Remember during Rick Scott's campaign he promised to bring Arizona-style immigration laws to Florida, open our coasts to offshore drilling, and ban embryonic stem cell research in the state? Yeah, well none of that has actually happened. In some cases Scott didn't even bother to actually pursue those ideas. In fact, Scott hasn't kept the vast majority of his campaign promises.
This is good news if you're a moderate wary of Scott's more right-wing tendencies, which is exactly why he's defaulted on those Tea Party-baiting campaign planks.
Since he took office in January 2011, Politifact has tracked 57 campaign promises Scott made. He's kept just 20 (or 35 percent). He accepted compromises on eight, and completely broken another eight. He's still working on passing another nine, while 12 others are stalled for the time being.
Aside from drilling, stem cells and immigration, Scott has also broken promises on accountability budgeting for state agencies, requiring employers to use the E-Verify system, proposing biennial budgets, avoiding gimmicks to balance the budget, and reducing property taxes by $1 million across the state.
Promises to require drug testing for all welfare recipients and eliminating Florida's corporate income tax also remain stalled and unlikely to go anywhere.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, Scott may be purposefully backing away from some of those promises. Many of his right wing ideas have proved unpopular in Florida, and his approval ratings remain some of the lowest of any governor in the country. A recent poll shows him trailing possible Democratic candidate Charlie Crist by double digits in next year's election.
"He's trying to mend the middle course to some degree, but he can't go too far away from his roots," said Darryl Paulson, professor emeritus of government at the University of South Florida, told the Times. "With respect to the other issues, I think his strategy is going to be avoidance more than anything else."
So it appears Scott won't be running on those Tea Party promises this time around. Though he does seem to have a new campaign slogan: "Blame Obama."
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