Republican Rick Scott sends a bilingual message in Florida race: He's not Trump

[DonViejo]

By Michael Scherer, Reporter
August 19 at 6:05 PM

TAMPA — Florida Gov. Rick Scott steals time every day as he campaigns for the Senate to practice a skill his old friend President Trump once dismissed as a bad Republican habit — speaking in Spanish.

“Mi práctica en español todos los días es muy importante para mi,” he said proudly in early August, as he took a few minutes to talk in the backroom of Casa Cuba, a club for anti-Castro expatriates, where he had just delivered a bilingual statement on Latin American policy.

Back in 2015, Trump frowned upon this sort of politicking, telling voters that “this is a country where we speak English, not Spanish.” Since then, the president has transformed Republican politics on immigration, recasting those without papers as an existential threat bringing terrorism and crime, seeking reductions in the legal immigration flow and warning that the foreign-born are “changing the culture” for the worse. But Trump has not objected this year as Republicans like Scott in tight races with large Latino voting blocks carefully try to distance themselves from his nativist rhetoric and polarizing tactics. Unlike Trump’s 2016 electoral college map, which depended heavily on working-class whites in the Midwest, the midterm elections will run through many parts of the country where Hispanics make up double-digit shares of the voting electorate.

As Trump continues to hammer the threat of criminal undocumented immigrants, calling them “animals” who seek to “infest” the country, with support from some in Congress, Republicans are playing to win these more diverse parts of the country as well.

“In three of the most competitive U.S. Senate races in the country, the only way the Democrat wins is with the Latino vote,” said Cristóbal Alex, the president of Latino Victory Project, a liberal group supporting Democratic candidates. “The other side understands this and is spending millions of dollars to confuse Latino voters and to run away from Donald Trump.”

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/with-heavily-accented-spanish-and-an-embrace-of-puerto-ricans-florida-republican-rick-scott-sends-a-message-hes-not-president-trump/2018/08/19/d6b30eb6-a1b1-11e8-93e3-24d1703d2a7a_story.html

[beachbum bob]

1. He suppprts trump, he support GOPs policies...

so good luck Scott

[qazplm135]

4. Don't know how

But dude knows how to win in Florida. He's got a fifty fifty shot.

[HAB911]

7. M-O-N-E-Y

[peekaloo]

8. Spends millions on tee vee ads

and wins by a margin of 1% or less. Still it is a win but Jebus, marijuana got a larger % of votes on the last ballot.

Every other, it seems, Republican running in Florida is trying to out "conservative" the rest and sticking to Thump like flies on feces.

Scott is being rather ballsy about running ads that condemn Bill Nelson for either cheating or stealing from Medicare AND blaming the current environmental woes on Washington/Nelson.

[beachbum bob]

9. GOP impending cuts to social security and Medicare won't help

Scott....add in 10s of thousands Puerto Rico voters voting democratic.

[lpbk2713]

2. Does Scott think they come from shit hole countries too?

His buddy Trump does.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Same thing here in NJ (Senate)

Bob Hugin (CEO millionaire) running as a "different kind of Republican". Claims to be pro-choice, pro-marriage equality, pro-equal wage. Obviously trying to pass himself off as "not Trump".

However, Trump personally asked him to run for Senate (against Bob Menendez). His F/B page has some nasty stuff -- from pro-Trump voters who are outraged that he isn't running to support their President.

[TheBlackAdder]

5. Don't discount the stupidity of NJ Republicans and Independents.

[FloridaBlues]

6. Scott forgets we know who he is and who he stands with...Trump.