Rolling Stone: “The Florida Farce: Rick Scott vs. Charlie Crist”
Rick Scott and Charlie Crist, the two GOP candidates for Florida Governor in 2014.
Jeb Lund of Rolling Stone put out an article on the upcoming gubernatorial election in Florida that everyone in the Sunshine State ought to read. It’s not a class analysis, but it strikes at the complete absence of a real choice for working people in the 2014 Governor election. To top it off, it’s entertaining as hell, especially if you’re even a little familiar with Florida politics.
You can read it here: The Florida Farce: Rick Scott vs. Charlie Crist.
Some highlights:
“His [Rick Scott’s] 2010 candidacy felt spectacularly surreal because, to paraphrase something I wrote then, he was a proud, self-celebratory embodiment of unpunished white collar crime. It was like seeing the executives of Merrill, AIG, Lehman Brothers and Countrywide simultaneously going through Senate confirmations to the Federal Reserve while drawing fingers across their necks at the committee chairperson and mouthing the words, “YOU’RE NEXT.” Scott could run on his record only in the most oblique and vacuous manner, since floating away via golden parachute after bumping your revenues by defrauding the federal government is not a viable state economic model.”
…
“Meanwhile, despite claiming on the stump that he [Scott] would create 700,000 new jobs in seven years, on top of the projected job growth of 1,000,000, for a rate of roughly 242,857 jobs per year, Scott almost immediately ratcheted his pledge down by 1,000,000, claiming he merely needed to create 700,000 jobs total. This is akin to pledging 2 billion years ago to build a grand hotel and canyon on the site of the Colorado River, then showing up 2 billion years later to take credit for the Grand Canyon and hope everyone forgot about the hotel. And, as the Tampa Bay Times reports, he still comes up short according to his own office, reporting growth of 620,300 jobs in four years, far short of the 971,428 he should be on track for. Worse, even his own office’s numbers are fudged, because they don’t count public sector job losses — despite the fact that they are jobs — because, well, fuck ’em. Factor in jobs lost to Scott’s budget slashing and elimination of regulatory oversight — 15,000 in just the first eight months alone — and he’s only at 594,900.” Continue reading →
Chain-Gang Charlie Crist and the Political Economy of Mass Incarceration in Florida
A real political cartoon that ran in Florida newspapers in 1995.
Critics of former Florida Governor Charlie Crist have spilled plenty of ink denouncing the former Florida governor’s political opportunism. Crist, a life-long Republican who was elected governor in 2006, became an independent candidate for the US Senate in 2010 after he lost the GOP primary to current Senator Marco Rubio. Since that time, Crist made the full switch and became the Florida Democratic Party’s nominee for governor in the upcoming 2014 election.
However, Crist’s opponent, Governor Rick Scott, will probably allow him to get away with his most egregious hypocrisy: Crist’s outspoken support for most of the same policies that Governor Scott champions today. Opportunists like Crist generally escape the most scathing criticisms of their records because the two candidates fundamentally agree on the big issues. This isn’t a result of the two campaigns conspiring with each other to put on a good show. Instead, it’s the reality that both Scott and Crist come from and represent the same ruling class interests in Florida, even if at times they represent different sections of that class.
In the last post, “Whoever wins, workers lose,” we looked at the prison industry’s strong support for Scott’s campaign today and Crist’s campaign back in 2006. It’s worth examining Crist’s close ties to this particular industry because it highlights the ways in which both the Republicans and the Democrats nominate candidates for office that come from the same political backers. Continue reading →
Florida 2014: Whoever wins, workers lose.
On August 26, 2014, Florida’s gubernatorial election officially became a battle between two Republican governors. The story is now infamous: Charlie Crist, after an unsuccessful bid for the US Senate in 2010, is challenging right-wing incumbent Rick Scott to reclaim his old job as governor of Florida, this time as a Democrat.
With less than a month and a half to go, both candidates have spent a combined total of $32 million. With that total continuing to climb, analysts expect Florida to have the nation’s most expensive gubernatorial election in 2014.
Yet for all this sound and fury, voters are extremely dissatisfied with both candidates. More people reported disliking both candidates than favoring either one, with 48% of voters disliking Scott and 49% of voters disliking Crist, according to a Quinnipiac University poll from September 24. Both candidates ranked low on trustworthiness and caring about the needs of ordinary people. Despite the flood of cash flowing into Florida, neither Scott nor Crist are the people’s choice.
To understand what’s really at stake in Florida’s 2014 gubernatorial elections, we need to look beyond the campaign rhetoric and examine the class forces behind each candidate. When we analyze Crist and Scott in this way, we can see that both candidates represent the interests of the rich. While the particular investors behind each candidate vary, both Charlie Crist and Rick Scott are candidates for the ruling class, not working people. Continue reading →
Union Forever, Dixie Never 
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