Crowley Political Report

Rick Scott's campaign is going on the road for a week-long bus tour that will start in Miami and find its way to the Panhandle.

During the trip Scott will offer daily tidbits about how he will improve Florida's economy. The Scott campaign first talked about the trip during a conference call with Florida political bloggers Wednesday night.

The trip will begin Wednesday and end the following Monday. It will be interesting to see how the campaign handles the traveling media.

Some campaigns allow the media to stay on the candidate's motor home for the entire trip. Others put the media in vans following the motorhome allowing groups of reporters to rotate on and off the motorhome.

The best option is always to allow the media to stay on the motorhome. You deal with a lot of questions in the beginning but as time goes on everyone starts to relax and get to know each other better. That's good for the media and the candidate.

Crowley Political Report will give more details as they arrive.

Now - what to name the bus?

Democrats are having their annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner this weekend at the Hollywood Westin Diplomat - a very nice hotel.

Florida CFO Alex Sink's campaign for governor struggled through much of last year and the first half of this year. She has gone through several senior staff changes, rejiggering of the campaign and even speech training to improve her - well - speeches.

Sink needs to energize Democrats this weekend many of whom have both privately and publicly been dismayed by the problems with her campaign and message.

One of the best things that has happen to Sink is the emergence of Rick Scott in the Republican primary. Prior to his arrival, Attorney General Bill McCollum was consistently outmanueverinig Sink on the issues and with his campaign strategy.

Okay the real reason for this post is because we don't know when we'll get a chance again to use the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Crowley Political Report.

Thanks to Attorney General Bill McCollum who today joined the Mariana Islands and eight state's supporting the Arizona immigration law.

Apparently the Mariana Island border with Mexico has become a serious problem for islanders.

The text of the press release from the Attorney General's office follows:

Let the conspiracy theories begin.

Jessica Vanden Berg, Democrat Jeff Greene's new campaign manager for his U.S. Senate campaign, works for Maverick Strategies.

Kristen Denny Todd is the wife of NBC political director Chuck Todd.

OMG - this must be an MSM consipacy to help Greene. The Todds will share information. Chuck will start talking about nothing but Greene on the air. All negative news will be suppressed. Florida newspapers will fall in line.

Jeff Greene says if he is elected to the U.S. Senate he will help create jobs in Florida.

Apparently one was briefly created when his campaign manager - Josh Morrow departed. Quit or fired? We don't know but the speed of his replacement gives us a hint.

Jessica Vanden Berg was former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham's Iowa director during his ill-fated 2004 campaign for president.

After spending some time with Vanden Berg during the Iowa campaign this looks to Crowley Political Report like a decent replacement for Morrow.

Trivia - In 1999, your intrepid reporter spent a week in Iowa doing RAGBRAI.

Okay - don't get too excited. It's just a picture of Minnesota Senator Al Franken that appears in Kendrick Meek's new web ad which asks the question - how do you find the real Democrat in the U.S. Senate race?

See how many Democrats you can name. And here's a bit of trivia - Franken is a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party which is part of the national Democratic Party.

One more thing, Meek often points out that his Democratic rival, Jeff Greene, moved to Florida only two years ago. Franken moved to Minnesota in 2005. He announced his campaign for U.S. Senate in February 2007.

A new ad from Republican Rick Scott's support group - Let's get to work.  While it portrays Bill McCollum as a flip flopper the final seconds show that at the very least Scott has a creative ad team.

Something tells us that the when these two guys meet in the first Republican debate for governor it ain't gonna be pretty.

A new Reuters/lpsos Poll shows Republican Rick Scott leading Democrat Alex Sink in a potential match-up for governor. 

The poll of 600 registered voters taken July 9-11 has a margin of error of 4 percent. Scott leads Sink 34 percent to 31 percent - basically a tie. A matchup between Sink and Republican Bill McCollum put Sink at 31 to McCollum's 30.

No party Gov. Charlie Crist continues to lead in the U.S. Senate race with Crist at 35, Republican Marco Rubio at 28 and Democrat Kendrick Meek 17. 

The poll also found that 53 percent of Florida voters approve of Crist's performance as governor.

And while Republicans spend an awful lot of time talking about social issues, the poll found that the 51 percent of Florida voters say the economy is the number one issue.

Read more about the Reuters/Ipsos poll here.

Time for Jeff Greene to find a more creative ad team. In his newest ad viewers get the usual Florida candidate walks on the beach shot, Greene holding a baby (his own child) and of course Greene telling voters he's going to make life better.

It's fine. It gets the job done. But really, this looks like a low budget ad for a legislative race not a major campaign ad to win the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.

You be the judge.

See what you get when you start rummaging around.  Crowley Political Report stumbled on this computer-generated, animated video and frankly we're puzzled.

The video-maker is clearly not fond of Bill McCollum or Rick Wilson. The video also takes shots at Miami Herald reporter Marc Caputo and St. Pete Times reporter Adam Smith. One more thing - this is video number 3 in a series of 4 videos.

No clue who made them or why. If anyone has ideas please let us know.

So now we hear that Bill McCollum has only $800,000 left for the remaining weeks of his campaign.  That's not a lot of dough for Florida's attorney general to use to win the Aug. 24 GOP primary against gazzillionaire Rick Scott.

Keep in mind that in Florida $800,000 gets you less than a week of statewide television....that does not include radio, direct mail, robo calls, internet or paying the staff.

McCollum campaign manager Matt Williams filed an affidavit saying that was all the cash McCollum had left as of Saturday. The filing was part of a response to a suit filed by Rick Scott challenging the state's public financing law.

Bill McCollum's got a new ad that describes Rick Scott as a "special interest insider."

It's an interesting approach that puts a new spin on the usual charges McCollum makes that Scott's "company defrauded Medicare and taxpayers."

The ad strikes a dismissive tone that suggests we've seen guys like Scott before - "Saying one thing. Doing another and ripping off taxpayers. That's Rick Scott. Just another special interest insider."

Here is the ad:

So far in the GOP race for governor Rick Scott is winning the best ad race.

Please forget accuracy, policy, politics, right and wrong, and whether you really need that second scoop of ice cream.

Let's keep it simple folks. Scott ads are interesting, sometimes funny and very professional in their appearance. And very effective.

Need proof? Well consider these quotes in a May 7, St. Petersburg Times story:

The Palm Beach Post is reporting that Republican Allen West has raised $1.4 million in the three-month period that ended June 30. That brings West to a total of $3.5 million raised. He has $2.2 million left for his congressional race.

Democratic incumbent Ron Klein has not released his second quarter total but as of March 31, he had $2.6 million in the bank.

The West-Klein congressional battle is one of the most interesting races in the state. West, a retired Army Lt. Col. lost a 2008 race against Klein getting an impressive 45 percent of the vote despite having little money, no serious GOP party support and little name recognition.

NBC political director Chuck Todd's latest take on the Florida Senate race - one of the top ten races in the nation:

The big mover here is Florida, given the growing chance that Charlie Crist (I) could very well win this race. Caveats: The three-way contest is highly unpredictable, and we still don't know with which party Crist will caucus. But if the GOP nominee, Marco Rubio, loses the race, it's hard to see how that isn't a takeover.

The longer the BP story plays out and the closer the Meek-Greene Dem primary becomes, it's hard to believe how that doesn't help Charlie Crist's indie bid.

One advantage that U.S. Attorney General Bill McCollum has over uber-rich rival Rick Scott is that McCollum has spent almost his entire life in public office. 

Sure McCollum has cast some votes in Congress that will come back to haunt him and he is prone to saying things that give his handlers sleepless nights. But most of the time McCollum just comes off as boring and too cautious - he'd rather form a study group or repeatedly say: "I'm not going to go into the details right now" when responding to questions about tough problems.

Crowley Political Report is not one of those places where you will find us dropping the name Lindsay Lohan just to get visitors.

No sir we take this political stuff very seriously and the fact that there are pictures of billionaire U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Greene in St. Barts with Lindsay Lohan is of no interest to us here or here.

Instead we stick to the more serious side of politics and we can fairly note that Lindsay Lohan had nothing to do with the decision of Voters Coalition of Palm Beach County to endorse Greene.

We are convinced that Lindsay Lohan has not been to the Democrat's Palm Beach mansion or to the Century Village home of his 83 year old mother.

On May 13th, Crowley Political Report said:

Gov. Charlie Crist is playing oil spill politics like a master and there is very little his opponents can do to stop him.

He already is getting tons of positive free media and the new BP video of oil gushing out of its ruptured well is a dramatic reminder that the oil industry will have a public relations nightmare on its hands for the foreseeable future.

Crist's latest idea is calling a special session to change Florida's constitution to forbid oil drilling off Florida shores.

Some Republican lawmakers are complaining that the session is little more than a political stunt. Shocking!

After two months of getting ongoing oil-related publicity, Crist is now ready the pull the trigger on the special session. The session has been set for July 20-23. Crist's opponents in the Legislature - all the Republican leaders - are apoplectic.

In June 2009, Quinnipiac University polled 1,245 Florida voters and asked: Do you think pubic financing of campaigns in Florida should be continued or ended?

Fifty-six percent of those surveyed said it should be ended. And Republicans, who often derisively refer to public financing of campaigns as "welfare for candidates" were the most in favor of ending it. Sixty percent said they wanted it stopped.

A year later, Republican Rick Scott is spending tens-of-millions of his own money to become the GOP nominee for governor. His rival, Attorney General Bill McCollum, once a strong opponent of public financing, has now decided that golly with Scott having so much dough maybe getting millions from taxpayers to help pay for his campaign is not such a bad idea afterall.

From Penheads artist and Crowley Political Report art director Pat Crowley:

 
See more of Pat Crowley's award winning art at Penheads.