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Rick Scott walks into the Floridian diner on Las Olas about noon today for a photo-op lunch with South Florida lawmakers. There's an odd funk in the air, sort of a mix between French fries and kitty litter.
He walks halfway through the main dining room, its walls plastered with framed photos, mostly Marilyn Monroe and other various pinups. He stops in front of a reporter and asks if she'd like a photo with him. Behind him is a framed collage of asses. No, the reporter says,
and Scott moves on to a room painted a mossy green.
Democratic State Rep. Joe Gibbons says the GOP spent way too much time on ideological lawmaking and zero on jobs. Republican Rep. Bill Hagersaid lowering the corporate income tax has everything to do with jobs. "Call up Texas," he says. "Call up Texas." A brief spar ensues, during which Scott briefly steps into the fray to interject that nearly 86,000 jobs have been created in Florida since he took office.
Asked whether today's lunch is just an effort to revamp his Mr. Burnsesque image, he says, "You know, I started doing this right when I got elected."
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