Money Still Matters Most

Bill McCollum's welfare campaign and Rick Scott's election purchase have taken the Republican primary into the courthouse, a great irony for the party which so fervently fights placing any power in the hands of the Florida judiciary. McCollum won round one of his court battle Wednesday, a surprise noted by Steve Singiser at Daily Kos, but getting stuck on the courtroom drama misses the greater point demonstrated in this war of riches.

If this decision stands, which is far from certain, it doesn't change that McCollum is being outspent by $25 million and has only $800,000 on hand six weeks before the primary. It also doesn't change the fact Rick Scott has no experience in public service, and his greatest private sector accomplishment was chairing a health care company that defrauded the federal government for billions. This is the worst viable candidate in the modern era with a real chance to move into the governor's mansion. No amount of ill-gotten loot buys this man credentials or erases his failures.

And yet he is winning. A Chamber of Commerce poll released last month showed Scott, a failed HCA executive, with a five-point edge over McCollum, a sitting attorney general who is running his fourth statewide campaign. On Monday, Reuters released a poll which shows Scott beating Alex Sink, Florida's Chief Financial Officer, by four points but shows McCollum barely losing to the certain Democratic nominee.

I know a lot of people are getting excited because this is the first poll in forever which shows Sink ahead of McCollum, but at this point I find it highly unlikely McCollum will make it through the primary. The amateurishness he demonstrated in dealing with Scott's upstart campaign has doomed him to another victory party where the balloons never drop. More disturbing to me is the now plentiful amount of polling data which shows Scott beating both McCollum and Sink. Often the differences are statistical ties, as is the case with the Reuters poll, but Scott clearly has the momentum.

Does anyone expect public financing to turn the tide? This strange and constitutionally-shaky law basically provides a dollar to McCollum for every dollar Scott spends beyond a public financing cap. But McCollum hasn't effectively used the money he has, and I doubt that will change when he gets his hands on taxpayer finances. Republicans complain about government waste? How about spending $6 million in state revenue trying to save Impeachment Bill's political hide?

That's a snarky comment, but I bet many of the conservatives voting in this primary will be upset by that irony. These same voters have shown no reluctance to embrace Scott's get-rich-by-any-means shenanagins. McCollum tried going negative on Scott, but it didn't work. Scott put out the "Unfortunately That's True" ad, which just may go down in Florida Politics history as the most brazen mea culpa to ever be featured in a multi-million TV blitz. I didn't think this sort of "I'm a Crook, So What!" message could resonate outside of Louisiana, but it did.

Clearly, McCollum didn't anticipate Scott surviving a storm of bad press. We know that because it seems to be all the Attorney General has talked about for the past two months. There are no ads touting McCollum's specific accomplishments as AG or as a member of Congress. He is running a losing campaign, and we are suffering the consequence. Indeed this is where the political incompetence of a failing former frontrunner has potential to doom us all. Scott will walk away from the August primary smelling like a winner, and he still leads Alex Sink in all polls.

So if McCollum gets his public financing, fine. It won't matter, but maybe he can use it to tarnish Scott's bad name a little more before moderate and liberal voters get a swing. But don't think Scott will stop campaigning just because he lost this court battle. Remember McCollum only gets money when Scott spends it, and Scott has shown a willingness to spend whatever it takes to governor. It just may work.