The GOP's Rick Scott Problem

Mitt Romney and the Republicans are steering clear of Rick Scott

Then-candidate for governor Rick Scott greets supporters with his wife, Ann, left, and running mate Jennifer Carroll at a post-debate rally in Tampa in 2010Photograph by Chip Litherland/The New York Times via Redux

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By Michael C. Bender

July 27, 2012 at 2:05 AM UTC

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This article is part of the July 30, 2012 issue of businessweek.

It would have been hard for the Republican Party to choose a better backdrop for its August national convention than Florida. The state economy took one of the downturn’s worst beatings and has had a slow recovery, giving Mitt Romney the perfect venue to make its case that President Obama shouldn’t get another term.

If only the state’s GOP governor would get with the program. Rick Scott has spent the last year trumpeting Florida’s modest economic gains at events, in interviews, and in TV ads, an unusual expense for a governor more than two years away from reelection. “Companies are hiring, expanding, putting more Floridians to work,” said a spot that ran this spring. On July 15, Scott told Fox News Sunday: “The unemployment rate has come down dramatically. We had the largest drop [in June] in the last 18 months of any state but one.”