Crist Only up by Two...So?

The way I see it, if you watch the polls and live by them, you're going to end up in a straitjacket someday, so the latest PPP poll showing Rick Scott only down to Crist by 2 points, while a sad case study of how remarkably out of touch some people in Florida can be, doesn't mean it's time to throw in the towel. Not that I expect readers of this blog to do so anyway, but here's some things to use to remind friends and relatives of yours with less starch in their spine not to give up.

Scott is down 2 to Crist, and only up by 6 on Rich, in spite of the fact that neither Democratic candidate has done any real campaigning yet -- not one TV ad, not one serious fundraiser. What do you suppose will happen when the Democratic candidate starts putting Scott's record on the block? How about what happens when we have some ads using the same pathos Perry Thurston invoked, by using Christmas presents to represent the 40 children who died under Scott's mismanagement of DCF? That's going to make Scott's "Crist the opportunist" ad look like the sourest grapes in the vineyard.

This is why I made my list of reasons to dis-elect Scott. Use them. 

Let's also remember that this was a poll done AFTER Scott did his worst to trash Crist with this year's chosen game show buzzer for the right wing:  Obamacare. In Virginia, the Democratic governor was thrashed with the same baton, and still won, although by a slim margin. But so what? Scott won by a slim margin, too. That's all it takes.

Finally, many, many people in the poll still said they were not sure who they would vote for. You can be sure the undecideds turned that way, to some extent, because they fell for some of Scott's cheap election year tricks, like extending the tax holiday longer.  Well, we have louder buzzers than that still in the arsenal we haven't even pressed yet.

10 months and a bit more still remain. I'm sure we can all remember past elections with up and down polls. They run in a cycle. A candidate, one observer pointed out, always dips some when they go from "maybe I'll run" to "yes, I'll run."

So, keep going, keep passing that list around, and remind any people you know who might spend Election Day on their rear ends, that a few hours in line is a small price to pay to avoid four more years of Rick Scott.