Six months ago, in the wake of the wipeout midterm elections, moderate Florida Sen. Bill Nelson privately vented that President Barack Obama, weighed down by his health reform effort and muddled messaging, was “toxic” for Democrats back home.
Yet Obama’s approval rating has surged from 42 percent to 51 percent in the past month, and Nelson is now openly embracing the president, dutifully pronouncing himself “fired up” at an Obama-hosted Miami fundraiser this spring.
What’s changed? The killing of Osama bin Laden, slow but demonstrable improvements to the foreclosure-ravaged economy, a cooling of tea party passions and the toxic nature of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s Medicare overhaul in a state with one of the largest populations over age 55 in the nation — are all factors in Obama’s turnaround.
But Obama’s biggest asset in a critical swing state he won by a mere 2.8-percentage-point margin in 2008 might be Rick Scott, the wildly unpopular Republican governor Democrats are casting as Lex Luthor to Obama’s Clark Kent.
Democrats say Scott, a stern, angular, unvarnished former health insurance executive, is an easily caricatured embodiment of conservative excess and tea party overreach. And he will likely be Obama’s prime target in Florida, no matter who the Republican presidential nominee is, as well as the best hope of countering the threat posed by the possible selection of popular freshman Sen. Marco Rubio as the GOP nominee’s vice-presidential candidate.
“Obviously, it gets a lot tougher for us if they put someone like Rubio on the ticket,” said Scott Arceneaux, executive director of the Florida Democratic Party. “But Rick Scott is the standard-bearer for Republicans in Florida. … He wants to be President Obama’s foil in Florida, and we’re more than happy to let him be just that.”
Read More: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/55894.html
Politico/Thrush/Tau/ 05/30/2011
Florida Latin Connection/ Arnoldo Varona, Editor
President Obama’s secret weapon in Florida: Rick Scott
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