Washington versus Republican voters

The result? President Joe Biden and the Democrats opened our southern border for an invasion and a massive flow of illegal drugs, engaged in enough deficit spending to drive inflation through the roof, took away America’s energy independence, drove America into a recession, and implemented soft-on-crime policies that have led to a national epidemic of violent crime.

Unfortunately, many of the very people responsible for losing the Senate last cycle are now trying to stop us from winning the majority this time by trash-talking our Republican candidates. It’s an amazing act of cowardice, and ultimately, it’s treasonous to the conservative cause. Giving anonymous quotes to help the Washington Post or the New York Times write stories trashing Republicans is the same as working with the Democratic National Committee.

If you want to talk about the need to raise more money to promote our candidates versus the Democrats’ terrible candidates, I agree. If you want to trash-talk our candidates to help the Democrats, pipe down. That’s not what leaders do. And Republicans need to be leaders that build up the team and do everything they can to get the entire team over the finish line.

Ultimately, though, when you complain and lament that we have “bad candidates,” what you are really saying is that you have contempt for the voters who chose them. Now we are at the heart of the matter.  Much of Washington’s chattering class disrespects and secretly (or not so secretly) loathes Republican voters.

These self-appointed “smart guys” in Washington think they (not the voters) should be able to choose our candidates. The D.C. crowd should not choose candidates, and they do not, and they will not. The D.C. crowd did not choose me and actively opposed me in 2010 when I ran for governor in the Florida Republican primary. If the D.C. crowd was right, I wouldn’t be in the Senate.

We have great candidates with incredible backgrounds and ideas to make our country better. Do I wish they had more money than their Democratic opponent? Of course. But we have great candidates, chosen by the voters in their states, and our job is to help each one of them win. And, once a candidate wins, Washington will (as usual) immediately change its collective mind and say, “I was secretly on the senator’s side the whole time.”

While the media and Washington want to try and tear down our candidates, voters put forward incredible people to serve in the Senate: a world-renowned doctor, a Heisman trophy winner and successful businessman, a small businessman and congressman from a farming community, a bestselling author who has shown the struggles in America from drug addiction, a successful tech entrepreneur, an Iraq War veteran who served two terms as state attorney general, a successful construction company entrepreneur, and a nurse who has fought for change at the VA so our heroes get the care they deserve. These are just a few of our amazing candidates who will win in November.

And the truth is, all our candidates are great in this regard: They all oppose inflation, recession, open borders, violent crime, and 87,000 new IRS agents brought to America by Biden and this crop of Senate Democrats. And I will fight for all of them.

Yes, I’m an optimist. And I’m a cheerleader for our candidates. And I get a lot of crap for it from the D.C. crowd who tell me I shouldn’t sound so bullish or I should do more to set expectations. I’m not playing that game because each one of our candidates presents a stark contrast to the failed agenda of Biden and the Democrats.

Let me be clear — we will overcome the Washington naysayers and their anonymous quotes, we will beat the Democrats, and we will take control of the Senate this fall. Write it down.

And when we do, we will be in a position to stop this confused and ridiculous president from further damaging our great country and present a positive agenda that will be good for all of America. As a side benefit, we will be able to ignore the fools who have been trash-talking Republican candidates and Republican voters.

That’s a win-win in my book.

Republican Rick Scott represents Florida in the Senate. He is the former governor of Florida.