SARASOTA, Fla.

“I have lived the American dream,” said Rick Scott, an extremely wealthy candidate for governor, to a dinner crowd of Republicans at the Sarasota Yacht Club.

This week in Florida, I heard two stupendously rich men  one a billionaire  tell rooms full of voters that they lived the American dream. Didn’t the American dream used to be having a house of your own with a nice yard? When did it evolve into owning your own $9.2 million mansion? Isn’t this putting a little too much pressure on the nation, dream-wise?

Scott’s talk went into great detail about his humble beginnings, when his mom “took in ironing so we could get groceries.” This kind of rags-to-riches saga is supposed to offer encouragement to the struggling masses. But, really, when you are telling the story at a yacht club it just sounds like bragging.

My second question is how yachts manage to keep horning into the political picture. Lately, we’ve had a controversy over whether John Kerry was trying to avoid Massachusetts taxes on his new $7 million yacht by docking it in Rhode Island. Inquiring minds in Connecticut are going to want to know why the Republican gubernatorial candidate, Tom Foley, has his 100-foot yacht registered in the Marshall Islands. The whole world wants to know why the yacht owned by Linda McMahon, the U.S. Senate nominee in Connecticut, is named Sexy Bitch.