Rick Scott is the man

Rick Scott falling poll numbers: Governor Rick Scott is looking like a one-term wonder as a new poll shows he is wildly unpopular. - OrlandoSentinel.com Mike Thomas COMMENTARY

8:21 p.m. EDT, March 30, 2011

f you don't like Rick Scott, wait three years and nine months and he should be gone.

That's according to the first poll taken since voters have had a chance to assess their new leader.

Generally, governors see an uptick in their popularity after assuming office ? the so-called honeymoon.

But with Scott, we're skipping that and going right to divorce court.
Scott may be the most unpopular governor in America.

His numbers are so bad that if there was a do-over of the November election, Alex Sink would win by 19 percentage points. Talk about buyers' remorse.

Moammar Gadhafi could beat him at this point, if he's checking out asylum options.

Even 20 percent of Republicans who voted for Scott would vote against him now.

He is a dead man governing.

The survey was done by Public Policy Polling, admittedly a Democratic outfit. But its polls tend to be as accurate as others.

Last year, a PPP poll noted that Fox News was the most trusted television news operation. Do you think that was easy to admit?

PPP was one of the few polls that had Scott ahead in the final days of his race against Bill McCollum.

And in the same survey that has Scott's support plunging, PPP found that Marco Rubio's support is rising.

Scott has maintained the same base of support he had when he took office, with about a third of voters approving of him then and now. These would be your bedrock conservatives, tea-party aficionados and residents of Eustis.

Everyone else is abandoning ship. His "negative'' numbers, the people who disapprove of him, have gone from 43 percent to 55 percent.

Democrats loathe him ? no surprise there. But he also faces a mass desertion by independent voters. And among Republicans, only a dismal 57 percent approve of how he is doing his job.

Scott dismisses the poll, saying it's not his job to be popular.

But I guarantee you that nobody else in Tallahassee is dismissing it.

Republicans may well end up running from Scott in 2012 like Democrats ran from President Barack Obama in 2010.