In the great novel by Charles Dickens, "Oliver Twist", Jack Dawkins is a pickpocket, an "artful dodger" for his skill and cunning leading a pack of child criminals.
It is an easy metaphor for GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, and the like-minded governor of Florida Rick Scott. When the most incurious governor in modern Florida history opined favorably in USA Today about Trump's bid to become the 2016 GOP presidential nominee, he left out the artful dodger part. In "Donald Trump has America's pulse", Scott emphasized how Republican voters are looking for an "outsider".
Scott, was, himself an "outsider" when he ran for the chief executive slot in Florida, like Jack Dawkins at the edge of a crowd in Piccadilly Circus.
Like Trump, Scott's fortune was largely based on skirting the edges of the law. Scott escaped accountability for fraud by the company he founded, Hospital Corporation of America, by a whisker. His hand-picked successors ended up shouldering the personal and financial costs including the largest civil fine ever levied against a US corporation.
Donald Trump has also been an artful dodger; using bankruptcy law many times and slight-of-hand moves with subcontractors to advance his profits.
Charles Dickens (and Mark Twain) would have a field day with today's Republican presidential primary. Most dodgers who aspire to elected office don't have a spare hundred million to throw at a governor's race, the way Rick Scott did. Donald Trump has the money and the will, but will GOP voters will prove as gullible as Florida's? All will be revealed in due course.
2 comments:
Is it not ironic how the 1% has become salvation to the common underpaid in such a short time?
Scott wants a spot in the administration.
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