ICYMI: Rick Scott became the Senate GOP’s election general, then went to war [Washington Post]

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Washington Post: Rick Scott became the Senate GOP’s election general, then went to war
By Michael Scherer and Josh Dawsey
April 18, 2022

Key Points:

• Florida Sen. Rick Scott has been publicly dressed down by Republican leader Mitch McConnell, privately rebuked by his colleagues and repeatedly accused of running the National Republican Senatorial Committee in a way that benefits his own future over the candidates he was hired to get elected.

• He has directed a sizable share of his fundraising as NRSC chair to his own accounts, while shifting digital revenue away from Senate campaigns and buying ads promoting himself that look all but identical to spots he does for the national committee.

• But during the seven weeks of turmoil since Scott dropped a provocative conservative policy bomb on an unsuspecting party —a plan that called for tax increases and expiration dates for all federal laws, including those establishing Social Security and Medicare — he has not once expressed regret.

• Private grumbling about how Scott has turned the NRSC into the “National Rick Scott Committee” has become widespread enough in some Republican circles that other jokes have been added. “All this, for four percent in Iowa,” is the punchline of one about the harm he could do to Republican fortunes in November in pursuit of national ambitions.

• During a Feb. 29 meeting with Senate leadership in McConnell’s office, other senators brought articles that showed members being attacked for various parts of his plan, particularly the tax provision and another imposing term limits.

• They chastised him in round-robin fashion for the unnecessary headache he had created, said people familiar with the meeting.

• Scott answered days later with a Wall Street Journal op-ed — “Why I’m Defying Beltway Cowardice” — and a March 31 speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “Bring it on,” he said there.

• “We’ve got three words for him: Keep it up,” said David Bergstein, the communications director at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which has been championing the Scott plan as a way to scare voters. “No NRSC chair has done more for Senate Democrats than Rick Scott.”

• High dollar donors at some of Scott’s fundraising events, including in a swing through Florida in the summer of 2021, have been asked to give their first $10,800 to his campaign account and a separate leadership PAC, before anything goes to the NRSC, a departure from the practice of his predecessors.

• “He is doing it in a state where there is an incumbent senator who is in-cycle, sucking up donor money when he really doesn’t need it,” said one strategist upset with Scott’s approach. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is facing reelection in Florida.

• When it comes to small dollar donors, Scott has sometimes blurred lines, as well. In a separate online effort, called Team Rick Scott, he raised money last year with appeals like, “I am asking you to help me and President Trump take back the Senate.” The money collected, however, was split between his campaign and his personal leadership PAC, with none going directly to the NRSC.

• The plan… also supports a two-term limit on service in the Senate, a policy that if made law would ban senators such as Rubio, Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) from seeking another term this year.

• His idea that “all Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game” has been the most controversial. If taken literally, it could lead to tax increases on more than half of households, including seniors, who do not currently pay federal income tax.

• “If you have said something and it is not clear, saying ‘I stand by what I said’ is not a useful strategy,” said Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, a critic of Scott’s tax idea.

• A person familiar with Murkowski’s campaign said her advisers had hoped for a much more effusive endorsement. “Rick Scott seems to care a lot more about his political future than the Senate incumbents he is supposed to be working for,” the person said.

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