Rick Scott's Transition Epic Fail

There was a reason Rick Scott avoided talking about Florida policy when he was running for governor. Scott has a contempt but no understanding of how state government actually works. Scott came into Tallahassee and fired everyone from all the state agencies. Scott never accounted for not having enough time to hire qualified people.
Scott is now forced to eat crow.

Gov.-elect Rick Scott is revoking the pink slips for at least five of Gov. Charlie Crist's department heads and at least 400 other mid to upper-level managers while he takes his time to staff up for his new administration, according to a list released by the Scott transition team Monday. Download Scott staff list 121810

Among those asked to stay on board for 60 to 90 days is Department of Children and Families secretary George Sheldon, Department of Corrections Secretary Walt McNeil, Agency for Workforce Innovation director Cynthia Lorenzo, Department of Business & Professional Regulation Secretary Charlie Liem and Agency for Persons with Disabilities Secretary Jim DeBeaugrine.

Enu Mainigi has been criticized for the manner in which she handled the transition process. Mainigi is running the transition from Fort Lauderdale. She is a Washington-based attorney. Common sense would dictate that Mainigi handle the transition in Tallahassee. Mainigi dismissed such notions in a Miami Herald interview.

"It is a game," Mainigi said. "One of the reasons we've primarily run the transition outside of Tallahassee is because we don't really want to be distracted by the rumors and the buzz."

Actually, Scott and Mainigi are creating much of the "rumors and buzz" by operating the transition inside a star chamber. Rick Scott got elected because he bought a lot of TV ads and Alex Sink ran her disastrous Panhandle strategy. Scott didn't get elected because he shares the most charismatic traits of JFK, Reagan, Clinton and Obama. Most people find the guy creepy. Scott and Mainigi can only intimidate the GOP establishment and the media for so long.

Peter Schorsch details how Scott and Mainigi have no problem promising two different people the same job.

No one — and I mean no one — in the legislative branch has a clue about what to expect from Rick Scott’s administration. Members and staffers, new and veteran alike, simply don’t know what to make of Scott…they don’t know, beyond what they read in the media, who he’ll rely on in the Legislature, in the bureaucracy or the lobby corps. People who think they are going to work in the administration are literally talking to other people who were promised the same job. It’s all very Kaiser Soze: lots of incomplete information, none of which adds up to a full portrait.

This is going to be a long four years.