Florida AG Bill McCollum Likens GOP Gov Opponent Rick Scott To A Mafia Kingpin (VIDEO)

FL Republican Gov. candidates Bill McCollum and Rick Scott.
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Just when you thought Republican infighting in the Sunshine State couldn’t get any hotter, gubernatorial candidate and state Attorney General Bill McCollum went and compared his GOP opponent Rick Scott to a mafia boss. Scott’s retort: Oh yeah? Well nobody likes you, Bill.

Establishment Republicans, increasingly worried that Scott’s self-financed campaign could upset their plan to run McCollum as their nominee to replace Gov. Charlie Crist (I), called on him to step up his game against the human ATM Scott, who has made it clear he’ll spend what it takes from his own sizable fortune to stay competitive in the race.

McCollum obliged them, delivering this ad last week:

The ad highlights Scott’s notorious past as a hospital executive, which included being in charge of Columbia HCA when the company was slapped with a $1.7 billion fine for Medicare fraud. Scott eventually resigned from the job, and has “denied knowing frauds were taking place while he was there,” according to the Miami Herald.

The ad is tough stuff — the kind of thing you’re likely to see from Democrats if Scott pulls off the upset and buys his way into the GOP nomination. Its negativity reflects how seriously McCollum takes Scott’s campaign.

Scott’s response to the ad? Nothing short of magnificent — at least from the cynical “why-talk-about-the-issues-when-you-can-just-fight-like-school-kids” perch of a political reporter. Scott is fighting McCollum off by (literally) claiming that nobody likes McCollum.

“Bill McCollum is just coming to the realization that Florida’s voters simply don’t like Bill McCollum,” Scott’s campaign told Sunshine State News today. “Only this could explain the latest desperate ad from team McCollum, an attack so absurd it’s laughable.”

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