Daniel Tilson: What I learned eavesdropping on Scott-Crist coffee shop talk

To take the pulse of public sentiment about something or someone in Florida politics, I’d rather eavesdrop on strangers’ coffee shop conversations than pour over the latest polls.

The anecdotal approach certainly has a higher margin of error, no doubt about it. It will never replace the statistical science of polling, nor should it.

But it provides invaluable insight and deeper understanding of what’s really going on in people’s minds when they answer poll questions.

Case in point. Moving around town the other day, I stopped by a Starbucks to do some midday email catch-up. I grabbed the only free table, next to a group of three seniors talking loudly, heatedly.

All three appeared to be in their mid 70s.

I took mental notes as I unpacked my laptop.

A woman in a snappy pantsuit, wearing big and colorful costume jewelry and quite the orange-blonde hairdo, was wagging her finger and admonishing the casually dressed man and woman sitting together across from her.

“No, you can’t trust him either, he just wants us seniors on his side, he knows we vote!”

The other woman took issue with that.

“Hang on, you loved Charlie when he was governor, now you can’t trust…”

“Trust-shmust!” said the man next to her, probably her husband judging from the eye-rolling, head-shaking reaction he got from her for interrupting.

“Both you gals liked Crist plenty. A Republican with heart, you used to call him. We all worked the phones for him when he ran for Senate. So what changed?” he asked across the table.

The woman started fingering and tugging her big, chunky, green-stoned necklace. “He did. He changed. Then he changed again, and again, and now my head’s spinning!”

“Aw c’mon!” scolded the other woman. “For crying out loud, he changed for the better, he came out for protecting women’s rights, the environment, education, better jobs, more…”

“More of the things you believe in!” the man interjected, before being elbowed for it. “Or used to believe in. Doesn’t that matter? ”

“I don’t know, all this stuff on TV about him and that Rothstein character, the Fonzie-scheme thief, and all the…”

“Wait a minute!” said the other woman, almost shouting. “Those are lies from Scott’s commercials, we told you…”

The man cut her off yet again.

“Told you how sleazy Scott is, how the company he ran stole something like two billion from Medicare, from seniors, not to mention…”

“Not to mention, if you interrupt me one more time you’ll be sorry,” warned the scowling woman at his side, before turning her attention across the table.

“Listen, Crist never had a thing to do with any of that Rothstein stuff, never got charged with a thing.”

“And Scott never got charged either!” said the other woman.

The man wisely waited a split second for an opening before retorting, “Because when the FBI questioned him, he took the fifth 70 or 80 times, what does that tell you?”

“He did what he had to do, he stuck to his guns and didn’t change his story like some people do…”

The man and woman facing her had nothing. They just looked at each other and shook their heads.

From across the table came the peace offering.

“Let’s change the subject, how are the grandkids?”

Daniel Tilson has a Boca Raton-based communications firm called Full Cup Media, specializing in online video and written content for non-profits, political candidates and organizations, and small businesses. Column courtesy of Context Florida.