Crowley Political Report

Oh my, life many never be the same among the well tanned and over face-lifted Palm Beach social crowd.

Despite being the home of many of the world's richest people, even the island of Palm Beach is suffering during our continuing economic crisis.

The town has cut it budget for the past two years but one new councilman - Michael Pucillo - says enough is enough.

The townies can only take so much pain.

"We'll have to consider if we really want to cut services in this town," Pucillo told a group of Palm Beachers. "Do we want to take our own garbage out to the curb once a week?"

Heaven forbid!

 
Once again, Florida is being asked not to crowd Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada by having an early 2012 presidential primary.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus told the St. Petersburg Times that he is urging the Florida Legislature and Gov. Rick Scott to move the state's primary to after March 1, 2012.

In 2008, Florida defied the RNC and held its primary on Jan. 29 - a violent affront to the four favored states who countered by moving their election events to earlier in the month.

Since winning election one of the challenges for Florida's 45th governor continues to be the fact that very few Floridian really know much about Rick Scott.

That seems to be reflected in a Quinnipiac Poll released today which finds that 43 percent of Florida voters "don't know" if they approve or disapprove of Scott's job performance. And 45 percent say they don't know enough about him.

That 45 percent is a big number for a guy who just won a statewide election but in this case not a surprising one. Scott did not come on the political scene until April and most voters - and even political experts - did not have a  clue who this guy was.

And he also came on the scene carrying the heavy baggage of his now well-reported foibles with Columbia/HCA which led to his dismissal and a record setting fine for the corporation due to Medicare fraud.

So when Scott was sworn in last month, there was a large "wait and see" attitude that is clearly reflected in this poll.

At this point 28 percent say they have a "favorable" opinion of Scott, 24 percent "unfavorable" and 45 percent say they don't know enough about Scott to have an opinion.

The good news for Scott is that most of the 1,160 voters surveyed seem to be willing to give him a chance to succeed - 56 percent said they are optimistic about the next four years under Scott's leadership.

Something tells us that Florida's government employees are gonna be cranky with Gov. Rick Scott.

He wants government workers to start paying 5 percent of their income into the state retirement system. Scott also wants to ditch the existing retirement plan for a 401k style plan and end the popular but revenue draining (and often abused) DROP plan.

Scott estimates that his changes would save Florida taxpayers $2.8 billion over two years.

Expect the state and local government employees unions (this includes teachers) to raise hell.

Also don't be surprised if the average Florida worker - both Democrats and Republicans -side with Scott.