Thaindian News

By Madhuri Dey
Aug 25, (THAINDIAN NEWS) In what many termed as one of the ugliest and the most-expensive primary election, former Health-care executive Rick Scott was able to beat Attorney General Bill McCollum to gain the Republican nomination for the November Governor election. Rick Scott managed to gain 46 percent of votes against the 43 percent of Bill McCollum with around 97 percent of precincts reporting. Apart from these two stalwarts there was another Independent candidate named Mike McCalister who managed to gain around 10 percent votes.

Rick Scott and Bill McCollum had tried to wash each other’s dirty linen in public during the primary campaign. The former who opposed the President’s newly passed Health Care law aggressively and upheld himself as a conservative outsider, faced the criticism of Bill McCollum who repeatedly kept in front of the voters the $1.7 billion fine that Columbia/HCA hospital chain paid during the tenure of Rick Scott as CEO. The fine was paid to settle federal Medicare and Medicaid fraud. Rick Scott as well went on to hammer Bill McCollum with a series of attack advertisements pointing at the latter flaw. Rick Scott had reportedly spent about $39 million from his won pocket for the campaign. Many have voiced that disgusted with the two leading figures; many voters have gone on to cast their vote in favor of Mike McCalister.

On Tuesday however after the win, Rick Scott held that it is the people of Florida who have led him to the election success. He told, “The people of Florida have spoken and I’ve liked what they said”. The Republican nominee now will face Democrat nominee CFO Alex Sink at November’s election.