Scott Watch kicks off with Spanish-language ad slamming Rick Scott

A pair of progressive organizations just launched a new initiative tracking Sen. Rick Scott’s statements and actions.

Progress Florida and Florida Watch’s Scott Watch comes as the Naples incumbent comes up for re-election in November.

“Throughout his time as a self-serving politician, Sen. Rick Scott has consistently focused on his own ambitions for higher office and the needs of his corporate elite friends and donors ahead of the people of Florida,” Scott Watch Communications Director Anders Croy said.

The effort kicks into gear with Spanish-language ads blasting Scott on South Florida radio airwaves. The first ad, “Protección,” begins running Monday in South Florida on Radio Mambi and Actualidad Radio during morning and afternoon drive times.

The script for the one-minute spot features a conversation at a restaurant between a waiter and a customer concerned about her benefits.

“Some politicians, including our own Senator, Rick Scott, want to put Social Security and Medicare at risk,” the customer says in Spanish. “Scott doesn’t understand what life is like for workers and seniors like us.”

“Oh my God! They take it out of my paycheck, and I may not get it in my retirement?” the waiter replies.

The attack is based on the “Rescue America” plan Scott released ahead of the 2022 Midterm while heading the National Republican Senatorial Committee. It included a call to review all federal programs after five years and sunset those that aren’t working.

Critics seized on the plan as an attack on Social Security and Medicare. Scott said that wasn’t his intent and revised his plan multiple times to make clear he did not want those programs subject to the same review.

The radio ad also knocks Scott for voting to give tax cuts to the “rich and powerful” while leaving working Floridians, “including Latinos,” to fend for themselves. It closes with a call to action for voters to complain at Scott’s official Senate website.

The campaign’s organizers said they want to send a message to Spanish-speaking voters.

“While self-serving politicians like Rick Scott make hollow promises to our Latino communities, the reality on the ground is that his plans put our economic security at risk,” Scott Watch Latino Constituency Communications Director Lisa Zayas said.

“We need elected officials who will fight for workers and seniors who are counting on the fact that the promises made to them of a secure retirement won’t be broken by people like Rick Scott. For Latinos who have worked so hard to achieve their version of the American Dream, it is time that we stand up to politicians who say one thing to our faces but turn their backs on us when the time comes to follow through.”

Croy said that’s the overall mission of the Scott Watch effort.

“From the Panhandle to the Keys, Floridians work hard and they deserve to know they will be able to pay the bills, have a secure retirement, and build a better life for themselves and their families,” he said. “Rick Scott’s plans to give more tax cuts to the wealthy, end Social Security and Medicare as we know it, and institute a national abortion ban put those dreams at risk.

“At Scott Watch, we’ll work to ensure that Floridians are informed of the ways in which the Senator is failing them on his self-serving quest for power in Washington, D.C.”

Listen to the ad in Spanish below: