Our Observation

Rick Scott may have realized a few months ago that he couldn’t kill SunRail. His lawyers knew it. Had he attempted to dismantle the project before it had begun construction — and well after it had received state approval — he would have faced a serious lawsuit.

He’d let Transportation Secretary Ananth Prasad make the official announcement Friday morning. Then he headed to Tampa to face the state’s newspaper editors. That afternoon, as he begrudgingly announced his approval of the long-awaited commuter rail system that would hurtle commuters from DeBary to Poinciana and everywhere in between, he spoke with an almost matter-of-fact candor to the Florida Press Association’s annual convention Friday:

“They said there was a significant risk I would lose,” Scott said of his lawyers’ advice.

But there was a lot more he stood to lose, particularly in political capital in the recent wake of poll numbers showing his approval rating at the bottom of governors nationwide. With a majority of voters supporting the system, despite its high cost, he could have seen the lowest approval ratings in decades for a Florida governor.

That candor, in light of the potential downsides that could cripple Scott’s governorship so early into his first term of office, was refreshing, but expected. It was already well known that he faced a tough, if impossible, battle when the state called his bluff in killing SunRail. That his poll numbers would suffer wasn’t a question of if, but how much.

Despite the decision already being made by the time he stepped up to the podium Friday, Scott seemed to openly lament his own forced hand rather than to rejoice for a decision that had been a foregone conclusion.

Pushed to support SunRail after two fellow Republican governors had outwardly praised the system, Scott seemed more eager to take parting shots than to extol the virtues of a system that the vast majority of his party had long since gotten on board with.

The tightrope he walked was always going to be there, regardless of his stance. Though the train now promises thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in business boom in the communities surrounding it, there are still some negatives. Anti-government Tea Party activists are calling it another win for big government. Commuters who live too far from the train route point to the train taking money that otherwise could have been spent on roads in Central Florida, though the dollars to commuter miles traveled overwhelmingly favor SunRail versus cars clogging Interstate 4.

But the fallout was still far less for Scott allowing SunRail than had he attempted to kill it. With riders expected to hop on board as early as 2014, his energy is much better spent making sure it works, rather than simply keeping his hands out of it and perhaps quietly hoping it fails.

It’s time he got positive about the commuter train, rather than seeming eager to say, “I told you so” if the system fails. If his attitude, and poll numbers, continue on their current track, there’s a solid chance he’ll have long since been replaced as governor by the time he has a chance to wag his finger.