Posted on 08/13/2010 8:33:41 PM PDT by Maelstorm
TALLAHASSEE — Rick Scott leads the Republican primary for governor in a new statewide poll thanks to his massive TV ad buys and the old maxim: It's the economy, stupid.
Despite lingering questions about his business record and a Medicare fraud scandal in his background, the former health care executive has a 10 percentage-point lead over rival Bill McCollum ahead of the Aug. 24 primary in part because voters see Scott as the candidate who can best pull the economy out of the doldrums.
"Whoever's better on the economy is going to win this thing," Ipsos pollster Julia Clark said. "I would be happy to put money on it."
The statewide telephone survey conducted for the St. Petersburg Times, Miami Herald, Bay News 9 and Central Florida News 13 shows Scott with 42 percent support, McCollum 32 percent, 3 percent favoring another candidate and 23 percent undecided, even after the two men and their allied groups have spent a combined $47 million on TV ads.
The poll of 602 registered voters was conducted Aug. 6-10 by Ipsos Public Affairs, a nonpartisan research company based in Washington, D.C. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points overall and 5.9 percent for questions asked of Republicans.
The governor's race is a virtual toss-up in November against Democrat Alex Sink and independent Lawton "Bud" Chiles, with many voters not sure how they'll vote.
Scott leads Sink, 30 percent to 29 percent, and Sink leads McCollum, 30 percent to 26 percent, with high numbers of undecideds (26 percent and 29 percent respectively).
Chiles, namesake son of the late two-term Democratic governor, gets 14 percent in the Scott-Sink matchup and 12 percent if McCollum is the GOP nominee, drawing votes equally from Democrats and Republicans, the poll shows.
(Excerpt) Read more at tampabay.com ...
Look like Scott has weathered the storm better than expected. Part of it is that Scott has one hell of a message and has the money to get it out even with his baggage. Republicans should take note of how to win with a strong uncompromising conservative message.
Yeah, it’s just a shame he’s a crook.
He’s not a crook. The crooks are in charge.
I keep waiting for Libertarians to actually run campaigns but they don’t. I wish they would especially the conservative Jeffersonian Libertarian type.
Are you kidding; this guys is a crook; the Republican don’t need to be represent by this kind of character.
In what way is he a crook?
Crooks come in all forms.
Candidates with great wealth have a tremendous advantage - Meg Whitman, Romney, Rick Snyder (MI), McCain, Scott, etc.
Senator Frist may be the best person to answer your question. Otherwise, GOOGLE.
Well, as long as he is the “outsider”, it doesn’t matter./s
He will lose in the general election, there is SO MUCH DIRT on this guy.
http://rickscottfraudfiles.com/
http://www.postonpolitics.com/2010/06/rick-scott-launches-ad-website-addressing-columbiahca-fraud/
Jesus Christ himself couldn't overcome this horrific record. $1.7 BILLION in fines for fraud? But THE jey question this year is: will Chiles stay until Election Day, and who does he hurt more as an independent? I would expect Alex Sink.
Respectfully;
Your first link, at the bottom clearly says “PAID FOR BY BILL McCollum” So FAIL!
Your second link leads to this if you actually take the time to read it.
http://www.truthaboutrickscott.com/?page_id=188
Under the “Documentation Tab - There are many Liberal Florida news paper articles pointing out that he is not guilty of anything.
Being a CEO means CRIMINAL is a liberal notion.
Don’t get me wrong-
I am not necessarily a big Rick Scott fan, but just curious about these allegations nonetheless.
(With that said, I would NEVER vote for Bil)
He gave a deposition just before entering the race, and it's for the same kinda crap that he did before, but managed to stay outa jail for.
The deposition was in a settlement concerning Solantic and one of the Drs which is sealed and is standard corporate practice. Also the current CEO of Solantic is Karen Bowling not Rick Scott though he does play a role in the operation of the company. There is also no investigation of Medicare fraud only allegations and what it involves is a rule where Medicare pays a different rate if a Dr is on the premises or not while a physicians assistant is attending to patients something which Solantic has denied. I find the allegation doubtful that Solantic had Clinics running without Drs. on the premises. They may have not always gotten the books perfect but I don’t know of any walk in Clinic that doesn’t have an attending physician available.
Either way this is typical smokescreen politics. Scott can’t legally release his deposition without violating the terms of the court settlement and he would be stupid if he did unless he wished to invite another lawsuit.
Also even with HCA every individual involved was eventually cleared on appeal and Scott was long gone before the settlement was reached. HCA is not the only hospital that was targeted, nearly every major hospital chain including those like St Judes have been found negligent upon investigation. Medicare regulations are so arbitrary and in some cases contradictory not to mention the hassle for what is paid is almost not worth the mess.
No, Scott isn’t a crook but unfortunately there is enough smoke being puffed about by those who smell blood and power that it is easy to forget the facts at hand. If anything he is too trusting and I hope he has learned his lesson in that regard because in the govt the only thing you can trust is that you will always have someone looking to stick a knife in your back.
This all started when Scott crossed horns with the Clinton’s. It wasn’t long after that HCA and many other large hospitals found themselves targets o investigation.
Context is everything.
Rick Scott is proof that pro-Illegal Alien/anti-American polticians like Bill McCollum are easy to defeat.....Scott has punded McCollum on his non-support of SB 1070....then flip-flopping to support it.....
Scott has run an excellent campaign....and its more than the money he spent.
He has run an excellent campaign you are right. If it weren’t for his mess coming out of HCA the guy would be 20 points ahead of McCollum. The GOP sure didn’t mind Rick Scott when he was tearing into Obama. Dicky Morris though has a big ego and for some reason has targeted Scott. McCollum may pull it out but it is amazing how little of his campaign has been about his political career. Scott is running a political campaign that should be a model. If he can run like this and win even with the shadow of his HCA then the power of his message is bigger than him. I’ve been saying that a long time myself. Run on conservatism not on the abstract of it but the credible “here is what I’m going to do” reality of it. People are fed up with do gooder power hungry politicians and a govt that no matter how many times it fails always finds a way to deflect responsibility for the failure while managing to suck in even more money and grow even bigger.
I was reluctant at first to be supportive of Rick but I just have a sense the man is genuine and it isn’t even that McCollum is the worst possible choice for governor though I still believe ultimately he is intrinsically the weaker choice as represented by his typical politician behavior.
I’ve never been a fan of people who say something then say they didn’t say it even when they were on camera which means they think the people who might vote for them are fools. Rick Scott had no choice but to address the HCA issue. I don’t even know if I would’ve been brave enough to deal with it the way he did. It would’ve been much easier to try to deflect blame. It shows character that he didn’t.
People should study the Scott campaign. There is a lot to be learned. The man is doing something that conventional wisdom would indicate is impossible.
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