Florida governor’s race: Scott makes the first move

MIAMI – It’s the middle of January and Florida politics is already warming up. Not surprisingly, South Florida seems to be ground zero for what will be an interesting November elections’ season.

Scott strikes first 

Days ago Governor Rick Scott made a smart move by appointing Carlos Lopez-Cantera to fill the lieutenant governor’s position. The state’s number two political job had been vacant for more than a year. The last lieutenant governor, Jennifer Carroll, left in disgrace after her affiliation with a company connected to Internet cafés, considered a front for gambling, was discovered.

Polls demonstrate that Scott is not a popular governor. In all early surveys likely Democratic Party gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist beats the governor in the fall. A November Quinnipiac University poll, in fact, had Crist with a seven-point lead over Scott, although the race has tightened. In March of last year Crist led by 16 points, dropping to 10 points by June. Which tells me this will be a closer race than people expected just a year ago.

And now Governor Scott has pulled Miami’s Lopez-Cantera out of his bag of tricks.

The move just made things even more interesting. Because the winner of this race will most likely need to win Miami-Dade, Florida’s most populous county, to do so. And with Lopez-Cantera, the governor has chosen a proven winner, and a young, former state representative, who recently won countywide in Miami.

Lopez-Cantera will leave his post as Miami-Dade County property appraiser, an elected countywide position, to join the governor in Tallahassee. It makes the 40-year-old Lopez-Cantera the first Hispanic to be lieutenant governor in Florida.

Why Lopez-Cantera?

Lopez-Cantera makes political sense. As I’ve already mentioned, the winner of the governor’s race in Florida will most likely need to win Miami-Dade. And as a native son, Crist sees the relatively young son of Cubans as a plus in this south Florida county. A person who will attract voters Scott needs if he is to have a chance at reelection. Also a man who can speak both English and Spanish fluently, a plus not only in Miami, but in other parts of the state where the Hispanic vote has become as important as it is in Miami.

Broward and Palm Beach counties, as well as the central Florida areas the I-4 Corridor intersects, are home to a large and growing number of new Hispanic voters who proved themselves extremely valuable during President Obama’s reelection in 2012. Governor Scott realizes he will not receive a majority of these votes, but his hope is that with a Lopez-Cantera at his side he may steal some away from Charlie Crist.

Whatever the case, time will tell if the Lopez-Cantera move works in Scott’s favor. For the one thing that’s a given in this race is that it will be costly. Let us not forget that a man who historically polls badly like Scott still managed to pull out a squeaker last time around by spending more than $75 million of his own money on the campaign.

And the cynic in me continues to wonder what’s more important: money or votes? The fact is, though, that without the money, there will not be enough voters to win this statewide race…

Setting up 2016

The 2014 Florida governor’s race will also resonate going forward.

The presidential election of 2016 is already underway – although still mostly behind the scenes. The American public will be electing a new president then. There’s nothing surprising in the fact that the Clinton brand (after more than 20 years in positions of power it’s more than a name by now) dominates on the Democratic Party side. Will there be a challenger?

More interesting will probably be the Republican primaries. To date, the GOP reminds me of the Democrats of the late 1960s through the decade of the 80s. In other words, they tend to shoot themselves in the foot. If you doubt this, check out New Jersey governor Chris Christie.

But back to Florida, a state which surprisingly has gone blue (or Democrat) in the past two elections. A third presidential win in Florida by Democrats in 2016 would probably secure a blue standing in the national political map in the years to come. And republicans are well aware that as things stand these days it would be very difficult to elect a republican president without a win in Florida.

So it’s easy to see that the Rick Scott race has far reaching implications. Expect plenty of money to be spent and bold strategy moves in the coming months. Lopez-Cantera being the first of these.

We will see how, or if, Charlie Crist counters the governor.