Scott tries to tie Sink to Obama in governor's race

Talking to GOP gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott about Democrat Alex Sink can feel like flipping from local television news to CNN.

That's because the discussion turns quickly to President Barack Obama, whom Scott is working overtime to associate with Sink in the minds of voters. Scott and Sink may be running for the state office of governor, but Scott's campaign seems to talk as much these days about Washington as about the Sunshine State.

Sink is a first-term state chief financial officer who has neither held nor sought national office.

She has both supported and held her distance from the president depending on the issue. But with the economy still teetering and Obama's approval ratings tanking in Florida to 41 percent, it's not hard to understand why Scott is trying to define her as an "Obamacrat."

It's also predictable, given the rifts that Scott is attempting to heal within his own party since the contentious primary, said Larry Sabato, political scientist at the University of Virginia and national political commentator.

"How do you unite a divided party? Establish a common enemy," Sabato said. "Rick Scott's got a deep split in his party that can't just be papered over. One way to add a little hard glue in those cracks is to nationalize the race -- to convince Republicans that, while they may not like Scott, they certainly don't want to do anything to encourage Barack Obama."

Republican leaders are certainly on board. Take their new ad supporting Scott, which begins with a narrator intoning, "Attention Florida voters: here are your official orders from Washington."

Next comes footage of Obama asking fellow Democrats to do "whatever it takes" to elect Sink. Says the narrator: "maybe that's because Sink supported Obama's government takeover of healthcare, or because Sink supported Obama's trillion-dollar stimulus bill -- the one that gave us big debts and no jobs."

Scott reiterated the same talking points on Friday when a reporter asked him to explain the difference between Sink's plan to create jobs and his own.

"She supports President Obama's agenda," he responded. "She supports the stimulus. She supports ObamaCare. She supports eliminating, or not extending the Bush tax cuts" for the wealthiest 2 percent of U.S. households.

Scott, a former healthcare executive, spent $5 million of his own money to found Conservatives for Patients' Rights, which aggressively attacked the legislation championed by the President.

Scott's use of "ObamaCare" against Sink is not new.

Last year when he was the only major Republican gubernatorial candidate, Bill McCollum quickly seized on the opportunity presented by the nationwide debate over federal health care reform.

McCollum, Florida's attorney general, pressed Sink for months to take a stand on the expansive legislation. When she resisted, he blasted her for dodging the issue.

"The legislation was changing almost daily," Sink spokeswoman Kyra Jennings said. "Like most Americans, she was watching to see how that very contentious and partisan debate wound up for the people of Florida."

Sink supported the plan that finally passed, though she has said it is "certainly not perfect." McCollum, meanwhile, spearheaded a multistate legal challenge of the law, which Sink slammed as being both politically motivated and legally questionable.

In trying to tie Sink to Obama's health care plan, Scott hopes to take advantage of national polls that show public opinion split over the law and Republicans disapproving by a wide margin.

This week, Scott extended his "ObamaCare" attacks on Sink by accusing her of supporting cuts to Medicare.

"I don't even know where he got that from," Sink said Thursday. "I've never said -- of course I don't want to cut Medicare. Medicare is a very important program; it comes out of the federal government that supports senior health care."

Scott's reasoning is this: The federal heath care law cuts $533 billion in federal Medicare spending over 10 years, according to an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office. Sink, by supporting the bill, wants to cut Medicare, he asserts.

But those cuts do not reduce core Medicare benefits, according to the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. The cuts primarily reduce payments to providers and Medicare Advantage plans offered by private insurers, which often provide added benefits. The law also includes $105 billion in new Medicare spending, largely to expand coverage of prescription drugs, illness prevention benefits and primary care.

"It's a federal issue," Sink told reporters adding later, "I'm running to be the governor of the state of Florida. Maybe he needs to be running for U.S. Senate or President."

Jennings elaborated: "We have serious and unique challenges in this state. Alex Sink believes the people of Florida deserve to hear solutions to those challenges ... Voters will judge both candidates on their plans, experience and vision for Florida, instead of Mr. Scott's attempts not to focus on the important issues of the state."

Scott and Sink actually agree that the governor's race is largely about jobs. But Scott also defended focusing on Obama and his policies, which he called "job-killers."

"The governor should stand up for our rights, rather than have something forced down our throats by the federal government."