A Well-deserved McCollum Defeat

Once in a while I get to hug myself in glee. Last night's primary election results gave me one of those rare opportunities. Rick Scott defeated Bill McCollum to run for the Florida governorship in November under the Republican banner.

This has been the dirtiest campaign that I have ever seen, and his conservative claims notwithstanding, McCollum proved himself to be an underhanded dirty trickster of the worst sort. Beyond McCollum's very poor ethical performance, many of the establishment Republicans in the Florida Republican Party publicly supported McCollum - something they should not have done.

It was also distressing to see such a herd mentality at work among other national "conservative" voices such as Newt Gingrich, Dick Morris, Foxnews, Newsmax...the list reads like a roster of good guys. Knowing what I know of the McCollum campaign, I can only imagine that they, being at some distance from it, were not able to see what was really going on. I don't like the thought that they would throw principle overboard to support a corrupt career pol who is their pick. Such short-sighted behavior is what ruins political parties.

Normally, I associate the "conservative" logo as meaning that one's behavior is grounded in Godly moral principles, but I am at a loss to discover how McCollum could have garnered such support from so many people without someone blowing the whistle on what he was actually up to.

One staunch Republican friend in Palm Beach county blew the whistle on the unethical behavior by many in the state Republican party who were urging support for McCollum in their official capacity as representatives - insiders in the Party apparatus. No one would deny any person the right to privately support any candidate of their choosing, but to speak on behalf of one of the primary candidates when one occupies a postion in the State Party - and to make it known they are speaking in their official capacity - that goes beyond good ethical behavior. Some of them have quibbled that they did nothing wrong, but the donation of millions of Republican Party dollars to the McCollum primary campaign against Scott is clearly a betrayal of the Party's primary process and an open indication that the Florida Republican establishment is picking winners. Doing that in a party primary is both foolish and wrong.

Fortunately for the people of Florida (and the nation) their plans were derailed by voters who decided they did not like the underhanded campaign McCollum ran, nor the prospects of living under a governorship of such a man.

One can only hope that those same voters don't decide that they need to jettison the Party that so publicly polluted the primary.

I am sure that the right man won. It remains to be seen whether he can deal effectively with the disgruntled Republican pols who might form a barrier to his gubernatorial campaign and inadvertently hand the election to the Democrats. For them to refuse to cooperate with Scott because he is profoundly an "outsider" would, in my opinion, be suicidal for the Republican Party. It would solidify the suspicion in many people's minds that our basic civic problem is career pols who care more for their own things than the things of the people they purport to serve.

Of course it also depends on Scott's leadership skills. The gubernatorial race is now in his hands, and at this point he could presume to hold a lead going into the November elections. How he handles his public persona, and the issues, and the recently-beaten Florida Republican establishment will show us the mettle of the man. My support is with him. We need many more outsiders in our political system to reverse the decades of damage done by the career pols.