BOCA RATON — Attorney Gen. Bill McCollum drew about 130 people to a breakfast fund-raiser this morning for his GOP campaign for governor and said he’s taking multimillionaire primary challenger Rick Scott seriously.

“He’s spending a lot of money. I take anyone seriously who has the resources,” McCollum told a reporter when asked about Scott. The Naples businessman launched his TV-fueled campaign in April and shocked many political observers last week by posting a 24 percent showing to McCollum’s 38 percent in a Mason-Dixon poll of GOP primary voters.

McCollum didn’t mention Scott or likely Democratic nominee Alex Sink during his remarks to the breakfast gathering at the Griddle restaurant, but told the crowd: “We have a lot of work to do. We don’t take anything for granted.”

This morning’s event was one of several “Breakfast with Bill” fund-raisers McCollum has held around the state. His campaign said it was the best attendance he’s had for one of the breakfasts.

Before launching into his standard campaign remarks, McCollum said he and other state attorneys general are pursuing “significant claims and damages” against BP for the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“We need to pray and prepare,” McCollum said. “We need to pray that they close off that wellhead sooner than the 90 days some say it may take….And we need to prepare for the eventuality that we are damaged and prepare for the fact that if it does not stop and the plume does come it will be a protracted process of cleanup.”

McCollum was introduced by House Majority Leader Adam Hasner, R-Boca Raton, who was elected in 2002 when Republican Jeb Bush was governor.

“In Tallahassee I’ve had the opportunity to work over the past eight years with two different governors. And let me just say they have been very different governors,” Hasner said.

“We need a governor who is principled. Somebody who bases their decisions on their core beliefs and their core values, not just what’s necessarily in the latest public opinion poll or what just might be popular on any given day.”

Principles and polling are standard GOP code words for attacks on Crist. But Hasner also seemed to take a veiled shot at political newcomer Scott.

“There’s one word that I would tell you describes Bill McCollum, and that word is ‘trust.’ And throughout his entire public-service life, he is someone that the people of this country, the people of Florida, have been able to trust,” Hasner said.

Scott gained fame in the 1990s for helping build Columbia/HCA into the nation’s largest health care company. But he was ousted by its board of directors in 1997 amid a federal investigation that resulted in Columbia/HCA paying more than $1.7 billion in fines and restitution to settle charges that included overbilling state and federal health care programs.

Scott addresses the Columbia/HCA scandal on his campaign website:

“I’ve made mistakes in my life. And mistakes were certainly made at Columbia/HCA. I was the CEO of the company and as CEO I accept responsibility for what happened on my watch. I learned very hard lessons from what happened and those lessons have helped me become a better businessman and leader.”

Tags: oil spill, Rick Scott

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 13th, 2010 at 12:23 pm and is filed under 2010 campaigns, Alex Sink, Bill McCollum, Charlie Crist, George Bennett. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.