Gov. Charlie Crist has canceled his second fundraiser in Palm Beach County in four days due to a state emergency.

After the deadly shootings in Orlando on Friday, Crist's U.S. Senate campaign canceled a $500/head reception at the Jupiter home of Lorenza amp; Larry Parmet, the CEO and president, respectively, of Sundance Products, a recycling company that in February shutdown its three Georgia plants that employed about 330 workers. Other hosts for that reception were trial attorney Brian LaBovick and his wife, Ester; and Allbury Bros. Boats President Jeff Lichterman.

On Monday, Tropical Storm Ida forced the campaign to scratch a $4,800/person reception at the corporate offices of The Falcone Group in Boca Raton. The hosts include the co-owner of Life Insurance Concepts Inc. Ted Bernstein as well as Art Falcone and Marc Roberts, two South Florida developers who have sunk $1.2 million into the Committee on Critical Challenges.

Careful readers of Post On Politics will remember that political action committee as the one created to push a constitutional amendment allowing casinos in Miami. The petition drive stalled, but as of April the group was still paying its Fort Lauderdale-based advisers.

You might recognize that adviser: Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler.

Club for Growth, a fiscally conservative group that claims 40,000 member nationwide, threw its weight behind Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio in his primary against Gov. Charlie Crist.

The announcement is no major surprise, but its still a boost for Rubio: the group says it accounted for abotu $1 million in contributions and other spending in New York’s U.S. House race last week.

Press release after the jump.

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Fort Lauderdale attorney Scott Rothstein and Gov. Charlie Crist

State Rep. Carl Domino, R-Jupiter, doesn’t sound eager to make an issue of the $21,750 or more that GOP state Senate primary rival Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, has received over the years from alleged investment swindler Scott Rothstein.

“There but for the grace of God….” Domino said last week when asked about Bogdanoff’s Rothstein money and his apparently Rothstein-free portfolio.

Read about it in this week’s Politics column.

And click here to read Dara Kam’s account of the Rothstein-inspired unease in Tallahassee.

Also, esteemed business columnist Alexandra Clough pondures the allure of the Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler law firm.

Post editorial page editor Randy Schultz:

…why would Gov. Crist, through an off-key answer, invite speculation that there’s more to the Rothstein story? One theory is that there is more. Gov. Crist usually says that even megadonors get only “a thank-you note and good government.” That wasn’t the answer we heard last week.

With some local Democratic elected officials in open revolt over his record on Israel, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, has withdrawn as keynote speaker for next week’s Palm Beach County Democratic Party fund-raising dinner.

He’s the second Democratic keynoter to be scratched this week. The party dumped Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu on Tuesday because local activists were upset by her refusal to commit to blocking a Republican filibuster of health care overhaul legislation.

After Kucinich was announced as the replacement speaker, state Rep. Kevin Rader, D-Delray Beach, threatened a boycott and state Sen. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, County Commissioner Burt Aaronson and state Rep. Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach, voiced disapproval today.

Kucinich has a long history of criticizing the actions of the Israeli government, voting against congressional resolutions in support of Israel and opposing sanctions against the anti-Israel government of Iran.

His critics have “falsely characterized” those stances as being anti-Israel, Kucinich said this afternoon in an e-mail to Palm Beach County Democratic Chairman Mark Alan Siegel. While defending his position, Kucinich said he didn’t want the controversy to hurt the local party’s money-raising efforts.

Read his complete statement to Siegel after the jump….

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The third radio spot from Crist (listen here) closely follows the first two and repeats some of the same exaggerations.

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UPDATE: Here are some thoughts on the complaint from Paul Ryan of the Campaign Legal Center, who weighed in at our request:

The complaint alleges that the activity is illegal because, it alleges, Heffley is a “common vendor” to both the Crist campaign and the Web site. However, the complaint goes on to acknowledge that the Crist campaign isn’t paying Heffley and the complaint provides no evidence that the Web operation is paying Heffley. A person or company is only a “common vendor” under federal campaign finance laws if they’re being paid by both the candidate and the outside group that’s running campaign ads, Web communications, etc.

At any rate, it’s entirely appropriate for a person who suspects the law is being broken to file a complaint with the FEC and I don’t mean to imply otherwise here. … It then becomes the FEC’s job to investigate to learn the facts and determine whether the law’s been broken. … If Crist was behind the Web site, or if coordination occurred between Crist’s campaign and someone who paid for the Web site, either through a common vendor or otherwise, then federal law was likely broken.

Here’s a copy of the complaint Tampa Republican Club President Liz Wessel filed this week with the Federal Election Commission against Rich Heffley, one of Gov. Charlie Crist’s top political consultants.

Wessel said there was something “shady and unethical” about Heffley working on an anonymous Web site aimed at embarrassing Crist’s U.S. Senate primary opponent, Marco Rubio. Heffley has maintained Crist’s campaign had nothing to do with the site.

“I don’t think Charlie Crist is playing by the rules,” she said. “He’s reflecting poorly on all Republicans.”

Wessel voted for Crist in 2006 and donated $150 to his campaign that year (her husband gave Crist $4,800 in September). But she said Crist has “let the people of Florida down.”

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More trouble for the Palm Beach County Democratic Party’s annual fund-raising dinner.

Its original Jefferson-Jackson name was dropped because of qualms about Thomas Jefferson’s slave ownership and Andrew Jackson’s Indian-removal policies. Then the renamed Truman-Kennedy-Johnson dinner’s planned keynote speaker, moderate Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, was unceremoniously dumped this week because party leaders disliked Landrieu’s stance on health care reform.

Now Landrieu’s replacement — liberal U.S. Rep. and former presidential candidate Denis Kucinich, D-Ohio — is prompting a boycott threat from state Rep. Kevin Rader, D-Delray Beach, because of Kucinich’s voting record on Israel.

State Sen. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, has announced he won’t attend or support the event, calling Kucinich “someone whose position on Israel stands in total opposition to the conscience of this community.”

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U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam, a Republican candidate for state agriculture commissioner, released a statement this morning saying he would return contributions that appear to be connected to the Rothstein Rosenfedlt Adler law firm.

What caught our attention was the campaign’s phrase “out of an abundance of caution.”

From the campaign:

Out of an abundance of caution, the Putnam campaign will return several campaign contributions which appear to be from entities connected with the law firm of Rothstein, Rosenfeldt, Adler to the receivership or to charity as is appropriate. The campaign did not receive any personal contributions from the Rothstein’s.

That’s almost the exact same phrase that Gov. Charlie Crist’s campaign used on Tuesday:

In an abundance of caution, the Charlie Crist for U.S. Senate Campaign will return contributions received from Scott and Kim Rothstein. Contributions in the amount of $9600 will be turned over to a proper entity as soon as possible.

The difference between the two Republicans is that Crist is not returning at least another $70,000 from other attorneys at Rothstein’s firm.

“Are there allegations against those other people? Not that I’m aware of,” Crist said Wednesday.

UPDATE: First Democratic ad, released in April, is here

In what could be the first television ad of the 2010 U.S. Senate Republican primary, Club for Growth, the conservative group that helped take down the Republican candidate in an upstate New York Congressional race, has unveiled a new television spot aimed at Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, who is facing a primary challenge from former House Speaker Marco Rubio.

The club has not officially picked sides in the race, but this is clearly the strongest signal of several in recent months that they favor Rubio. The group could provide Rubio a needed boost in fundraising against Crist.

The group said the 30-second spot “will air soon on Florida television stations.”

Fact check after the jump.

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By Michael C. Bender and Dara Kam
Palm Beach Post Capital Bureau

Embattled Fort Lauderdale attorney Scott Rothstein opened up a Tallahassee office shortly after Republican Charlie Crist won the governor’s office. But there’s no one at the office these days and it appears there hasn’t been for a while — a FedEx note from Sept. 29 is hanging on the door knob.

Meanwhile, the firm’s Capital City operation provides another link between Crist and Rothstein, and could further call into question Crist’s claim that the two had little relationship beyond Rothstein’s support of Crist’s campaigns.

The Tallahassee office was run by Grant Smith, son of former U.S. Rep. Larry Smith, D-Hollywood, and Cheryl Seinfeld.

Seinfeld was the Republican Party of Florida’s finance director from October 2006 to July 2008, when she was terminated after the office was restructured, a party spokeswoman said. Party records show Seinfeld worked there as early as September 2005.

She was hired by Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler within days of leaving the state party, according to her profile on LinkedIn.com.

Seinfeld, meanwhile, also worked on Crist’s 2006 gubernatorial campaign and “Yes on 1 – Save Our Homes NOW,” Crist’s 2008 campaign for a property tax constitutional amendment, according to campaign finance records.

Prior to her work with the state party, she worked for former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fort Pierce, and former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn.

And just in case you were wondering, here’s a list of clients the Rothstein firm was lobbying Crist and/or state lawmakers during the past two years:

Committee on Critical Challenges, Inc. of Miami; Community Capital Management, Inc. of Weston; Dan Marino Foundation, Inc. of Weston; Edify, LLC of Fort Lauderdale; Littlefield Corp. of Austin, Texas; Morse Automotive Group of Fort Lauderdale; South Central Florida Express, Inc. of Clewiston; South Florida Regional Transportation Authority of Pompano Beach; Southern Gardens Citrus Holding Corp. of Clewiston; U.S. Sugar Corp. of Clewiston.

Here’s a quick thumbnail on the companies that aren’t so obvious:

The Committee on Critical Challenges bankrolled a petition drive to allow for Las Vegas-style casinos in Miami. One of men leading that petition drive — Boca Raton businessman Art Falcone — hosted a fundraiser in Aspen, Colorado this summer for Crist’s U.S. Senate campaign.

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Palm Beach County Republican Chairman Sid Dinerstein joined with 16 other party leaders, including the party head in Gov. Charlie Crist’s home county, telling state party Chairman Jim Greer to “cease and desist your interference in Republican primaries.”

The also called for the resignation of political consultant Rich Heffley for his role in this controversy.

From the letter:

Chairman, you have a choice to make. Are you goign to lead the broad and inclusive coalition that makes up our party and its supporters to victory or are you simply going to use your power as Chairman to impose your choice of who should become the Republican nominee for the United States Senate and violate every tenet of our Party?

We, the undersigned, hope it is the former.

Here’s Greer’s response.

Here’s the latest video from the Republican Majority Campaign of Florida, a 527 political action committee whose parent group raised more than $4 million during 2008 (most of which was spent campaigning for GOP presidential nominee John McCain). You might also remember the group from a fund-raising e-mail they sent earlier this year warning that Congress wanted to give President Obama “total control of the Internet.”

The web video focuses on the Gov. Charlie Crist’s support of the federal stimulus package, the central theme of former House Speaker Marco Rubio’s campaign against Crist in the state’s U.S. Senate Republican primary.

Crist, meanwhile, is attempting to add some nuance to his feelings about the stimulus package. He told CNN last night that he didn’t endorse the proposal and that he “didn’t even have a vote on the darned thing.” Here’s a fact-check of sorts from the Associated Press.

Meanwhile, click here to listen to Crist explain to reporters this morning his seemingly evolving position on the subject.

Interview with Gov. Crist about Scott Rothstein. Note: Audio was edited to remove unrelated questions and some confusion during an elevator malfunction.

Graphic: Tainted Crist donors, fundraisers

Graphic: Rothstein: A lavish life in the fast lane

TALLAHASSEE — Republican Gov. Charlie Crist attempted Wednesday to distance himself from a Fort Lauderdale attorney accused of raiding and swindling his way to what could be a $500 million payday.

Crist also denied any problems for his U.S. Senate campaign after Scott Rothstein became his third major political fundraiser entangled in scandal in the past year.

“I don’t think it will affect it at all,” Crist said. “Because I’ve done nothing wrong.”

But three fund-raisers involved in corruption allegations will give Crist’s political opponents an easy target, said Lynn University political science professor Robert Watson.

“If it was a coincidence before, it looks like a pattern now,” said Watson, a Democratic U.S. House candidate in 2005.

Rest of the story here.

Background: Why we care about Scott Rothstein

Senate Ways and Means Committee staff director Cynthia Kelly resigned from her post today.

Kelly leaves her boss Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander without his right-hand-woman as he struggles to chop $2.8 billion from this year’s budget.

Kelly, who’s spent 20 years working for the state, is quitting to spend more time with her family, according to an e-mail distributed within the Senate. She’ll stay on for up to a month.

Alexander, R-Lake Wales, had this to say about Kelly. (more…)

Boca Raton Councilwoman Susan Haynie was edged out by former Boca Mayor Steven Abrams this year for Gov. Charlie Crist’s appointment to fill a Palm Beach County commission seat.

Haynie concedes Abrams has an “impressive resume,” but suggests he had an edge because of his connection to disgraced Fort Lauderdale attorney Scott Rothstein.

Rothstein, a friend and major money-raiser for Gov. Charlie Crist, was Abrams’ employer and was listed by Abrams as a reference on his application for the appointment.

Says Haynie: “Going into the interview process, I knew that Steve Abrams’ employer was a close personal friend of Gov. Crist as well as one of his major contributors. And it didn’t feel like a level playing field.”

Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer offered a helping hand to Sen. Paula Dockery, who’s complained that her party isn’t doing anything to aide her gubernatorial bid.

Dockery announced yesterday she’s challenging Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum in a bid for governor and defying Greer’s wishes to avoid GOP primaries in high-profile (and expensive) races.

Then Dockery lashed out today after the RPOF sent out an e-mail from McCollum’s campaign touting his endorsements from GOP bigwigs.

RPOF spokeswoman Katie Gordon Betta responded with the following e-mail to Postonpolitcs.com:

“I spoke to the Chairman and he wants to clarify that the RPOF authorizes payment of certain allocable and non -allocable expense for statewide candidates at the request of those candidates. We aren’t ‘spending money’ on the McCollum Campaign – we are paying for certain expenses at the request of the campaign – just like we do for the other primary campaigns.

“Senator Dockery has not spoken to the Chairman or the RPOF regarding these resources. The Chairman congratulates the senator on her decision to seek the Republican nomination. The RPOF is willing to extend every courtesy to the Dockery Campaign, but to this point Senator Dockery’s Campaign has made no contact with the RPOF regarding her candidacy,” Betta wrote.

Dockery’s campaign spokeswoman Rosemary Goudreau came back with a less-than-tepid rejoinder.

“The ‘People for Paula’ campaign welcomes the party’s support and looks forward to having a conversation with the chairman,” Goudreau wrote

That’s the unfortunate headline about the then high-flying Fort Lauderdale attorney in the October 2007 issue of Las Olas Lifestyle.

From the article:

Politics is another in Rothstein’s never ending streams of passions. And, he focuses much of his attention on assisting those who help children in need. Rothstein believes every child should have the opportunity to live a better quality of life, regardless of their environment and elected officials need to create this opportunity.

“Governor Charlie Crist, is the perfect example. I started supporting him when he was running for Attorney General. I studied his principles. I met with him for hours, and decided this guy is the key to true change. He won the election and truly made a difference. He called upon me again when he decided to run for Governor and I supported him with every ounce of my being. This is a person of pure unadulterated passion and integrity. His approval rating is through the roof because he does what he believes in his heart is right and doesn’t play games along party lines or with peoples lives. He is the peoples Governor, plain and simple. And, some day I am certain he will be the people’s President.”

Attorney Steven Abrams listed his boss, Scott Rothstein, as one of three references when he applied this year for Gov. Charlie Crist’s appointment to fill a Palm Beach County commission vacancy. But Abrams, who got the appointment in March, says he and Rothstein weren’t very close and he’s confident he won the job based on his record as mayor of Boca Raton and his own lengthy ties to Crist.

Crist’s former chief of staff, Eric Eikenberg, said Abrams won the job on his own merit.

“I vouched for Steve Abrams from the beginning based on my long-time working relationship with him and the governor has known him for years,” said Eikenberg, who was chief of staff for former U.S. Rep. Clay Shaw when Abrams was mayor of Boca Raton. Eikenberg is now campaign manager for Crist’s U.S. Senate bid.

Rothstein, head of a Fort Lauderdale law firm and a major political money-raiser for Crist and other elected officials, was accused by his own law partners this week of orchestrating a multimillion-dollar scheme to bilk investors. Abrams quit the firm Monday.

“Did he put in a good word for me? He was my boss,” Abrams said. “If you were to ask your boss permission to seek a job, wouldn’t you put your boss down as a reference?”

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In another example of legislating by anecdote, House Democratic Leader Franklin Sands filed a bill to let nursing mothers off the hook for jury duty.

Sands filed the bill (HB 79) after hearing from a breast-feeding constituent who wasn’t allowed to bring her baby along to jury duty.

Emily Schmitt sent the Weston Democrat a lengthy e-mail describing her tale of woe after showing up for jury duty in Broward County and being “completely demeaned, disrespected and humiliated” by workers who told her to pump her breastmilk in the bathroom like other nursing mothers have done in the past.

“That’s just plain wrong,” said Sands.

Florida law now currently excuses from jury duty pregnant women and parents who don’t work full time and have custody of children younger than 6 years old.

Sands’ measure, which would add lactating mothers to that list, was approved by a committee yesterday.

The Senate companion bill has yet to be assigned for a committee hearing.