By Diane Roberts
Florida, eh? If it isn’t hurricanes, it’s massive . If it isn’t the court slapping down the governor’s racist congressional map, it’s some of his Nazi pals putting on a sidewalk parade in Orlando.
Then there’s Florida’s 2024 U.S Senate race.
As you probably know, Rick Scott is running for reelection.
Or is he? A mere six weeks ago, Scott hinted he might jump into the unseemly mosh pit that is the Republican presidential nomination contest because he’s 1. Rich and arrogant; 2. Rich and clueless; 3. Roundly despised by his colleagues in the upper chamber: When he tried to unseat Mitch McConnell as minority leader in 2022, he lost, 37-10.
Such a resounding rejection by his own party might make a less monumental ego re-examine his priorities and perhaps decide to learn how politics works.
Not Rick Scott. He took it as a sign he should perhaps consider higher office.
Plus, he dislikes Ron DeSantis. Another personality-challenged Floridian bouncing into the Republican presidential food fight would irritate the governor — not that it’s hard to irritate that guy.
Like Donald Trump, whose candidacy Scott was one of the first to champion in 2015, Florida’s junior senator does not appear to have what you’d call a rich inner life, but he enjoys tormenting his successor, pointedly accompanying Joe Biden on his tour of Idalia’s destruction after DeSantis sulkily refused to meet the president, or gumming up the works of the transition in 2019 with last-minute appointments to state agencies, leaving DeSantis’ inauguration before the speech, and holding a rival inaugural ball.
But now that DeSantis’ campaign is deteriorating faster than Marjorie Taylor Greene’s mental health, it appears Scott has officially hit his senatorial reset button.
Maybe because it wouldn’t be fun to beat DeSantis after he beats himself; maybe because there are rumors DeSantis might jump into the Florida Senate race once national Republicans kick him to the curb.
Challengers
Whatever the reason, he’s drawn two plausible Democratic challengers.
Phil Ehr, a 26-year Navy vet who tried to unseat the egregious Matt Gaetz in 2020, and former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, an administrator at FIU, born in Ecuador and the first Latin American immigrant to be elected to Congress.
Down there somewhere in the lower lefthand corner, there’s also the combustible ex-congressman Alan Grayson, but his Senate run, announced on June 22, won’t detain us for long.
Ehr lost to Gaetz by 30 points — hardly unexpected given that District 1 is as Trumpy as a Friday night Proud Boys mixer.
Ehr does, however, have an impressive CV, according to his U.S. campaign website and LinkedIn.
He’s a former naval officer — a commander, not a low-rent sailor like Rick Scott, who puts on his Navy ball cap whenever he wants to show he’s a Man of the People. Ehr is one of the leaders of the George Washington Initiative, “an information civil defense force” to counter and disrupt misinformation. When he’s not fighting fake news online, he flies humanitarian missions to Ukraine.
Mucarsel-Powell, however, looks like a better bet. She’s got more name-recognition in South Florida. She’s a pro-gun control, pro-choice Latina personally recruited by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
And she may have spooked the Scott campaign — at least a little bit — given that they’re calling her a “loser” and a “radical socialist.”
Not that they know what a socialist is. But conservatives use the word for anything and anyone that scares them.
Mansplaining
In response to the NAACP, the ACLU and the Human Rights Campaign warnings that travel to Florida could be hazardous to people of color, LGBTQ people, or people who just believe in decency and tolerance, Scott posted a huffy hunk of mansplaining on that X-thing that everyone still calls Twitter, warning “socialists and communists” and suchlike to stay out of Florida.
“We’re the free state of Florida. We actually don’t believe in socialism, we actually know people, some people in our state lived under it and we know people that lived under socialism. It’s not good,” he says.
“We like freedom, liberty, capitalism, things like that.”
Things like that.
Alas, however gauche, ignorant, and objectionable Scott may be, Dems shouldn’t get too excited about their chances. Floridians have no trouble electing gauche, ignorant, and objectionable candidates.
Exhibit A: Ron DeSantis: racist, liar, jerk, recently seen yelling at a Black Air Force vet who suggested that his policies as governor have enabled white supremacists.
Exhibit A+: Rick Scott. If he weren’t so rich, he’d probably be in jail.
Before Scott flapped into Florida like a hungry buzzard, he was a rapacious capitalist for whom following the law was more or less optional.
His for-profit hospital chain, Columbia/HCA, defrauded Medicare of vast sums, robbing the heath care funding for senior citizens.
Charming, huh?
Columbia/HCA got hit with a $1.7 billion fine. Rick Scott got handed $300 million in stock and $5 million in cash to go away before he made even more of a criminal mess.
Floridians knew all of this before we elected him governor (twice), then, in 2018, senator.
What the hell is wrong with us?
Putting up a fight
At any rate, it’s good to see the Florida Democratic Party, demoralized by decades of failure, putting up a fight.
They’ll need to raise astronomical amounts of money; Scott has repeatedly shown that he will spend bucket-loads of his own cash to win.
Florida’s — indeed, the world’s — most urgent issue is climate change, but Scott, prize idiot that he is, has done nothing. In fact, he’s a net negative on the environment.
As governor, he wouldn’t allow state employees to even utter the phrase “climate change,” and he dismantled the Department of Community Affairs, the only state agency that had a chance to manage Florida’s ugly, water-polluting, habitat-destroying, out-of-control growth.
As a first-term senator, he got himself elected head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. He had one job: Help Republicans regain control of the upper house.
But by September 2020, he’d squandered 95 percent of the GOP’s campaign cash on ill-judged digital fundraising initiatives and, come the new year, Democrats had added to their slim-but-operational majority.
Compounding the general (and entirely correct) suspicion that this fellow is a few sandwiches short of a picnic, Scott announced a “Rescue America” plan in which (among other things) poor people would have to pay more taxes and Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare would have to be re-authorized every five years and maybe even dispensed with.
Scott actually thought that shredding the safety net created for the old, the poor, the sick, and children would be popular. When Mitch McConnell heard this, he pitched what, for him, passes for an eye-rolling hissy fit.
Flying pigs
Scott backed off some of the stupidest proposals by pretending that he was misquoted, misinterpreted, and generally ill-treated by the leftist media and Washington insiders.
You’d think attacking old people’s benefits in a state full of old people — most of whom vote Republican — would be enough to get Scott frog-marched out of Washington.
But then, Florida voted for Trump twice. DeSantis, too. Crazy and cruel sell well in this state.
Still, pigs could fly (if you give them jet packs) and stars could align.
Scott has never run in a presidential election year. If Democrats and Independents actually show up at the polls, perhaps inspired by the necessity to defeat the insurrectionist Trump who is, at the moment, the top contender for the Republican nomination, a good number could decide they don’t want a billionaire who won’t lift a finger to save the planet, much less help the poor, for their senator.
Perhaps we’ll discover Florida is more purple than we think; or perhaps it’s too late. As the storms ravage us, the heat fries us, and the cost of living debilitates us, Rick Scott will be swanning around the Capitol or off on some yacht, counting his money, complaining about socialism and reminding the servants to call him “Senator.”
Diane Roberts is an 8th-generation Floridian, born and bred in Tallahassee. Educated at Florida State University and Oxford University in England, she has been writing for newspapers since 1983, when she began producing columns on the legislature for the Florida Flambeau. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Times of London, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Oxford American, and Flamingo. She has been a member of the Editorial Board of the St. Petersburg Times–back when that was the Tampa Bay Times’s name–and a long-time columnist for the paper in both its iterations. She was a commentator on NPR for 22 years and continues to contribute radio essays and opinion pieces to the BBC. Roberts is also the author of four books.
Laurel says
We need to vote Democratic and remove the current, supposed conservative party until the real Republican conservatives make their way back again. Then we can only hope for both parties working across the aisle, adding sanity and balance back into our democracy.
Seniors in this state vote against their own interests. Blue collar people do the same.
Rick Scott: ugh.
Atwp says
If he run, he will probably win. This state love non thinking political leaders. Look at the governor. They act like they don’t care about the voters. The world we live in.
Robjr says
Only in America.
This is a man who ran a healthcare corporation that defrauded the federal government of around one billion $. Then he took the fifth amendment when called into to testify.
The Scott Plan is to raise taxes on working families and slash essential programs such as Medicare and Medicaid as well as Social Security.
Metaphorically speaking and unfortunately, the people whose neck he will have his foot on will once again dutifully scurry down to their local voting precinct and reelect him into office.
Only in America.
Angela says
The government power in Florida reflect why the harshest rules in the world lines up to congratulate our last President in 2016. These harsh powers have figured out AI and how to manipulate people. Hitler did it. The T man (our last president) lusts in it and is the perfect puppet. NO one want to face how much influence the Republican party has had from these harsh powers. The Republican’s don’t realize what harm they are causing but I hold them accountable because they don’t want to stop their excitement to listen to what is happening in our nation. They are lust with power just like all evil rules of the past. Th worst crime in history is a good persons doing nothing. Hold your loved one accountable for their efforts to support powers that take away our choices to live as a proud citizen as opposed to a powerless fearful people.
Angela says
Okay, this is the third time I ask “Angela” to add an initial to her name when posting here. This comment was not written by Angela Bailus, who wrote an article on vacation rentals, here on Flagler Live, and comments as Angela.
Thank you.
Robert B says
My father, a US Navy vet, died about 3 ½ years ago. He expressed his wishes that he wanted his ashes scattered at sea which we planned for and sent his remains to Mayport in Jacksonville. As suggested, I sent his remains with a return receipt, so I knew that they had gotten them. Six months later I had still not gotten confirmation of his interment at sea. When I called, I was told that there was no one available that could answer the question. So, out of frustration, I wrote Rick Scott a letter asking for his assistance to finding out what was going on with my dad’s ashes.
You guessed it, he did not respond! No phone call, not even form letter, nothing. Oh, but he had time to go around the country spout this or that crap about elections, president, and Covid but no time to even have one of his staff members to respond. I eventually got a response, about 1 year and a half later after writing a letter to the Commander Officer of Mayport. Four months later my dad was buried at sea. TWO YEARS AFTER my first letter to Mr. Scott, I finally got a form letter acknowledging his staff had gotten the letter and that they would be in contact. That was it!!
My point, Mr. Scott is not there to represent the people of Florida. He is there to pad his pockets and make a name for himself. DO NOT RE-ELECT THIS DO NOTHING FRAUD AND CRIMINAL!!!
Treeman says
Rep. Mike Waltz is another RINO who has to be DEFEATED at the 2024 election! This “War Hero” is a AFRAID to do ‘Town Hall Meetings”! WHY!! He visited a Palm Coast Council Meeting; received a ‘Key to the City’: then he RAN out of the building WITHOUT answering any questions from the people who live in his district!! Ask Waltz about the donations he receives from WINRED!!
T says
They want capitalism only things to rich not hard workers remember that people and its funny how they use socialism explain it better or people should look up enjoy
good bye says
Check out what Scott did to the students in
Florida when he changed the Bright Futures scholarship requirements. Ask any one what he did to the unemployed workers. In Florida You receive $150.00 per week if you can figure out how to apply for it. This guy is totally subpar, no good, not even for a politician. No moral character. Him and DeSantis are both poor excuses for elected officials.
scott
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Charles says
Agreed. They both are out for themselves just like Trump. They talk and talk and do nothing to help the people of Florida. They are liars and greedy con artist. Stop voting for people who could careless whether you live or die.
DeathSantis and his phone puppet Surgeon General are at it again telling people not to get the covid vaccine. More blood on their hands and they could careless.
TR says
I wouldn’t vote for him if he was the last person on earth. He flip flops so much he looks like a fish out of water on the ground. Besides he doesn’t want to help any citizen at all.
Robert B: I’m sorry for what happened top you with your dad’s remains. May he now rest in peace at sea. It should not have happened.
The dude says
I guess Floriduh is where horrible people come to run for office?
This rings true for Flagler county as well.
All these horrible people getting voted in over and over again can only mean one thing, they represent horrible people.
Now, to be sure… not ever person I met in central Floirduh was absolutely horrible. But I don’t go to political events, or events where politicking occurs, nor have I ever been in any of the MAGA madrases over there on King’s road.
John says
I don’t vote for someone that stole from Healthcare funds and pleads the 5th. Florida voters wake up to who these characters actually are not when they lie to get re-elected all the time and tell you how great they are when they are lying to your face on the campaign trail.
Its time for new candidates that don’t scam Medicare and Medicaid.
ban the GOP says
To me its utimately keep business as usual until we collapse or make drastic changes for a better world and possible livable future. Either way it goes the way Americans currently live their lives is going to change dramatically. Infinate growth on a finate planet was destined to fail. Elect fecal matter like scott and you get more business as usual.
Stephen says
I,m glad he wants to keep Republicans out of Florida.
James says
Well, being a human turkey vulture does have one advantage.
All he has to do is put on a black feathered top, black leotard and some white stockings and he’s all set for Halloween.
Btw, please note that I used the quantifier “human” in my description, not to malign the reputation of real turkey vultures everywhere… those poor unloved birds that go about their daily existence with one purpose. One of the most hideous, but essential of tasks for their very existence (and ours).
Dennis C Rathsam says
Looks like the Florida democrats, will be crying again come ellection day. If its these 2 candidates…. This is the best you democrats have? Why not draft Charlie Crist….at least he can raise money…. Speaking of money, Fl dems wont raise enough money too elect anyone. Run Dianne Run!!!!
Thomas Hutson says
Scott is a scumbag he is the epitome of what inbred scumbags would look like, but hold on … he even gives scumbags a bad name!!!
Sally says
Mr. Egg Head Scott is the largest thief in Florida, look at his track record before you vote him in again. People wake up and do your voting research.
JEK says
Let’s get this guy OUT of office!!! Ugh
CinD says
What is wrong with FL voters. Why??? Climate Change….climate change…. climate change….. lol…. there. I said it! It’s real but so many don’t believe it. May they fry or freeze in peace. Please, let’s get some “real’ people in office. I guess you have to be a millionaire anymore for that. Sadly, FL is being taken over my millionaires and squeezing out the minorities, the poor and good books!
We obviously have a lot of ignorant voters here. If I could do it tomorrow… I would move. Not the “Free” FL as they claim. What’s free? Can’t choose anything!!! How free is that? Why can’t people see that? Ugh….