Political newbie Pam Bondi scooped her GOP rivals for attorney general with an endorsement today from conservative icon Sarah Palin.

Palin, who was Sen. John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential election, backed Bondi along with a handful of other female GOP candidates throughout the country today.

“We desperately need these conservative leaders who won’t kowtow to the Obama administration’s big government overreach into our states, small businesses, families, and individual lives,” Palin wrote on her Facebook page about Bondi and Iowa attorney general candidate Brenna Findley.

Palin ‘s endorsement this late in the primary game could translate into some last-minute campaign cash for Bondi, a former prosecutor who’s kicking off a state-wide, four-day bus tour beginning tomorrow in Tallahassee.

The endorsement is a snub of Bondi’s opponent Holly Benson, a former Florida House member who also served under Gov. Charlie Crist as secretary of both the Department of Business and Professional Regulation and the Agency for Health Care Administration.

Benson recently launched a television ad in which she calls both Bondi and the third GOP AG candidate Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp liberals.

Lawmakers appear to have abandoned their earlier pledge to hold a special session on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in September and instead could possibly wait until the regular session in March.

Rep. Gary Aubuchon, the coordinator of the House’s five Deepwater Horizon oil spill work groups, has until Aug. 31 to give House Speaker Larry Cretul a report on possible legislation to help revive the Florida Panhandle economy or provide tax breaks to residents there. Aubuchon said Tuesday those suggestions probably won’t go to Cretul until sometime during the first week of September.

And although some Panhandle business owners have already shuttered operations and others are on the brink of doing the same because of plummeting revenues during their peak summer tourist season that coincided with the April 20 oil disaster, Aubuchon said early reports from his leaders show there’s no need to rush.

“We are continuing to ask the questions, attend the meetings, gather the data and looking for a productive role the state could play. Whether we begin to play that role in September, or November, or during the regular session is a question yet to be answered,” Aubuchon, R-Cape Coral, said after meeting with Ken Feinberg, the claims czar who will take over BP’s problematic claims system on Monday at 12:01 a.m.

“One of the questions I’m asking each work group coordinator to answer is does anything you are working on now or anticipate working on necessitate the need for a special session? The early feedback I’m getting is no it does not,” Aubuchon said. “But the final conclusion has not been reached. And of course that is a decision that will be made by our presiding officers in the House and Senate.”

Even the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, whose members would probably benefit the most, is ok with holding off on a special session until after November.

Sen. Don Gaetz wants to pass a bill that would allow the FRLA to access up to $5 million of a trust fund comprised of fees paid by restaurant and hotel owners. There’s about $9 million in the trust fund, which is supposed to be earmarked for promotions.

FRLA President Carol Dover said she met with GOP legislative leaders last week.
“Coming into September with the group that are going to be gone or waiting until the organizational session with the group that are going to be bound by what they have passed could be a better way,” Dover said.

Lawmakers met in an aborted special session late in June after being ordered bv Gov. Charlie Crist to take up a constitutional amendment banning offshore drilling. They left in less than two hours without passing anything.

But before the special session even began, Senate President Jeff Atwater asked Cretul, R-Ocala, to consider a special session late in August or in September.

Atwater reiterated that hope yesterday.

The North Palm Beach Republican who is running statewide for chief financial officer believes lawmakers should meet within a month “to provide Floridians the assistance and relief that they need in the wake of this crisis,” Emhof said.

COCONUT CREEK — Republican-turned-independent Gov. and U.S. Senate candidate Charlie Crist courted Democratic voters this morning — but wouldn’t say whether he’d align with Democrats or the GOP if he’s elected in November.

“I’m not answering that question, because I’ve said that I will caucus with the people of Florida,” Crist told reporters after speaking to a crowd of about 500 at the heavily Democratic Wynmoor retirement community.

Crist was introduced by Democratic state Rep. Ari Porth, who has endorsed him. Democratic state Sen. Jeremy Ring and Republican Broward County Sheriff Al Lamberti were also on hand, but said they have not made endorsements.

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If Republican bosses are upset about Rick Scott’s TV ad that attempts to tie his Republican gubernatorial primary rival Bill McCollum to former state party chairman Jim Greer, they’re not going to be too happy with this mailer.

We’re told it was dropped in the mail on Monday and sent to about 800,000 households.

The Republican Governor’s Association and the Republican Party of Florida are asking Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott to pull a TV ad that accuses primary rival Bill McCollum of helping former state party chairman Jim Greer “hide financial irregularities.”

There is no evidence linking McCollum to the corruption charges that landed Greer in jail earlier this summer. But McCollum did play a role in the secret negotiations to force Greer’s resignation and publicly said afterward that the party should not disclose the internal financial records in question.

McCollum now says he will support releasing the forensic audit of the party.

Here are the statements from state Sen. John Thrasher, the state party chairman, and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, the RGA chairman.

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Three weeks after a Quinnipiac University poll showed outsiders Jeff Greene and Rick Scott holding double-digit leads in their Democratic Senate and Republican governor’s primaries, a new Quinnipiac survey shows their establishment-backed rivals are back on top as next Tuesday’s elections approach.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek now holds a 35-to-28 percent edge over Palm Beach investor Greene in the Democratic Senate primary — reversing Greene’s 33-to-23 percent lead in late July.

In the GOP governor’s primary, Attorney General Bill McCollum has opened a 44-to-35 percent lead over Naples businessman Scott. Scott had a 43-to-32 percent lead over McCollum in the July poll.

The latest poll was taken Aug. 11 through Monday. The sample of 807 likely Republican voters has a margin of error of 3.5 percent while the 814-voter Democratic sample has a 3.4 percent margin of error.

In a state of 4 million Republicans, it almost seemed futile for Bill McCollum to be waving a sign on the side of a road in an attempt to sway drivers to vote for him instead of Rick Scott in their party’s primary for governor.

But McCollum wasn’t alone. He stood with about a dozen volunteers, the kind of supporters he expects will play a vital role in the Tuesday election.

“This is what my opponent just doesn’t have,” McCollum told his backers. “We’ve got the grassroots behind us.”

Scott, however, argues his campaign is a direct product of a grassroots movement.

Scott founded a group, Conservatives for Patients Rights, that fought the federal health-care changes last summer and helped whip up the flurry of conservative activism now known as the tea party movement.

“I finally said to myself that I could either continue to fund things from an advocacy standpoint … or run for office,” Scott said.

Scott and McCollum have traded the lead in a serious of polls during the past week, including two more released Wednesday. The competing polls suggest a neck-and-neck race that will be won by whichever candidate executes the best ground game and pushes the most supporters to the polls.

Story here.

Mike Tyson, who recently told Sports Illustrated of his druggie summer of 2005, clarifies for Politico.com today that he never did drugs while he was a guest on Democratic Senate candidate Jeff Greene’s yacht.

Tyson — former heavyweight champ, convicted rapist and best man at Greene’s 2007 wedding — also mentioned that he’s a vegan.

The Greene campaign is circulating the Politico item to defuse the latest round of yacht-related questions that have swirled around Greene’s candidacy.

U.S. Sen. George LeMieux, R-Fla., and Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Marco Rubio held a press conference this afternoon to offer their critiques of President Obama, who will be in Miami tomorrow for a fundraiser to help his fellow Democrats.

“He’s been frolicking around the country fund-raising,” LeMieux said.

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Last week we showed you Bill McCollum’s closing argument (here and here) for Republican gubernatorial primary voters.

Meanwhile, Rick Scott’s campaign tells us their actual “closing argument” ad has not been dropped, but that final pitch is coming into focus. Above are the three new ads he’s released in the past five days and spending $4 million to air on TV this week. The messages: Don’t fear Rick Scott, McCollum is the insider and Scott is against Muslim fanatics and President Obama.

Promotions touting tar-free Northwest Florida beaches and clear Gulf waters may hurt Panhandle fishermen’s ability to get the emergency six-month payments the new oil disaster claims czar is promising will be easy to get come Monday.

Ken Feinberg will take over BP’s troubled claims system at 12:01 a.m. Monday. Under Feinberg’s new process, individuals or businesses filing claims will get paid for six months of lost revenues instead of BP’s current month-to-month compensation.

Feinberg told fishermen today they may not be eligible for six full months of emergency payments because the oil well is capped, water closures for fishing have been lifted and tourism officials are promoting the cleanliness of Florida waters and beaches.

Even the first family’s weekend trip to the region – aimed at luring visitors to the region – may not have been a good thing for the fishermen.

“Now I see the president’s coming down. I see they opened up the shrimp grounds yesterday. The fishing grounds are open. I’m reading in the newspaper people are returning to the Gulf,” Feinberg, in Pensacola for the second time in a week, told an audience of about 100 at the Pensacola Civic Center.

Feinberg said it appeared to him that things were getting better in the Panhandle despite a persistent refrain from mom-and-pop hoteliers, restaurant owners and fishermen, whose plight was recently worsened when BP shut down the “vessels of opportunity” program that paid them to aid recovery efforts.

“What do you men you can’t fish for six months? Your compatriots are fishing now. I’m reading it in the newspaper. So the new wrinkle…that I didn’t confront two weeks ago or two months ago is what is the impact of the spill as every day I read in the newspaper things are improving.Thank goodness,” Feinberg said.
“I hear what the president says. I’m watching on TV. The beaches look fabulous.”

DELRAY BEACH — Former President Bill Clinton came to the sweaty gym at Pompey Park on Monday to pump up Kendrick Meek’s Democratic Senate primary bid. But he devoted most of his remarks to a defense of Democratic policies over the past two years and, with Democrats facing tough elections in November, said the party needs more time to bring America out of a “very deep hole” dug by Republicans.

Clinton knows something about tough midterm elections. As a first-term president with Democratic majorities in Congress, he saw the GOP capture both the House and Senate in the 1994 elections.

Read some of Monday’s Clinton excerpts after the jump….

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President Barack Obama’s administration has dispatched two teams to Florida to help the state recovery from the economic downturn caused by BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Gary Locke today announced he is spending $600,000 on 21 economic development teams to the Gulf Coast states, including Florida, impacted by the spill.

The teams, made up of business leaders, government officials and economists, will “conduct in-depth analyses of critical issues” faced by communities like those in the Pensacola region that have seen tourism drop by up to 40 percent in the aftermath of the spill.

The teams will offer recommendations for how to help revive the economy, according to a press release issued by the White House.

Information about where the Florida teams will be located was not available.

One University of Central Florida economist estimated that the oil spill may cost Florida up to $22 billion in lost tourism revenues.

At an economic roundtable in Metairie, La., Locke announced $31.3 million total in coastal restoration and economic development grants for Louisiana and the Gulf Coast.

“These grants are another sign of this administration’s commitment to help the Gulf Coast’s economy and environment recover in the wake of the BP oil spill,” Locke said.

Locke also announced a $30.7 million restoration grant to the Louisiana Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration by the Department of Commerce’s NOAA to fund the restoration of a critical barrier headland near Port Fourchon, La.

By MICHAEL C. BENDER and DARA KAM

Alex Sink will bring her Democratic campaign for governor to West Palm Beach on Thursday to announce Rod Smith as her running mate, The Palm Beach Post has learned.

Sink’s campaign wouldn’t confirm anything other than to say they’ll be in the city for a “special announcement” at 10 a.m. We reached Smith, a former state senator from Gainesville and a 2006 gubernatorial candidate, who tried to change the subject to the Florida Marlins.

“I’m not talking about my travel plans or when I’ll be there,” Smith said when we asked if he’d be in West Palm Beach on Thursday.

But several sources confirmed that Smith will be the announcement.

The location and timing of the announcement are of particular interest.

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Rick Scott didn’t attend an Aug. 11 debate with Republican primary rival Bill McCollum, but he ended up making a joint appearance of sorts with another gubernatorial candidate, no-partyite Michael E. Arth. Arth attended a Scott event and posed for a picture with the GOP candidate.

“Despite campaigning since June 2009, Arth was able to mingle unnoticed at the Scott event,” says an Arth press release that describes the encounter.

Former Rep. Loranne Ausley, isn’t waiting until the primaries are over to bash her GOP opponent – Senate President Jeff Atwater – in the race for state CFO.

Ausley’s blasting Atwater’s voting record on spending issues in an attempt to paint the North Palm Beach banker as a Tallahassee insider (Ausley spent eight years in the Florida House and whose family has ties to the late Gov. Lawton Chiles) out of touch with Floridians.

Ausley’s latest attack slammed Atwater for a program that did away with 71 prison work squad jobs and created a controversial new private prison in the Panhandle.

Ausley dubbed the Blackwater River Correctional Institution, run by Boca Raton-based Geo Group, the “Prison to Nowhere” that cost taxpayers $110 million during this year’s budget-slashing session. According to the Florida Department of Corrections, which fiercely opposed opening the prison this early, the prison work squads saved taxpayers $35.7 million.

“Senate President Jeff Atwater’s ‘prison to nowhere’ is yet another product of the broken system in Tallahassee, and once again Florida taxpayers are stuck with the bill,” said Ausley. “Floridians are fed up with politicians who play by their own rules with our money. Whether it’s the ‘Tallahassee Taj Mahal,’ the ‘Prison to Nowhere’ or an airport hanger for a political contributor, politicians in Tallahassee need to be held accountable.”

Ausley last week slammed Atwater for supporting a new District Court of Appeals courthouse building in Tallahassee, which she called the ‘Taj Mahal.’

TV personality and attorney Star Jones has recorded a get-out-the-vote robocall for Jeff Greene as next week’s Democratic Senate primary looms. Greene’s rival, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, has been getting telephonic support from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

According to celeb politics tracker Newsmeat.com, Jones’ previous political activity includes donating $1,250 to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 Democratic presidential campaign.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Klein’s campaign has launched a new YouTube channel featuring videos of Republican challenger Allen West. The Klein camp contends the videos will show the conservative West is too “radical” and “extreme” for the swing-voter sensibilities of Palm Beach-Broward congressional District 22.

West says he has nothing to hide. In fact, in the above video, taped March 8 and posted by Klein’s campaign last week, here’s what West says around the 6:15 mark:

“Now I don’t know if we got some Ron Klein supporters here that are trying to tape me or if we have some people that are going to try and bring something against me later on. If so, please come up to the front. Because I want you to clearly hear what I have to say. I am not afraid of saying it…”

Read about it in this week’s Politics column.

Here, by the way, is the double-platinum YouTube video of West that has helped him raise nearly $3.5 million since last October while Klein has raised just under $1.5 million during the same period.

The first TV ad from Democrat candidate for governor Alex Sink (the spot we told you about on Thursday) is hitting airwaves today. The spot should be statewide soon.

UPDATE: Straw poll results: McCollum 209, Scott 80, McCalister 15.

A few hours before they’re scheduled to meet today at the Pinellas County Republican Executive Committee straw poll and picnic, the top two Republican governor candidates made their pitch to the Man Upstairs when both showed up at the Idlewild Baptist Church in Lutz.

Bill McCollum and Rick Scott took seats on opposite ends of the church.

Another note from the weekend: A McCollum campaign SUV that is part of the four-day, 14-city caravan this weekend was broken into last night during a dinner-time stop at a Golden Corral in Orlando. (The buffet-style restaurant is among McCollum’s favorites.) The campaign says nothing significant was stolen. They lost one camera, a bag of clothes and a staffer’s personal cell phone.