Scott spends nearly $300K on consultants

Gov. Rick Scott can’t seek re-election, but is spending money on political consultants, adding fuel to speculation that he is aiming to run for the U.S. Senate in 2018.

Scott’s Let’s Get To Work political fundraising committee reported last week that it paid $26,000 to a pair of political consulting firms, one in Miami that specializes in Hispanic outreach and the other based in Tallahassee.

With that, Let’s Get to Work has spent $292,616 on eight different political consulting firms just since April 1on a wide range of services, including work on surveys, research, advertising and general consulting.

Scott has told some big political donors that he is interested in running for the Senate in 2018. But publicly, Scott has brushed off the questions by the media about his political future.

Asked in April about running for the Senate, Scott did not directly answer.

“I’m going to keep working on being governor,” he said then. “I just got reelected. We’re going to have a good four years. It’s exciting.”

The amount of money Scott is spending on political consultants this early and with no declared future office ambition is unprecedented, said Darryl Paulson, professor emeritus of political science at USF St. Petersburg and a registered Republican who has written about Florida politics for 30 years.

“He must be looking down the road at what his next job will be,” Paulson said.

What specifically those consultants are working on is not clear.