Now that the special session in Tallahassee is over, Rick Scott will be taking a bow. On Monday, Scott will be criss-crossing Florida with seven stops on his “Tax Cut Victory Tour.”
Scott didn’t get all that he wanted, of course, but he dodged some pretty big bullets. After Republicans rejected Scott’s choice of Leslie Dougher to stay at RPOF, Gerald Bailey’s accusations about political tampering at the FDLE, and the regular session fell apart over Medicaid expansion and the budget, Scott needed some wins and he racked up a few. Scott helped ensure Medicaid expansion was a no-go even if the Senate kept pushing it.
While he didn’t get all of his tax cuts, Scott got most of them and he still has three more years to continue cutting them. Scott certainly has enough reasons to declare victory across Florida on Monday.
The mainstream media, of course, took a few shots at Scott for staying out of Tallahassee during much of the special session. He headed over to France for the Paris Air Show, trying to promote Florida’s role in the aeronautical and the aerospace industries and lure companies and jobs to the state. Scott hit the road, making job announcements across Florida while the Legislature was in Tallahassee. Pretty much par for the course.
But there was one event which broke the norm for Scott. Early this month, some of the Republican presidential candidates spoke at Scott’s economic summit at Disney World. Top tier contenders like Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Scott Walker, as well other Republican hopefuls, talked economics at the event and most of them had kind words for the Florida governor.
Contrast that with the last presidential election. Scott was a nonfactor during Mitt Romney’s march to the Republican nomination, not endorsing any of the candidates. During the GOP convention in Tampa, Scott focused on monitoring hurricanes and nobody really seemed to miss him that much.
Scott’s dabbling in the 2016 race shows how much his standing has improved since the last round of presidential primaries. The governor simply isn’t the political pariah that his enemies have made him out to be. Charlie Crist’s whole strategy last year boiled down to “I’m not Rick Scott” and it didn’t pay off. While his numbers aren’t great by any means, Scott is in a better position now than he was for most of his first term and that’s reflected by how presidential candidates are cozying up to him, something that didn’t happen four years ago.
There was a real danger of Scott turning into a lame duck after the RPOF rejected Dougher and the regular session ended on a sour note. The whole Bailey brouhaha vanished months ago and Scott easily outrode that storm. While he certainly did not get all of his priorities through, Scott ended up as a winner during the special session, getting most of his tax cuts over the line and ensuring no Medicaid expansion. Scott’s victory tour on Monday isn’t uncalled for.
Tallahassee political writer Jeff Henderson wrote this analysis exclusively for Sunshine State News.
