Can Another Lying Socialist Beat Rick Scott?

We’ve been marveling over the last few months at the brazenness of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in their lying about Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. However, it seems that their campaign model is being followed at the state and local levels as well. If I have to hear one more time about a Republican who wants to ban abortion because of what “Project 2025” says, I may throw the remote through the TV screen.

In all of the punditry surrounding the key Senate races this year, there is one that hasn’t had much mention. Perhaps as a result of Governor Ron DeSantis’s 60 percent rout in 2022, Republicans have taken for granted that Senator Rick Scott would have an easy ride back to the Senate in 2024. Not so fast.

To understand why Scott’s Democrat opponent, former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is running so closely to Scott now, we need to understand that Florida has only recently been considered a solid red state. DeSantis himself barely squeaked out a win in 2018 against an opponent who had a sexual scandal exposed just prior to the election. Before that, Florida has had a history of alternating between Democrat and Republican governors and senators - that is, it’s been a purplish state until the last few years.

Enter Mucarsel-Powell, who has plenty of campaign cash to repeatedly lie brazenly about Scott’s policies and record. In fact, she sounds so much like Kamala Harris in her condemnations and falsehoods that you’d think they were related. The negativity makes Rick Scott sound like Donald Trump’s evil twin. In contrast, Scott has taken the high road in his campaign, relying on PACs to dish the dirt on his opponent (and, as a typical progressive, that’s a lot of dirt). He’s made clear his support for in-vitro fertilization, pointing to his own family as one that’s positively affected by the procedure. First responders have sung his praises as one of the first to call about what needs to be done when disaster strikes, as it often has in Florida in recent times. To me, without digging beneath the surface, Rick Scott seems to embody the common-sense, good-guy approach to serving in government. 

For years I’ve wondered, how did Scott get elected governor of Florida twice, and then to the U.S. Senate where he’s running for a second term? How did he put what looks like a Donald Trump-sized scandal behind him so successfully?

The scandal occurred back in the late 1990s in a company that Scott presided over. If Democrats are to be believed (and that’s a huge “if”), Scott as the CEO of healthcare giant Columbia/HCA was responsible for one of the largest Medicare frauds in history. Scott admitted to no wrongdoing, although he did resign under pressure in 1997. The end result after a few years of litigation was a $1.7 billion fine slapped on Scott’s company, and a whistleblower accountant came forward and claimed that Scott not only knew of the fraudulent activities, but he was in fact the mastermind. Scott has continued to proclaim his innocence and, as the Justice Department’s lawfare against former President Trump escalated, Scott likened his Columbia/HCA situation to Trump’s. That is, a Democrat Justice Department that was out to get him, in his case the Clinton Administration. 

In Scott’s view, his vocal opposition to Hillary Clinton’s health care proposals got him into hot water and that, combined with some honest mistakes, put him and his company in the crosshairs. It takes a lot of chutzpah for a politician to dredge up a 20-year-old scandal in the midst of a current campaign while his opponent is using it against him, especially if the charges pointing to him had some validity. But Scott apparently felt it was worth the risk to show his support for Trump while once again proclaiming his innocence. Unless he’s politically tone-deaf, which after three successful campaigns for high offices he clearly is not, Scott apparently believes in his innocence and also believes that the Dems cannot make anything stick because there’s nothing there.

An indisputable fact is that Scott’s tenure at Columbia/HCA made him a rich man, often referred to as “the richest man in the Senate.” Maybe that’s why his opponent is using the class warfare card along with the Medicare fraud scandal to paint Scott as a grifter who doesn’t care about or relate to the average citizen. Dems in general may fear the possibility that a Scott victory and a Republican takeover of the Senate will lead to Scott’s selection as the new Majority Leader. This could be a welcome development after many years of enduring the ultimate Washington insider, Mitch McConnell, in the leadership roles of both Majority and Minority Leader.