This morning, Quinnipiac finds slightly brighter — or perhaps less dark — news for Florida governor Rick Scott, while Sen. Marco Rubio continues to enjoy positive approval ratings:
Florida voters, especially women, like Gov. Rick Scott more as a person, but all voters still disapprove 50 – 37 percent of the job he’s doing, in a Quinnipiac University poll released today, compared to a 52 – 35 percent disapproval August 5 and a 57 – 29 percent disapproval May 25. . . . U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio does better than Scott among Florida voters. He has a 49 – 31 percent approval rating, with positive scores of 81 – 10 percent among Republicans and 52 – 30 percent among independent voters. Democrats disapprove 52 – 19 percent.
I'm beginning to worry about the folks in Florida, which includes some of my own family members. Do they not get it? Are the only issues they care about Social Security income and Medicare?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWith the beating that Scott takes in the press from the Teacher's Union people it's a wonder that he has any popularity. They've filed suit against him over tenure.
FWIW, Florida is projecting a surplus in revenue for next year. He's got us on the right track. Sooner or later, the Wisconsin example is going to get out. Of course, there will probably be riots first.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseScott has the Democrats, the unions and the press (but I repeast myself) out for his blood from day one. In addition he's had an almost Bush-like PR operation. He seems to think the best way to respond to slander is to ignore it. Add in the growing pains of a former CEO learning how state government functions (or fails to) and he's had a rough first nine months.
But the biggest thing hurting him at the moment is that we're seeing a lot of the pain his policies are bringing right now, while the benefits won't kick in for awhile. (Although the pain has been a lot less than the apocalypse predicted by his enemies. There haven't been the wholesale firings of cops, firefighters and teachers - which are *always* threatened whenever anyone says "budget cut". (Somehow jobs like "executive assistant to the Chair of the County Commission" or "Deputy Mayor for Minority Outreach" are never at risk under an austerity plan.)
But I think Scott's numbers will go up if he can make some progress on the economy (difficult with Obama in the White House.) Unemployment here has been higher than the national average, and after several straight months of decline seems stalled at around 10%. If the GOP wins big in 2012, taking the White House and the Senate, I expect an economic turn-around. (Just repealing Obamacare and Dodd-Frank will remove much of the paralyzing uncertainty that currently afflicts job creators, and rational tax reform will get millions of dollars now sitting on the sidelines circualting again.)
That rising tide will raise Florida's boat as well, so Scott should actually be in good shape in the polls by the time he needs to look at re-election. (Unless he decides that he accomplished what he set out to do and is content to govern for one term. Then he could step aside in favor of Senator Rubio, who could use some executive experience before he mounts *his* inevitable run for the White House. ;-))
The captcha at the moment is "pipe dream". Wonder if somebody's trying to tell me something? :-)
Later,
Joe
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGov. Scott's poll support appears to me to lag his actual support overall. He's not had the "publicity" that Scott Walker had, where the latter's call for state employees to pay a nominal portion of their health care caused those employees to crystalize the issues for the public which worked to his benefit.
Rick Scott's had to do some grunt work up front that hasn't had much marketing upside and his opponents have pounded him in print and on TV. Once a budget surplus has been banked at the end of an FY, however, and surely when combined with a more conservative national Congress, he should be in much better shape.
The Republican primary here also underestimates actual support for him, as his defeat of an establishment (and fairly conservative) candidate may have some primary opponent supporters from being as vocal in support of him.
Lastly, there ARE a fair number of liberals down here, whether retirees from liberal states or ardent local liberals and/or union leeches with an expectation of continued access to the state's tax revenues. Some of these are burdened with a short attention span, a (well meaning, though misguided) liberal belief system, and some know better but exploit the other two, and this means that any Republican or conservative candidate must explain a detailed plan for Social Security that starts with "We're not going to TOUCH yours, but . . ."
We're not California but we still have Debbie Wasserman Schultz, though we got rid of Allen Grayson! In that context, Rick Scott is doing about as well as could be expected.
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