The exclamation Great Scott! is called a “minced oath,” a euphemism to mollify use of or profaning a term or word, like gosh for God. The exclamation has been a favorite of Superman for decades. Whether it applies or ought to apply to the junior US senator from Florida or to his public presentments is a subject for the judgment of history.

The GOP has been without a formal drafted and debated national platform since 2016, eschewing the custom to inform voters and effectively  granting its presidential candidate unrestrained carte blanche to utter word salad statements as public policy. But, as science advises, vacuums tend to be filled as testament to Mother Nature’s inexorable dynamics.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), chair of the RNC’s Senatorial Campaign Committee, stepped into the batter’s box swinging for the bleachers with an eleven-point campaign manifesto.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), chair of the RNC’s Senatorial Campaign Committee, stepped into the batter’s box swinging for the bleachers with an eleven-point campaign manifesto. Voters and fans will be the arbiters and umpires judging Scott’s performance. Unlike Bobby Thompson’s 1951 game and pennant winning home run at New York’s Polo Grounds (the shot heard ’round the world), Sen. Scott’s plan is in its early days as the RNC has yet to select a site for its 2024 convention.  There has been little praise from colleagues, largely silence.

Rather than engage readers in a weedy, wonky parsing of Scott’s ideas, curiosity can be assuaged by the article in Esquire (https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a39176448/rick-scott-republican-plan-newt-gingrich/). An Internet search, however, revealed the interpretive assessment of one political wag also at sea about the GOP platform gap. It’s a 17-point collection of policy proposals that ring familiarly for any who follow the RNC/GOP leadership. As with Scott’s modest proposal, this set is unofficial (https://www.valuewalk.com/the-2024-republican-party-platform/).

1. The 2020 presidential election was stolen from President Donald Trump.
2. We support a massive “middle class tax cut” which will actually go mainly to the rich and to large corporations – just like the last one we delivered four years ago.
3. Mandates requiring COVID vaccinations, the wearing of protective face masks and the enforcement of social distancing shall be prohibited.
4. All federal funding in support of science shall be discontinued and scientists and science shall be disparaged.
5. If global warming even exists, it is not caused by humans.
6. State laws restricting voting shall be actively encouraged.
7. State laws allowing overriding the results of federal elections shall be encouraged.
8. Obamacare shall be abolished.
9. The right to an abortion shall be abolished.
10. The president shall have the right to issue pardons for state crimes.
11. Every American shall be granted the right to own all commercially available guns.    
12. The defacement or removal of publicly displayed Confederate statues and flags shall be a federal offense.
13. All state and federal environmental protection laws shall be abolished.
14. The funding for the IRS shall be cut by fifty percent.
15. The Constitution shall be amended to allow a president to serve for life.
16. The emigration of Moslems, as well as black and brown people, shall be sharply curbed.
17. The Constitution shall be amended to define the U.S.A. as a white Christian nation.

Neither Scott’s nor the wag’s platforms have the imprimatur of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who told reporters recently that when the GOP retakes the congressional majority, the party’s plans for the nation will be announced. In the meantime, sports-betting websites are expected to be open for wagers on each of Scott’s 11 items.

Thus it remains a possibility that Rick Scott may be crowned as great or a huge flash in the pan competitor in creating political policy prescriptions. Of course, the RNC has the option it exercised in 2020, simply to repeat or reiterate the 2016 nonplatform, thereby conserving energy and avoiding difficult discussion and debate among a presently fractured organization.

Only Democrats are likely to regret (or celebrate) the loss of a GOP platform and the resulting vacuum while the faithful Republican base is not likely to notice the void. Rick Scott is certainly no Superman, nor a Billy Batson transformed into Captain Marvel by invoking Shazam! but his manifesto is comic.    

Categories: Issues