R i g h t a r d i a: Florida Grifter-elect Rick Scott can't even get his own staff hired

By Michael C. Bender and Marc Caputo, Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau In Print: Saturday, December 18, 2010

Rick Scott was endorsed by Mr Burns as "excellent." Could they be related?

TALLAHASSEE — Lacking a single hire to staff Florida's government, incoming Gov. Rick Scott on Friday asked most of Gov. Charlie Crist's administration to stay on board for up to three months.

This leaves in place agency heads and mid-level managers from an administration Scott repeatedly criticized from the campaign trail . . . Scott's transition team initially asked for hundreds of resignations . . .

It's the first public indication from Scott's secretive transition team is stymied under the leadership of Enu Mainigi, his personal attorney and most important hire to date . . .

Mainigi, a Washington, D.C.-based corporate defense lawyer, disputes there is any slow down. She challenges accusations that she is being overly protective of Scott. She says the criticism is backbiting inherent in the sport of Tallahassee politics.

Friendly and exceedingly bright, Mainigi also inspires fear. Despite discontent among transition committee members and staff, all declined to speak on the record for fear of retribution.

Mainigi, 40, advised Scott on the campaign and was quickly hired to run his transition.

She acknowledges Scott's administration is well behind the pace set by the previous two governors.

"Maybe that's true," Mainigi said.

Scott's team asked for resignations from the top 10 people in each agency. Resignations are traditional in a transition, but the number exceeded Crist's team, which limited it to the top six.

Mainigi, who was on the hiring committee of her law firm, Williams & Connolly, said she has created a rigorous process that requires finding multiple candidates for each job to be compared to each other.

This is an inauspicious start for a governor-elect who promised to create 700,000 new jobs and seems to be unable to hire his own staff in a timely manner. In the Tampa Bay area, one in eight Floridians is now unemployed.

Scott blamed the Florida downturn on Obama which is false. The downturn started when as gas prices skyrocketed during the GW Bush administration which had a very negative effect on tourism.

Republicans also changed the law so that Canadians had to provide their own health insurance when they visited in the winter months.This had a negative effect on Canadian tourism.

Florida has approximately 200,000 to 300,000 available empty housing units. This was caused by over-construction. Real estate speculators drove up housing prices by one third or more.

When the hosing bubble burst, housing prices dropped like a rock. Many new Florida home buyers walked away form their homes because they were paying on unsustainable mortgages that didn't reflect the new low home value after the bust.

The AP Stress Index was developed in October 2007, two months before the recession began. Florida surpassed California for the second-worst stress score: 16.56. Though its unemployment rate didn't change from September, its foreclosure rate rose.

The October date the recession started is interesting because the Bush administration did not admit a recession had started until after the 2008 elections. All the Republicans would say was the Democrats were taking down the economy when the R-word was mentioned.

Florida's economy lacks a substantial manufacturing base and depends on tourists . . .

Sean Snaith, an economist at the University of Central Florida said:

Manufacturing is having a bit of a resurgence, and with Florida lacking a large manufacturing sector, we're not really participating in that particular uptick.

We were certainly impacted by the Gulf oil spill, and we still have high unemployment. All of these things kind of swirl into this misery stew that keeps stress high in Florida.

Rightardia had staffers involved in the 2008 Florida campaign. The candidates should have been running an anti-incumbent campaign after 12 years of GOP rule in Tallahassee, but they were timid. The Democrats let Rick Scott blame the Florida downturn on Obama after 12-years of GOP control in Tallahassee.

In 2005 Thurman was elected Chairman of the Florida Democratic Party (FDP). Thurman resigned on November 12, 2010 in the wake of a disastrous 2010 midterm election for Democrats.

We hope a new Florida chairperson will lead the Democrats to victory in 2010. The Republicans now have a super-majority in Tallahassee. Rick Scott is ready to privatize the public school system, although he barely defeated Alex Sink and was not elected with a mandate.