Guest AuthorEarlier this year, Gov. Rick Scott on a re-election mission through Tampa posed among overflowing fruit bins to film a campaign ad claiming his support for small business. In perhaps one of his most candid statements since taking office in 2010, the former health care CEO proclaimed: “I love selling things to people.”
Indeed he does.
The same governor who cast his lot with the far right to win the support of Florida’s Tea Party has now shifted to the left in a frenzied “let’s make a deal” pitch to unconvinced voters. The same governor who cast undocumented immigrants as bogeymen, waged war against President Obama’s health care law, spiked high speed rail from Tampa to Orlando, and slashed the state budget for education and the environment is now, well, attempting to sell himself as a warmer and fuzzier kind of chief executive.
In what can only be described as a three-year scenic tour on his path to redemption, Scott is trying to convince voters that he has seen the light, even if it took the dimming prospects of re-election to illuminate his predicament. Undocumented immigrants? They now have in-state tuition rates and can be admitted to practice law. Cleaning up the environment? Boosting education spending? Scott has his hands on the money spigot and promises to let it flow.
In fact, about the only thing he’s still tap dancing around is the fact that about 1 million Floridians still don’t have health care. Because when it comes to expanding Medicaid under the national health care law, the best they’ve gotten from the governor is lip service a year after promising his support.
And that’s the lesson to be had from these last four years and what to expect should voters buy into Scott’s latest peddling pitch. Because, like the Medicaid expansion farce, what he says is rarely what he actually does.
A study in contradictions, the man who loves “selling things to people” is the master of empty rhetoric and non-answers. You never know where he actually stands, or what he stands for: Education? Clean water? Health care? Commitment to diversity? Minimum wage? The positions vary like weekly newspaper advertising inserts.
In a telling turn of events, when he declared his love for “selling things to people,” Scott and his crew chose the backdrop of MD Food Market. As it turned out, the store’s owner, who played a starring role in the ad praising the governor, is reportedly a convicted human trafficker. Just one month after filming the ad, the governor returned to Tampa, this time to highlight his commitment to ending…human trafficking.
Next week, as Floridians head to the polls, a word of caution: “Caveat emptor” – “Buyer beware.”
State Sen. Arthenia Joyner represents District 19, an area that includes parts of Hillsborough, Manatee and Pinellas counties. She is the incoming Senate Democratic Leader for the 2014-2016 legislative term. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
