Report: for LG pick, Rick Scott will go black **UPDATE: who is Jennifer Carroll?
Rick Scott's LG pick? State Rep. Jennifer Carroll.
After being turned down by every Hispanic politician he asked, plus reportedly former Jeb Lieutenant Governor Toni Jennings, Rick Scott will reportedly throw a long ball tomorrow, picking black Republican Jennifer Carroll to be his running-mate. It’s an interesting strategy, reminiscent of when Jim Davis rode to defeat with a brother in the sidecar (Darryl Jones) — or more to the ideological point, when “Pitchfork Pat” Buchanan ran with Ezola Foster on the Reform Party ticket. They’ll make a strange pair — she’s a black, Trinidadian, conservative veteran … he’s the smoke monster … More from Sunshine State News:
Several Republicans were quoted today saying Carroll had the inside track. A term-limited state representative from Jacksonville, she was praised for being a good fit, geographically and politically.
Reached by Sunshine State News, Rick Wilson, a veteran GOP consultant who supported Bill McCollum in the gubernatorial primary, said Carroll would be “an interesting choice for Scott.”
Wilson said he likes that Carroll is a veteran (she served in the U.S. Navy for 20 years, rising to the rank of lieutenant commander).
“She’s a conservative, which is another bonus,” Wilson said.
The first female Republican African-American elected to the Florida House, Carroll would geographically balance the GOP ticket; she resides in northeast Florida while Scott lives in the southwest part of the state.
She reportedly was on Charlie Crist’s short list for Mel Martinez’s U.S. Senate seat before the governor picked his longtime confidant, George LeMieux.
Carroll, who celebrated her 51st birthday Saturday, was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, West Indies. She moved to Florida in 1986.
Serving in the House since 2003, Carroll was majority whip 2004-2006 and chaired the House Economic Development Policy Committee last session.
More scuttlebutt on the potential nomination compiled by conservabrotha Booker Rising.
Carroll fits the bill for Scott for many reasons (since he couldn’t get an Hispanic, she’s like, the next best thing.) Like any good winger, she believes unemployment benefits make people lazy. And like her future running mate, she’s “funny with the money…”
State Representative Jennifer Carroll may serve on the Florida House’s Finance and Tax Committee, but that doesn’t mean she’s comfortable explaining the continued discrepancies in the financial disclosure forms she files with the State of Florida. While researching a story on the City’s Small and Emerging Business program, Folio’s Susan Cooper Eastman attempted to learn how Rep. Carroll qualified for the program, particularly considering her initial rejection on the basis that her net worth exceeded the program’s $605,000 maximum. According to Eastman, Carroll appealed her rejection—arguing that she had initially overestimated her net worth—and won.
Carroll’s confusion over her net worth is nothing new and its something that Folio has covered before. In 2006, Folio writer Susan Clark Armstrong wrote a story about how Carroll’s net worth jumped from $23 million in 2004 to $202 million in 2005. After news outlets, including Folio Weekly, questioned Carroll’s financial windfall, she amended her filing to show a net worth of $2.02 million. That same year, Carroll amended her filing with the City of Jacksonville’s Small & Emerging Business Program to show a net worth of $429,932—a tweak that managed to qualify her for the City’s JSEB program.
On a lighter note: she did raise a Miami Dolphin…
Black Republicans are sort of in vogue this year, with candidates vying for House seats in South Carolina, North Carolina, Mississippi, and Florida, where mad Allen West is making his second run against Democrat Ron Klein. In all of these cases, the candidates aren’t just conservative, they’re Alan Keyes — tea party believers, conspiracy theorists and in some cases, birthers — they’re fiercely anti-Muslim, dead set against the NAACP, and far more likely to attract conservative whites, for whom they serve as proof of non-racism, than black voters, who will in almost all cases, look at them in puzzled wonder.
So if he picks Carroll, it won’t be because she gives him a shot at gaining black votes — it will be to solidify the tea party white vote he already has, by giving them a new talking point to hurl in ALL CAPS at any liberal Marxist MORON who dares to call the tea party RACIST!!! Not a bad idea for a guy who is cozying up to the establishment while still trying to be authentically TEA.
This one has Jeb Bush written all over it. After all, he’s the guy who knows your dreams…
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Watch it Scott. She’ll boss you around.
What ever happened to Ezola Foster? She just dissappeared it seems?
I find it interesting that republicans for decades have constantly excoriated democrats for being about identity politics when in fact the republicans have become masters of this practice.
Here are a few examples that come to mind:
Picking Sarah Palin for VP to try to cyphen female Hillary voters in 2008. (No success)
Picking Michael Steele to head the RNC to try to counter President Obama. (No success)
And now this pick for Florida LG to try to counter Meeks nomination. ( I predict no success)
What’s next? Maybe the republicans will pick a black VP in 2012?
[...] Yeah, take THAT, liberal Obamacrats! … with your Obama selves…! I wonder if Scott thinks he’s going to get more than the 3 percent of the black vote in Florida that’s already Republican… Nah. [...]
VJ–maybe even a gay Muslim, eh?
troostitic