Nobody in Washington has had a rougher week than Republican Sen. Rick Scott. In the past seven days, the former Florida governor has been obliquely booed by his own party at the State of the Union address, bombed a television interview trying to defend himself, and had President Joe Biden fly to his home turf to keep whaling away at him.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has clearly loved every minute of Scott’s torment. Scott hasn’t kept it a secret that he sees himself as McConnell’s successor atop the Senate GOP caucus. But time and again, his attempts to position himself have backfired, leaving Scott only worse for wear.
Scott’s political pain is self-inflicted. As part of the “Plan to Rescue America” he released last year, Scott called for sunsetting all federal legislation — including Social Security and Medicare — after five years if not reauthorized by Congress. The 31-page document was released without McConnell’s consent, during Scott’s term as chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The schism that formed between them has only grown since, exposing a key difference in how the two men function, and why Scott keeps failing.
McConnell rose to power in the Senate by fighting for something deeply important to him that he rightly realized most voters didn’t care about: campaign finance reform. It was — and is — a deeply unsexy topic, but McConnell saw that the free flow of money would help Republicans keep winning elections. His unyielding stance purposefully drew fire away from his fellow GOP senators on the issue, earning their respect and loyalty as the donations kept coming in.
At the same time, McConnell saw how entitlement reform proposals could backfire politically. Former President George W. Bush began his second term in 2005 by going all in on amending Social Security through a plan that would allow privatized investment accounts to exist alongside traditional accounts. The House GOP insisted that the Senate move first on any attempt to privatize Social Security, rightfully wary of backlash in the next election as Democrats hammered the idea. But Senate Republican leadership — which included McConnell, who had backed the broad concept of private accounts — never solidified around any particular plan, as it proved politically toxic, leaving the idea to wither on the vine.
Meanwhile, as a former health care executive and governor, Scott seems to believe that climbing the ranks of the Senate caucus entails demonstrating “leadership” to his colleagues. It’s a vague concept that rings hollow in the corporate world, especially for someone whose tenure as CEO coincided with what the Justice Department called the “largest health care fraud case in U.S. history,” but when has that ever stopped someone who’s convinced themselves they should be in charge?
In this case, Scott has presented himself as the only one willing to make the hard choices and win back a majority for the GOP. When releasing the “Plan to Rescue America,” he argued that it was important that Republicans show what they actually support. Even after his time on the National Republican Senatorial Committee ended with the party face-planting in its attempt to regain the majority and his bid to dethrone McConnell as Senate GOP leader was easily defeated, Scott still ran an ad in Florida spinning the latter loss as part of his bold wiliness to challenge the status quo: “It’s time for Republicans to be bold, speak the truth and stop caving in.”
McConnell, on the other hand, has survived this long by knowing a political loser when he sees one.
McConnell, on the other hand, has survived this long by knowing a political loser when he sees one — and he has to know by now how much Americans cringe when presented directly with GOP policy proposals like ending Social Security. Instead, he turned to the judiciary to enact the conservative agenda during his last stint as majority leader. Back in the minority after the 2020 elections, he counted on Biden’s low polling numbers drag down Democrats ahead of the midterms. Scott’s plan threw a bomb into that strategy, with the resulting shrapnel still damaging Republicans politically.
The two senators spent the rest of 2022 feuding, first over candidate quality, then as part of Scott’s failed ouster. So, it’s no surprise that McConnell twisted the knife into Scott particularly hard on Thursday in an interview on Kentucky radio. “That’s not a Republican plan; that was the Rick Scott plan,” McConnell said when asked whether Republicans wanted to sunset Social Security and Medicare. “I mean, it’s just a bad idea. I think it will be a challenge for him to deal with this in his own re-election in Florida, a state with more elderly people than any other state in America.”
Ouch. Scott, finally realizing how far out on a limb he is, hastily introduced the "Protect Our Seniors Act" on Friday. Among the bill's provisions is a proposed rule where if "any legislation will cause a cut or reduction in Medicare or Social Security," it would require two-thirds of Congress to approve it. It would seem the senator doth protest a little too much at this point, painting his party even further into a box against cutting entitlements down the road.
This isn’t to say that that there’s an especially deep pool of talent in the caucus to eventually take McConnell’s place. But Scott does seem uniquely bad at this game. At least Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri manage to at least build their personal brands with their self-aggrandizing stunts. In the world they occupy, where the Senate is a steppingstone to the White House or cable news hits, that makes sense — and they’ve never come directly for McConnell in the process.
Maybe Scott is also setting himself up for a future presidential bid, or maybe he really does just want to be the next Senate majority leader. If the latter, it would be a terrible move for Republicans to place their caucus in the hands of someone who has a skill for neither legislation nor national political strategy. Given what we’ve seen so far, that doesn’t seem likely to stop Scott from trying. Either way, though, his short-term ineptitude is getting in the way of his long-term goals, and McConnell isn’t about to let him forget it.