Rick Scott/ The Shark Tank
By JAVIER MANJARRES
The Republican Party of Florida is not to happy with a series of stories the Tampa Bay Times is running on the jobs creation efforts by Florida Governor Rick Scott. The series reads that under Scott’s watch, thousands of Floridians, form all sectors and regions of the state, have lost their jobs.RPOF Chairman Lenny Curry seems to think that his is just the Times trying to “prop up” former Florida Governor Charlie Crist, who is perceived to have always received preferential treatment by the Tampa Bay Times.
To me, this appears to be an effort to prop up Charlie Crist’s campaign for governor by trying to tear down Rick Scott. -Lenny Curry
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As of late, the Times’ Adam Smith has been a bit harsh and critical of Crist, but the perception that he and others have given favorable coverage and “passes” to Crist, stem back from when he first ran for Attorney General of Florida.
The Miami Herald’s Marc Caputo, who has mentioned Scott’s lagging poll numbers, has also reported that Scott will be hard to beat, as well as stating that Scott’s stand your ground stance was very popular, as was his noncitizen voter purge.
Curry states in a letter he penned about these claims by the Times, that the stories were nothing more than a “very narrow view” of Rick Scott’s overall “efforts and results,” and were just “cherry-picking data that presents a public a skewed view of reality.”
Curry added this:
We don’t expect the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald to do a series of stories on Charlie Crist’s jobs record. So, using their own math and very narrow, obscure sources of data, let’s take a different look at Charlie’s record:
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The Times and Herald used YourEconomy.org to assess private-sector jobs. Using that data source, Charlie Crist lost over 3.4 million private-sector jobs from January 2007 to December 2010.
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The Times and Herald also used data from the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filings from large employers. Using that data source, there was a loss of over 89,000 jobs from companies with more than 100 employees under Charlie Crist.
And this:
So now that Curry and the RPOF have called out the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald for espousing what they believe to be “misleading talking points,” can we expect the newspapers to follow up their jobs series on Rick Scott with one of Charlie Crist?Charlie Crist has tried, and will continue to try, to brush off blame for his disastrous economic record. Using real math and common sources of data, like the Bureau of Labor Statistics, here’s the Crist record that isn’t being reported, and likely will never be reported, by the Times or the Herald:
- During the recession, Florida had the second largest jump in unemployment out of all 50 states under Charlie Crist, more than tripling from 3.5 to 11.1 percent. (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
- Florida’s unemployment grew at a rate nearly 50 percent faster than the rest of the country. While national unemployment grew 4.9 percentage points from December 2006 to December 2010, Florida’s unemployment grew by 7.6 percentage points. (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
- Of the 48 months Charlie Crist was in office, Florida’s unemployment was above the national average for 35 consecutive months. (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
The misleading talking points that the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald have provided to Charlie Crist and the Florida Democratic Party will undoubtedly be used on the campaign trail and on the airwaves.
In my opinion, probably not. The Times would be best suited to compare the Scott’s and Crist’s past jobs record. But if they don’t, I am sure that Republicans will surely outline Crist’s past record.
Oh wait, they are already doing that.
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