11:38AM
>>having to choose between the "lesser of two evils"
Dai Alanye | 8.23.10 @ 11:42AM
having to choose between the "lesser of two evils"
Not to worry--our wives probably had to face the same decision.
But why do I have to post twice to get it to display properly, eh Webmaster?
dandy dale| 8.24.10 @ 9:06AM
I'm so fed up I haven't voted for a main stream candidate since 91, I did my civic duty by voting, and I voted my conscience. When enough people do this a third party will be elected. Let's hope the Tea Party can rally some Constitutionalists.
Cliff| 8.23.10 @ 1:23PM
McCollum isnt a "lesser of two evils" candidate and anybody who wants to examine his record rationally will agree. He was a solid Reaganite in the 80's, a manager of the Clinton impeachment in the 90's, and he's lead the fight against Obamacare as AG.
There is ZERO reason to see McCollum as anything but a great conservative given any rational standard. Even "career politicians" can be great conservatives. Just ask one of Ronald Reagan's favorite Congresspeople, Henry Hyde, or any one of numerous others Reagan supported and liked.
frujtr| 8.23.10 @ 4:32PM
McCollum was the first to insist on an Arizona law and the first to sue the gubbermint's healtcare tragedy. Whoops, I guess he wasn't. He didn't do anything first. As to supporting the Az law, he has hidden behind the Az lady's skirt and is performing in a support role. Well, that is what politicians do, isn't it? No original thought, just lazy career politician malaise.
Patzer| 8.23.10 @ 5:26PM
Henry Hyde might be a little hard to get ahold of, considering that he's dead & all...
Nolann Ryann| 8.23.10 @ 9:44AM
Brilliant strategy there John. Just sit around and whine and pout and you'll get another democrat that will tax anything that moves and spend anything that can't move. Then you'll be the first knucklehead on here complaining about the mess that FLA becomes under a Sink administration. Yeah go ahead and sit it out. That works every time for the statists.
Cliff| 8.23.10 @ 1:20PM
You're a fool. McCollum was one of the most solid Reaganites in the House, took serious political risks to be one of the managers of the Clinton impeachment, and deserves the respect and support of any conservative worth his salt.
Periwinkel| 8.23.10 @ 10:48AM
I think John England should put his money where his mouth is and run himself. Then he can see it's not as easy as it looks. Come on, John. Show us what you got!!!
james wilson| 8.23.10 @ 11:28AM
The Democrat Party is evil, the Republican Party is often venal and stupid. As long as, and only as, the Republican candidate is not the RHINO link to the evil party (Charlie), I cannot put the same plague on both houses. Venal and stupid gets my vote.
joli| 8.23.10 @ 12:02PM
Not to put too fine a point on it...
Ken (Old Texican)| 8.23.10 @ 12:06PM
James...and James,
fortunately, we the people still have the final say.
When things get bad enough...
“” We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security…. “”
I will be publishing chapter ONE of my forthcoming novel, "The Nays of Texas" within a month, FREE, and the novel, (a cautionary tale), will be available soon after for a reasonable modest fee. (Grin)
RCV| 8.23.10 @ 6:17PM
Look forward to it, ken. But you won't make much progress if you keep blogging here every day!
Quin| 8.23.10 @ 12:35PM
IMHO, Bill McCollum is one of the 20 or 25 finest public servants this country has seen in the past three decades. And Scott's attack on the Planned Parenthood "donations" is one of the most vile, most unfair attacks I have EVER seen one Republican level against another Republican. Disgusting stuff. I wrote about it here, calling the ads "so below the belt as to be the political equivalent of rape": http://www.washingtontimes.com.....ida-race/.
I have friends on Rick Scott's side. Sometimes even friends lose all semblance of their senses.
Cliff| 8.23.10 @ 1:24PM
AMEN. McCollum is a great man. I'm sickened by those trying to paint him as a RINO or corrupt or whatever other silliness.
bluecollarbytes| 8.23.10 @ 9:45PM
Bill McCollum, besides being a consistent conservative, has not been involved in getting rich on health care- even as his company was involved in a massive fraud. Even if Rick Scott practiced the highest ethics throughout his tenure at Columbia/HCA, he's a poster boy in waiting for Democrats desperate for a narrative this Nov. What's compelling about him?
Successful Republicans become 'establishment Republicans' over time. This shouldn't automatically preclude them from consideration. There are, duh, good ones as well as bad ones.
Les| 8.23.10 @ 1:44PM
There is an alternative to both of these clowns, Col. Mike McCalister listen to his interview on www.talkwithattitude.com recorded last night from 5-7PM on local radio. in Avon Pk. Fl.
Ruffian| 8.23.10 @ 1:50PM
The RPOF needed a good bloodletting, and they are getting it. McCollum is a solid candidate. Scott is talk.
Spook | 8.23.10 @ 5:37PM
No matter how you slice it Mc is a career politician and has proven he will do what is good for Mc and say what he thinks will get him elected.
Vote all incumbents out and vote against any career politician.
http://tellmewhy.blogtownhall.com/
Elizabeth Craine| 8.23.10 @ 10:05PM
MCCollum is a man of intergrity. I have followed his career for years and have been more than happy to support him with my vote. Scott has not integrity. He was CEO when the medicare fraud happened. He bears responsibility for that. He is not fit to be gov. I will gladly cast my vote for Bill McCollum tomorrow. He will be a great governor.
Claire Solt| 8.23.10 @ 10:36PM
McCullum might as well be a Stalinist dictator. I think prosecutors like him are real scary, and I think he has violated many constitutional principles abusing his position as AG. He should not be recharging Scott in a case that has passed without charges.
Osamas Pajamas| 8.24.10 @ 1:39AM
Don't know if Reagan ever held a wet finger to the wind to see which way it was blowing, but it always seemed to me that he had a set of ideas and pursued them with less attention to their popularity and more attention to their validity. And if that is so, well, heck, then look where that got him. It seems like both of the Republicans in the FL gubernatorial race are a little more like candles in the wind and a little less like the fine role model that Reagan was. Of course, I am speaking now of "the Cadillac standard" which the RINOs believe to be obsolete....