The Republican Party of Florida has tipped its hand and revealed its campaign strategy that will catapult Rick Scott into the governor’s mansion — simply recast the election from a choice between Scott and Democrat Alex Sink, and instead position Scott as running against President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
I know, it sounds unbelievable, but here it is in a press release sent Wednesday by RPOF Vice Chairman Debbie Cox-Roush, chair of the Hillsborough County (Tampa) Republican Party:
I am pleased to congratulate our Republican gubernatorial nominee Rick Scott. The stakes are high this election cycle and electing a Republican to the Governor’s Mansion is an important part of our mission to keep taxes low and fight for less government and more personal freedom.
I’m energized by Rick’s commitment to conservative values and am looking forward to working with him and contrasting his new ideas with Alex Sink’s record of support for Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
RPOF Chairman John Thrasher is beating the same drum:
What the majority of Floridians don’t support is the Obama Administration’s far-left liberal ideology, yet Alex Sink continues to embrace Obama’s policies of tax, spend, and regulate. What’s worse is that she embraces the failed economic policies of the Obama agenda even in the midst of Florida’s worst economy in decades.
There is no question that it’s time for a change. But, it’s not the left-wing, big-government type of change Barack Obama and Alex Sink promised in 2008. Floridians are looking for new leaders with fresh and innovative ideas, and that’s exactly what they are going to get in 69 days when Rick Scott is elected Governor.
What in reality we will get if Scott is elected is only the second instance in 20 years where we will have elected a person as governor who has never won a statewide race for anything. As far as I know, Scott has never even run for dogcatcher.
Both Cox-Roush and Thrasher employ the same old time-worn terms non-Republicans have to endure every election cycle: “left wing” and “big government” versus “conservative values,” “less government” and “more personal freedom.”
Of course, Scott’s ideas are described as “fresh” and “innovative,” meaning the Republican aparatchiks didn’t think Scott had a real shot at winning the primary so they never bothered to listen to whatever tea baggy drivel he was peddling as his platform and they have no idea what he actually proposes to do if elected.
But now they’re stuck with Mr. Creepy “The Outsider,” and they’ve got to make the most of it. Oh, and there are more registered Democrats than Republicans in Florida, so if Alex Sink can just mobilize them, then Scott — whose base seems really far right and really old — will lose.
