A group called Public Policy Polling (PPP) discovered the obvious: Floridians are having some dramatic buyer's remorse when it comes to electing fraudster Rick Scott as governor.
A poll of 500 Floridians found that his approval rating from diehards remained about the same as a similar PPP poll in December -- 32 percent. But the percentage of those who disapprove of the governor rose from 43 percent all the way up to 55 percent.
From the PPP's website:
Scott's net -23 approval margin makes him the least popular currently serving governoron which PPP has polled. He stacks up with ousted or retired governors David Paterson of New York, Chet Culver of Iowa, and Jim Gibbons of Nevada.As a result, Scott would overwhelmingly lose in a rematch to Sink, 56-37. 16% of those who say they voted for him would switch sides, as would 21% of all Republicans. Sink wins the independent vote by a whopping 61-29 margin, while exit polls had Scott winning them by eight points in November.
It just goes to show that a large slice of voters are, well, total morons. It's like they went to the pet store and decided on a pit bull -- and then suddenly realized it was a bad idea when it bit the neighbor's arm off. Oops.
Remember how Scott was the first candidate for governor in Florida's history to refuse to visit newspapers' editorial boards? Well, now he's just trouncing all over our Sunshine Law. The St. Petersburg Times recently dubbed Scott the "Prince of Darkness" for his lack of transparency, which includes -- and this is incredible -- his refusal to use email because it leaves a document trail and would expose how he thinks on issues. He substitutes open government -- the cornerstone of American democracy -- with shallow events on Twitter and Facebook.
The Times' editorial editor, Tim Nickens, reported on how Scott, unlike all his predecessors, also won't let reporters attend dinners he has with state legislators and other officials at the Governor's Mansion, effectively making them private functions. Scott has also instituted a new policy to charge fees for public records requests, making it tedious and expensive to see what the hell he's really doing to our state.
"By his actions and his inactions, Scott's indifference to the public's right to know is obvious," Nickens wrote. "He acknowledges he does not
use e-mail because he does not want to create a public record that might reveal his thinking. His office so far has refused to reveal who flies on his private plane or who visits him in the Governor's Mansion. His agency heads are muzzled, under orders to get approval before speaking publicly...
"This is not just a routine skirmish between a governor controlling his message and a frustrated Tallahassee press corps. This is not about new media such as Twitter vs. traditional media such as newspapers. This is about a lack of respect for the constitutional rights of all Floridians to have access to their state government and the information necessary to hold it accountable. Scott is more hostile to open meetings and public records than any governor in more than 40 years, and he has created a dark cloud over Florida's Sunshine Laws."
-- Did you know that Beverly Bard Stracher -- the shady political operative all tangled up in the biggest corruption scandal in Broward County history -- has a brother who practically owns Denver, Colorado?
Well, that may be an exaggeration, but entrepreneur Richard Bard, who grew up in Broward, is one of the Rockies' highest rollers after making a fortune investing in businesses and real estate. His name is on a local college's school of business, and he got some newspaper ink when he put his house (pictured at right) on the market for $24 million in 2008. Now he's apparently in a venture to buy up banks.
Stracher, meanwhile, sits on the Broward taxpayers' dole as a county aide to fellow state's witness Ilene Lieberman, another of the growing list of discredited politicians who refuses to do us the favor of resigning.
The relevance? Now sure. Just a weird aside, I guess.
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