NAPLES — When Scott Lara’s wife, Marty, awoke with a bad cough eight years ago, he urged her to stop in at a Solantic walk-in clinic near their Jacksonville home for a checkup and an X-ray.

Although the staff members at Solantic, which is owned by Florida gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott, didn’t diagnose Marty Lara’s lung cancer, they did let her know that her symptoms were serious, and referred her to another doctor. after having her left lung removed, Marty Lara, 52, is now cancer-free.

“I really appreciate Rick Scott and what he’s done,” said Scott Lara, 49, a non-denominational pastor who considers himself a far-right Republican. “It has definitely impacted my life. It has definitely impacted my wife’s life.”

Most Rick Scott supporters haven’t been affected by Scott the way Lara has, yet the people who attend his campaign events seem to have much in common.

They’re middle-class Americans. They’re conservative; in some cases very conservative. they tend to be white, but aren’t exclusively so.

Some attend tea parties, and those who don’t tend to support tea party principles of limited government and individual responsibility. they enjoy conservative talk radio — rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

But if there is one thing that unites Rick Scott supporters more than anything else, it’s frustration: frustration with the dismal state of the economy, and frustration with the politicians who they believe are responsible for making it that way.

Scott, a multimillionaire from Naples, said his supporters tend to be “the voters who are similar to me.”

“They’ve worked hard. they believe in the American dream,” Scott said. “They know you’ve got to work hard, focus on you family, build this country. they really care about this country. the believe in what the founders did with the U.S. Constitution. and they believe in the second Amendment, things like that.”

Bill McCollum, the state’s attorney general and Scott’s main opponent in the Republican primary, says he is proud of his record of public service. That’s not going to cut it with Jameson Depaola, 37, a Cape Coral resident who attended Scott’s campaign stop in North Fort Myers on Thursday.

“He’s been a career politician,” Depaola said of McCollum. “We need to start weeding out the incumbents that have been there for too long and can’t show anything for their time.”

Scott’s success in the private sector, building companies and creating jobs, is a selling point for many of his supporters, including Luz Castro, 76, who held a Rick Scott political sign outside his debate with McCollum in the Miami area in early August.

“He’s a businessman,” Castro said. “We think he’s better for this city.”

Scott’s strong support for bringing an Arizona-style immigration law to Florida was cited by several supporters who spoke to the Daily News, while others just seemed to like his rags-to-riches background and guy-next-door style.

“The way he talks is very straight-forward to people,” said Kevin Gallagher, 53, of Flagler Beach, who considers himself a middle-of-the-road conservative. “His whole story, ‘Let’s get to work,’ that’s what people are looking for.”

Peter Bergerson, a political science professor at Florida Gulf Coast University in Estero, said that frequently in elections, the nuances of issues get trumped by character.

“People admire someone who has had very humble beginnings, whether it’s Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, the Abraham Lincoln model of a politician,” Bergerson said.

Some supporters say they support Scott despite concerns about allegations of fraud and overbilling at Solantic, and Scott’s role in the $1.7 billion Medicare fraud at his former company Columbia/HCA. others say they have no concerns at all.

“His company did mess up. I really, truly believe he didn’t know about it to start with,” Paul Witten, 62, of East Naples, said at a Scott campaign event in Naples on Friday.

If Scott wins the Republican primary, Scott will have to win the votes of independents, moderates and even some voters on the center-left. a Mason-Dixon poll released this week showed that in a general election with the presumptive Democratic candidate, Alex Sink, Scott was down, 40 percent to 24 percent.

Scott downplayed the significance of the poll, and said he believes his success at creating private sector jobs ultimately will win him voters across the political spectrum.

“Every Floridian cares about jobs,” Scott said. “That’s probably the biggest issue, one through 10. everybody is worried about, either they’ve lost their job or they’re worried about losing their job. they have a family member or a friend that has lost their job. So that’s what I bring to the table.”

But creating jobs, slashing taxes and eliminating regulations is easier said than done.

“It’s easy to campaign on promises of lowering and eliminating taxes,” Bergerson said. “It’s another thing meeting the requirements of balancing a budget.”

© 2010 TCPalm. All rights reserved. this material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.