Branded the Great Divider by Florida's mainstream media, Gov. Rick Scott is now the Great Uniter. Everyone is mad at him.
Red-meat conservatives feel furiously betrayed after he approved SunRail, a multibillion-dollar train project they dismiss as a boondoggle.
Lefties -- who have been quiet on the issue, or passively supportive -- call him a hypocrite for killing high-speed rail (read: Obamarail) and green-lighting SunRail, which was backed by GOP leaders.
Damned if he did, damned if he didn't, Scott was in a no-win situation.
The threat of a protracted court fight -- something that Central Florida politicians were fully capable of mounting -- might have made Scott's approval a fait accompli. Appropriations by the Florida Legislature before Scott even took office may have tied him to the tracks.
One thing is certain: Such political gamesmanship has widened the rift between grass-roots conservatives and business conservatives in this state.
Two leading business groups, the Chamber of Commerce and the Associated Industries of Florida, were all in for SunRail. So was Republican leadership. These are the folks who supported Bill McCollum for governor, before Scott blazed onto the political scene and toppled the anointed one just a year ago.
Scott's insurgent campaign -- and his ultimate victory in November -- was fueled by an army of freshly energized tea party activists. After four years of the quixotic Charlie Crist and nefarious dealings at the Republican Party of Florida, populist and libertarian-leaning conservatives believed they finally had the real deal.
The SunRail decision was dispiriting to this cadre, to say the least. Whether Scott has fatally undermined his shaky political base remains to be seen.
But he didn't exactly put on a robust defense Friday. He left it to FDOT secretary Ananth Prasad to make the long-awaited announcement and, hours later, admitted to reporters that he remains concerned about anemic ridership. His claim that any operating losses will be confined to participating local entities is disputed by those who have studied the agreement.
If Scott had hopes that his SunRail ticket might buy a moment of peace from the left, he was badly mistaken.
Liberals' reflexive and pathological antagonism was immediately on display. Within minutes of the administration's announcement, mainstream media outlets like the Miami Herald started dissecting the flaws in the SunRail project -- an exercise that they studiously avoided heretofore. Protesters at Scott's appearance in St. Petersburg later in the day were as angry and raucous as ever.
In retrospect, Scott's SunRail decision may be seen as a John McCain or Charlie Crist triangulation gone awry. Instead of gaining favor with "moderates," he ends up in no-man's land -- alienating the right and mocked by the left.
State Sen. Paula Dockery, a maverick Republican, said the governor's decision "completes his transformation from businessman to political insider." No compliment there.
Indeed, along with Scott, the GOP's political-business class gets caught in the crossfire, too.
As Andrew Nappi, head of the Florida 10th Amendment Center, put it: "Scott shows more love for CSX and John Mica than for his 'base' in approving SunRail. Let the rationalizing begin!"
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Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 801-5341.
