From WUSF:

The New York Times story hinted the change was meant to benefit U.S. Sugar and its law firm, where Crist’s ally, U.S. Sen. George LeMieux, was a partner.

Alan Farago of the group Friends of the Everglades says Crist abandoned the Bush plan because of science.

“Gov. Bush is quite critical of the U.S. Sugar deal, but in fact, the plan that he advocated and committed a billion dollars to was also based on very, very uncertain technologies and investments,” Farago said. “For instance, the largest man-made reservoir in the world, which is now sitting off U.S. 27 in a state of half-completeness.”

Environmentalists are upset that the story targeted Crist’s ties to U.S. Sugar, but failed to highlight the connections involving Crist’s opponent, former House Speaker Marco Rubio.

The WFSU story quotes our blog item pointing out Rubio received more than $14,000 from Florida Crystals, one of the main opponents to the Everglades deal. We updated that number to $24,200 in a blog post yesterday.

Gov. Charlie Crist on Fox News this morning said he’s being thumped in the polls right now by fellow Republican Marco Rubio because “nobody has talked about his record.”

What part of his record is no one talking about?

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Rudy Giuliani and Bill McCollum work the room at Howley's this morning. Photo by Lannis Waters.

“This is a very difficult time to govern, whether it’s Florida or Texas or California,” Giuliani told about 70 McCollum supporters who crowded the diner for a $40-a-head meet-and-greet event.

McCollum, who is Florida’s attorney general, was state chairman for Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign. In addition to this morning’s breakfast, Giuliani will appear with McCollum at a fund-raiser at a private home in Stuart later today and at a restaurant in Miami’s Little Havana late this afternoon.

“You don’t want to become like California,” Giuliani said of the state that faces a $20 billion deficit. Giuliani said McCollum, who’s currently the Florida attorney general, would keep Florida’s spending under control.

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Marco Rubio is attempting to do just that with this web video released today, just hours before the South Florida Water Management District takes another critical vote on the Charlie Crist-backed plan to buy up U.S. Sugar land in the name of Everglades restoration. Crist has called the deal one of the biggest accomplishments of his term in the governor’s office.

The video compares the Sugar deal to the stimulus package and the cash-for-clunkers program and also cites a Palm Beach Post article pointing out that Crist has received $103,987 from U.S. Sugar executives plus their families, attorneys and lobbyists.

When that same standard is applied to Rubio, however, his campaign received $24,200 from Florida Crystals Corp., Sugar’s rival and one of the loudest critics of the deal. Put another way, 1.15 percent of Crist’s campaign collections so far are from Sugar-related interests, while 0.71 percent of Rubio’s campaign can be traced back to Crystals.

“In Washington, President Obama and his administration and some of the friends we have over there like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are more worried about growing government than they are about growing jobs,” McCollum said. Sink, he added, “believes that the public should hold Tallahassee accountable for creating jobs. Jobs shouldn’t created by government, whether it’s the state or federal. Jobs are created by small businesses.”

McCollum also got a standing ovation when he repeated his pledge to use his position as AG to sue the federal government if Congress approves a health care overhaul that includes a requirement for individuals to purchase insurance.

Marco Rubio beats Gov. Charlie Crist by a 60-to-28 percent margin in a Republican Senate primary matchup, a Democratic polling firm says, but Rubio only has a 5-point lead over Democratic frontrunner Kendrick Meek in a hypothetical general election matchup.

The latest survey of 849 Florida voters by North Carolina-based Public Policy Polling, which works primarily for Democratic candidates, shows former Florida House Speaker Rubio with a 44-to-39 percent lead over Miami U.S. Rep. Meek. Crist would beat Meek 46-to-33 percent, according to the poll.

If Crist were to run as an independent, the poll says, he’d finish second with 27 percent to Rubio’s 34 percent. Meek gets 25 percent in that scenario.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio launched the first television ad of his increasingly hostile primary race with Gov. Charlie Crist.

Rubio uses the 60-second spot, running on Fox News, to cast himself in the role as a thoughtful alternative to President Obama, framing his anti-tax message as the best option for the future of America’s children.

The message seems to be an attempt to get out in front of what Rubio’s pollster expects will be a “relentlessly brutal negative campaign” from Crist.

The Crist campaign reaction:

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Video: Crist’s Tuesday morning press availability.

Gov. Charlie Crist says he tossed out the possibility that Marco Rubio used his Florida Republican Party credit card for a back waxing after reading it in the St. Petersburg Times on Sunday. The column, from political editor Adam Smith, speculated on what the $135 charge could have been for after Rubio told Fox News that it wasn’t for a hair cut.

Crist, who is badly trailing Rubio according to a new poll today, said repeating the comment would not risk distracting voters from the fiscal issues he and Rubio are debating.

“It puts a fine point on the issue,” Crist told reporters after the Cabinet meeting this morning. “And the issue is whether or not people can trust the speaker to spend their money wisely. I mean, clearly they can’t.”

Crist also sidestepped a question about whether, in hindsight, he would push as hard for former state GOP chairman Jim Greer. “Remember, Chairman Greer wasn’t chairman when Speaker Rubio had his credit card.”

More nuggets from Crist this morning:

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It isn’t just Republicans who are trying to capitalize on the tea party movement and Scott Brown’s surprise Massachusetts Senate win.

As the April 13 special election approaches to replace former Democratic Rep. Robert Wexler in Palm Beach-Broward congressional District 19, Democrat Ted Deutch’s campaign has sent a mailer to voters in the heavily Democratic district warning that “Republicans & The Tea Party Want To Capture YOUR Congressional Seat!”

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Republican Gov. Charlie Crist’s Senate campaign responded to a jab from primary rival Marco Rubio, who called the Everglades land buy a “bailout” for U.S. Sugar: From Crist spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg:

“Marco Rubio is being supported in this campaign and in previous campaigns by Florida Crystals sugar company, who is the number one opponent to this Everglades restoration purchase. What else would you expect from a lobbyist who is bought and paid for by special interests?”

Rubio has received more thank $14,000 from the Fanjuls family, which owns Florida Crystals, and Gaston Gantens, the company’s chief lobbyist. The company and its subsidiaries gave anotehr $4,500 to Rubio during his nine years in the state House.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio said a New York Times story has raised “troubling new questions” about the U.S. Sugar purchase negotiated by his primary rival, Gov. Charlie Crist. From Rubio’s press release today:

“This deal is nothing more than a massive taxpayer-funded bailout for a top Charlie Crist campaign donor and a profitable bonanza for Crist’s inner circle.

“Once again, Charlie Crist has put his political ambition ahead of the people of Florida, and once again the results are disastrous for taxpayers. In fact, this bailout plan is the second most expensive photo op Charlie Crist has ever staged.

“Charlie Crist’s bailout plan will require higher taxes and increased debt, and it does nothing for the Everglades. In fact, it actually halts real restoration projects started by Jeb Bush, which were already underway.

“Charlie Crist simply can’t be trusted to go to Washington to fight massive government spending because, more often than not, he’s the one proposing it.”

Like many GOP candidates across the nation, including his pal former House Speaker Marco Rubio, House budget chief David Rivera is working the conservative angle in his Congressional run to replace U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart.

Rivera was in Palm Beach County on Friday at a Club For Growth meeting at The Breakers.

He met with U.S. Rep. Tom Price, Chairman of the “Republican Study Committee,” the self-proclaimed “Caucus of House Conservatives.” Rivera said Price, a Georgia doctor who’s in charge of recruiting Congressional candidates in the South, promised to give his campaign a hand and gave him tips on how to woo other conservatives.

Rivera’s expected opponent, Senate Republican Leader Alex Diaz de la Portilla, hasn’t officially entered the race yet. Diaz-Balart is jumping from his district to his brother Lincoln’s, a safer GOP seat. U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart isn’t seeking re-election this year.

“We discussed several policy issues, including health care reform as well as the overall political landscape and outlook for Republicans in the upcoming election,” Rivera, R-Miami, said.

Santamaria

Damone

“He should have been here. It was disappointing,” Damone said of Santamaria.

Read more in this week’s Politics column.

Santamaria

Santamaria, who represents western-county District 6, came into office saying he was focused only on a single term. But he never unequivocally ruled out seeking reelection, and Santamaria now says he and his wife are “seriously discussing my serving a second term.”

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Democrats have long touted House Majority Leader Adam Hasner’s Palm Beach-Broward seat as a pickup opportunity when Hasner leaves this year because of term limits. Republicans have roughly a 39-to-35 percent registration edge in District 87 and have been losing ground over the past eight years.

But Democratic hopes suffered a blow in January when candidate Lori Berman, who had raised more money than Republican Bill Hager, quit the race to run in more heavily Democratic District 86.

Now Dems have recruited retired construction manager Laura Rawlins-Blum of Boca Raton to run in District 87. Rawlins-Blum, active in the Palm Beach County Democratic Executive Committee, was encouraged to run by Dems including former League of Women Voters President Pamela Goodman. Goodman, who had been urged by some Democrats to run for the seat, will host a kickoff fund-raiser for Rawlins-Blum.

Democratic state CFO candidate Loranne Ausley hopes to turn the Republican credit card scandal into a few bucks for her campaign against likely Republican candidate Jeff Atwater.

Ausley doesn’t mention Atwater by name, but it’s pretty clear he’s the target of her fundraiser letter. She says Republicans call for transparency, but also have a “second face…The face they try to hide.” From her letter:

These same so-called leaders have been knee-deep in the cover up of campaign expenditures; expenditures that are governed by state law and supposed to be used for very specific purposes. The excuses for a blatant lack of transparency and accountability run the gamut from “not my job” to “not my card.”

Atwater was one of several Republican leaders who had an American Express card through the Florida Republican Party. Atwater insists he had used the card for party business (unlike former House Speakers Ray Sansom and Marco Rubio, who used the cards for personal expenses), but Atwater won’t release it. We wrote about it here and the Herald/Times captured it on video here.

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Kendrick Meek will bring his campaign to Boynton Beach on Friday as he make a push to become the first U.S. Senate candidate to qualify for the ballot by petition.

He’ll be at St. John Missionary Baptist Church at 10:45 a.m.

U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, has returned $9,000 in donations from former House Ways & Means Chairman Charlie Rangel after Rangel was forced to give up the powerful spot after questions the belated disclosure of hundreds of thousands of dollars in previously unlisted wealth.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee took the opportunity to note Democrats have returned $378,000 of Rangel’s money, but U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, “continues to hang onto the $5,500 from his ethically-challenged contributor.” Those donations were to Meek’s previous U.S. House campaigns.

Slosberg

Look for him to file Friday as a candidate for his old Palm Beach-Broward state House seat.

Slosberg, was elected to the House in 2000 as a traffic safety crusader after his 14-year-old daughter was killed in a 1996 car wreck. He championed a variety of seat belt laws and other traffic safety measures before leaving in 2006 to pursue a state Senate bid. Slosberg lost a costly and bitter Dem primary to eventual Sen. Ted Deutch, who was boosted by the support of former U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler.

This time around, former Wexler chief of staff and political consultant Eric Johnson is expected to help Slosberg’s bid for the District 90 House seat now held by Rep. Kelly Skidmore, D-Boca Raton. Skidmore is leaving to run for state Senate. Educator Sheldon “Klassy” Klasfeld, a Democrat, is the only other candidate in the race.

Put it under the headline “Only in Florida.”

A Republican National Committee memo found in a Boca Grande hotel reveals the GOP’s strategy of using fear to intimidate voters and mocks donors, Politico reported today.

The memo - a Power Point presentation given at an RNC meeting in Florida last month - details the GOP’s plans for this year’s election cycle by luring “ego-driven” rich donors with promises of access and “tchochkes.”

“What can you sell when you do not have the White House, the House, or the Senate…?” it asks.

The answer: “Save the country from trending toward Socialism!”

Read the Politico report here.

The revelations left Democrats licking their chops, naturally.

“If you had any doubt, any doubt whatsoever, that the Republican Party has been taken over by the fear-mongering lunatic fringe, those doubts were erased today,” Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse said in a statement. “The Republican Party, which barely 20 percent of Americans will even admit they belong to anymore, seems hell bent on damaging their battered brand even further by engaging in the most despicable kind of imagery, tactics and rhetoric imaginable. This type of politics at all cost approach to our public discourse is what the American people are sick and tired of – and if anyone thinks this wasn’t approved of or signed off on at the highest levels they are kidding themselves. Republicans across the country have cheered on crowds where these very images appeared, they’ve encouraged and perpetuated scandalous lies about the President and his plans. And, from calling for secession to condoning violence against government officials they have sunk to new and unbelievable lows.”