Florida voters like Republican Gov. Rick Scott‘s proposals to boost teacher pay by $2,500 and expand the state’s Medicaid rolls.

But they don’t like Scott.

A new Quinnipiac University poll released this morning is full of bleak numbers for the governor. Only 36 percent of Florida voters approve of Scott’s job performance, with 49 percent disapproving. Only 32 percent say he deserves a second term in office. He’d lose to Democrat Charlie Crist by a 50-to-34 percent margin if the 2014 election were held today. He’d lose to 2010 opponent Alex Sink by a 45-to-34 percent margin.

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The Medicaid-expanding, teacher-pay-boosting version of Republican Gov. Rick Scott isn’t any more popular with voters than the tea party version, according to a new survey by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling.

Only 33 percent of Florida voters approve of the job Scott is doing, compared to 57 percent who disapprove in PPP’s latest poll. That’s the same underwater score Scott had in PPP’s January poll.

Democrats and independents have a decidedly unfavorable view of Scott. Republicans approve by only a narrow margin: 46 percent to 42 percent.

Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democratic former Gov. Charlie Crist has a 46 percent approval rating and 43 percent disapproval score in the poll. He’s the clear favorite among Dems to be the party’s nominee, with 50 percent preferring him and 21 percent favoring 2010 nominee Alex Sink.

Crist would win a hypothetical 2014 general election match-up against Scott by a 52-40 margin in PPP’s poll. Sink would beat Scott 45-40 and former Tampa mayor Pam Iorio would defeat Scott 44-37. Scott would beat former Democratic state Sen. Nan Rich, according to PPP, by a 42-36 margin.

Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democratic former Gov. Charlie Crist would easily defeat Republican Gov. Rick Scott in a hypothetical 2014 general election race, a new survey by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling says.

Crist would get 53 percent to 39 percent for Scott, according to a PPP survey of 501 Florida voters that has a 4.4 percent margin of error.

Crist left the GOP in 2010 to pursue a losing no-party Senate bid and endorsed President Barack Obama and spoke at the Democratic National Convention last year. He officially became a Democrat in December.

Crist’s standing among Democrats has steadily improved since last year, with the new PPP poll finding 58 percent of Dems name Crist as their first choice to run for governor next year. The 2010 Democratic nominee, Alex Sink, was a distant second, with 18 percent of Florida Democrats saying Sink was their preferred 2014 candidate for governor.

Crist is viewed favorably by 73 percent of Democrats and unfavorably by 17 percent in the new poll. Last July, Crist’s favorable/unfavorable score among Democrats was 50/31.

Scott remains plagued by dismal approval ratings. In the new PPP poll, only 37 percent of Florida voters approve of Scott’s job performance, with 57 percent disapproving. PPP says Scott would lose 47-40 to Sink, 43-39 to former Tampa mayor Pam Iorio and 44-42 to Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, but the Republican governor would edge Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and former state Sen. Nan Rich.

The two announced candidates for Florida Democratic Party chairman — Hillsborough County Committeeman Alan Clendenin and Leon County Committeewoman Allison Tant — are rolling out big-name endorsements as the Jan. 26 election approaches.

Clendenin and Tant both announced key labor endorsements Tuesday, with Florida AFL-CIO President Mike Williams announcing his support for Clendenin while the Service Employees International Union declared its backing of Tant.

Today, Tant announced the endorsement of U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and nine U.S. House Democrats, including Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and all four members of Palm Beach County’s House delegation — Reps. Ted Deutch, Alcee Hastings, Lois Frankel and Patrick Murphy.

Clendenin this afternoon unveiled the endorsement of Alex Sink, the party’s 2010 nominee for governor and a potential 2014 candidate. He also has the support of U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa.

Tant and Clendenin are vying to replace Rod Smith, who isn’t seeking reelection as party chairman.

Remembrances continued through Sunday evening following the death of 2002 Florida Democratic gubernatorial nominee Bill McBride, a longtime managing partner at the law firm, Holland & Knight, and husband of the Democrats’ 2010 nominee for governor, Alex Sink.

“Bill McBride was a great lawyer, a devoted public servant, a veteran and a talented leader,” said Gov. Rick Scott, who narrowly defeated Sink .  “Our family’s thoughts and prayers are with the McBride family, and especially his wife Alex, at this time of great loss.

“Florida is no doubt a better place because people like Bill McBride commit themselves to making a difference in the lives of others,” Scott said.

McBride suffered a heart attack Saturday while visiting with family in Mount Airy, N.C.  McBride had suffered from heart problems for many years but, Sink said, “this was very sudden and unexpected.”

A year after his defeat by Gov. Jeb Bush, McBride collapsed while exercising at a health club near his Tampa office. McBride needed to be resuscitated, but at the time, tests apparently showed the episode was not a heart attack and he suffered no lasting damage.

Bush sent a message from his Twitter account that, “Thoughts and prayers are with Alex and Bill’s entire family.”

Steven Sonberg, managing partner at Holland & Knight, said, “Bill believed strongly that all lawyers have an obligation to help those in need, especially those who cannot afford access to the legal system. His lasting contributions will serve
as a legacy for years to come.”

Florida Democratic Party Chairman Rod Smith also honored McBride for his years of devotion to the party.

“All those who knew Bill knew he was not only a tireless advocate for the Democratic Party, but a leader and true public servant to the people of Florida,” Smith said.

 

More than half of Floridians say Gov. Rick Scott doesn’t deserve another term, according to a new poll released by Quinnipiac University this morning.

And the poll showed that Scott, who is planning to run for reelection, could have problems with a primary challenge. More than half of GOP voters – 52 percent – said they would prefer another candidate instead of the incumbent, the poll found.

And Scott’s approval rating among Florida voters remains dismal, the latest poll found.

Florida voters disapprove 45–36 percent of the job Scott is doing, and more than half of the voters surveyed – 52 percent – said he does not deserve a second term, compared to 30 percent who say he should be reelected in 2014.

Scott’s ratings “are just plain awful,” pollster Peter A. Brown said in a press release.

“The numbers cannot be sugar-coated,” Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said. “When voters in a politician’s own party want him to be challenged in a primary by another candidate, it’s difficult to see it as anything but outright rejection.”

By a 55-29 percent margin, voters said they wanted another candidate to challenge Scott in two years. And GOP voters felt the same way, with 53 percent saying they wanted another candidate compared to 30 percent who supported Scott. Republican voters did give Scott a 63-19 percent job approval rating and 55-26 percent said he deserves a second term.

Former Gov. Charlie Crist, who recently made a high-profile party change and became a Democrat and is considering a run for governor, has a 47-33 percent favorability rating. Not surprisingly, he’s got a negative rating – 28–56 percent – among Republicans, the poll found.

That’s compared to Scott’s a 31-43 favorability rating among voters. Democrats and independent voters view Scott unfavorably while slightly more than half of Republicans view him favorably. Democrats view him unfavorably by a 60-16 percent margin, independents by a 25-48 percent margin while Republicans give him a 55-18 percent favorable rating.

Alex Sink appears to have faded in voters’ memory since her 2010 loss to Scott. More than half – 57 percent – of voters haven’t heard enough about her to form an opinion, compared to 27 percent who view her favorably and 14 percent who view her unfavorably.

The poll of 1,261 voters using land lines and cell phones was conducted from Dec. 11-17 and has a margin of error of +/- 2.8 percentage points.

Gov. Rick Scott and Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater said Tuesday that state offficials have agreed to an almost $500,000 settlement with a Tallahassee art gallery and a construction firm ensnared in a controversy stemming from the new First District Court of Appeal building.

The settlement still must be approved by the Legislative Budget Commission. And even though the state is paying not only the full amount owed Signature Art Gallery and Peter Brown Construction — plus the private companies’ legal fees — Republican leaders cast the settlement as a victory for taxpayers.

The companies will be paid the $392,658.56 owed them, along with $122,224.14 for litigation and other costs, according to the settlement.

“Our most important goal is to protect taxpayer dollars to best meet the needs of Florida families,” Scott said. “It was right to ask for a rigorous and thorough review of the tax dollars
committed to this project.”

Atwater, a former North Palm Beach legislator, said, “With this settlement, the parties now agree that it is appropriate for the Legislature to determine the legitimacy of the payment request.”

The stand-off with the contractors began in 2010, when Atwater’s predecessor, Democrat Alex Sink, completed an audit of the First DCA project a month before her defeat by Scott in the governor’s race. She  said a “perfect storm” of wrongdoing helped run cost of the project – which she dubbed the Taj Mahal – to $48.8 million, about $17 million more than initial estimates.

The courthouse, she said includes 20 miles worth of imported African mahogany, granite countertops and other luxury fixtures.

It had become a “travesty,”  Sink said, because of a lack of oversight by the state Department of Management Services and bullying by appeals court judges – particularly Chief Judge Paul Hawkes. Hawkes has since stepped down from the court.

Sink froze payments to Signature Gallery for 369 framed, historic photos for for the courthouse. The hardline stance was continued by Atwater after he was elected that fall. The construction company included in the settlement had contracted with Signature Gallery to provide the art work.

According to the settlement announced Tuesday, the photos don’t sound destined for the First DCA building. Instead, the artwork involved in the settlement will go to the Department of State’s Division of Cultural Affairs.

 

History was the garnish to plates of grouper served Friday night at the Governor’s Mansion, when Republican Gov. Rick Scott had dinner with a half-dozen representatives of the state’s largest teachers’ union.

Both sides said the closed-door dinner meeting went well, being the first of its kind since Scott took office in January 2011. Florida Education Association President Andy Ford is expected to return for a meeting with Scott next week — this time a more traditional business huddle likely slated for Wednesday in the governor’s office, both sides said.

“I think we can always find opportunity to improve what’s on the books — especially with merit pay,” Ford said, adding, “Tonight was a good first step toward having some dialogue that probably should have happened a long time ago.”  

Scott railed against the teachers’ union during his election campaign two years ago, when the FEA was a heavy backer of Scott’s rival, vanquished Democratic gubernatorial nominee Alex Sink.

 The relationship didn’t get any warmer.

The first bill Scott signed into law as governor recast the way teachers were evaluated — making reviews more dependent on student performance. The legislation has been challenged by the union. The same session, Scott approved a measure that extracted 3 percent payments from public employees in the Florida Retirement System, the bulk of them teachers and other school board employees.

The first state budget Scott signed cut public school funding by $1.3 billion. The second spending plan restored $1 billion — but most school districts have eliminated scores of jobs.

Much of the discussion Friday pivoted around how the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) is deployed both for gauging students and teachers, along with Scott and the Republican-ruled Legislature’s push to expand virtual education. The possibility of private school vouchers returning — after they were ruled unconstitutional in 2006 by the Florida Supreme Court — wasn’t on the table, Scott said.

“I’m working on this job,” Scott said, when asked why it’s taken so long to meet with FEA representatives. “Remember, as a lawyer, you’re always practicing.”

The Friday night dinner capped a week in which Scott traveled the state on a “listening tour,” meeting with parents, teachers, school superintendents and principals to discuss how Florida can improve its education system.  He was in Boca Raton on Tuesday and plans to complete his tour next week in Fort Walton Beach.

“I believe parents ought to have choice, I believe that’s good for them,” Scott said. “I believe in the public school system. I grew up in the public school system. It was good for me. The teachers had a dramatic, positive impact on the my life….Is choice good? Yeah. But let’s make sure we do it the right way. Is competition good? Sure, but let’s make sure we do it the right way.”

After bidding goodnight to Scott at the mansion door, Ford acknowledged he was “shocked” by the reachout from the governor. But he said he welcomed the dialogue. Still, he told reporters, some issues are not up for discussion.

Vouchers? “Not for us. End of story,” Ford said.

A poll of Florida Democrats commissioned by Democratic consultant Christian Ulvert shows former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist enjoyed strong favorable ratings among Florida Dems before he endorsed President Obama and spoke at the Democratic convention.

Taken Aug. 5-7 by Democratic firm SE&A Research, the poll shows 59 percent of Florida Democrats had a somewhat or very favorable opinion of Crist and 52 percent had a somewhat or very favorable view of Alex Sink, the former Florida chief financial officer who lost the 2010 governor’s race to Republican Rick Scott.

In a hypothetical head-to-head Democratic governor’s primary matchup, Sink got 31 percent to 29 percent for Crist. That’s within the poll’s 4 percent margin of error.

Crist, who ditched his Republican registration for no party affiliation during a failed 2010 Senate campaign, endorsed Obama Aug. 26 and spoke at the Democratic convention the following week. Crist is widely rumored to be mulling a 2014 run for governor as a Democrat.

Ulvert is advising Palm Beach County Democratic state attorney candidate Dave Aronberg and the Florida Democratic Party on state legislative races. He’s close to former Democratic state Sen. and 2010 attorney general candidate Dan Gelber, but said he didn’t commission the poll on behalf of anyone.

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In a Democratic state Senate primary where Gov. Rick Scott is a figure of scorn, 2010 Scott foe Alex Sink says it’s “ridiculous” to try to link state Rep. Mack Bernard, D-West Palm Beach, to the Republican governor.

Bernard’s primary rival, state Rep. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, and outside PACs have painted Bernard as a Scott ally.

“I have been told that some out of town groups want you to believe that Mack Bernard is somehow joined at the hip with Rick Scott. That’s ridiculous. Nothing could be further from the truth. How do I Know? I was Rick Scott’s Democratic opponent for Governor. And it was Mack Bernard who worked tirelessly by my side in our effort to defeat Rick Scott in 2010,” Sink said in a statement released by Bernard’s campaign.

A preliminary round in a larger fight over legislation that rewrote how teachers are paid and retained across Florida was waged Wednesday — with the state’s largest teachers’ union seeking to block a proposed Education Department rule  on evaluating educators.

The Florida Education Association argued before Administrative Law Judge John Vanlaningham that the state agency has exceeded its authority with how it wants school districts to evaluate teachers for merit pay.

In the complaint, the FEA and two teachers, Karen Peek and Beth Weatherstone, say the proposed “unlawfully sets a few DOE bureaucrats up to interpret, interpolate, and extrapolate the meaning of the extensive jargon it includes.”

State education officials defend the proposal as “not arbitrary or capricious.” They also say the proposed rule is written in the common language of the education community. It does not violate the statute created by the 2011 legislation, SB 736, they add.

The measure eliminating longtern contracts for new hires and linking teacher salaries to student performance was the first bill signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott.

The governor, who had been opposed by the FEA in his 2010 campaign against Democrat Alex Sink, said the new law would help improve student and teacher performance, and help create jobs by making Florida more attractive to businesses.

Democrats condemned the legislation for tying teachers’ pay increases to how students do on standardized tests.

They warned it will require county school boards to divert dwindling school dollars to more testing in elective fields where such tests often are not currently administered.

Along with challenging the proposed rule for evaluating teachers, the FEA last September sued to have the new law thrown out as an unconstitutional restriction on the union’s right to collective bargaining.

The case possibly could go to trial this summer before Leon County Circuit Judge James Shelfer.

 

Political committees that helped drive the election of Florida Gov. Rick Scott two years ago were among the biggest independent spenders in the nation, according to a report Thursday by the nonpartisan National Institute on Money in State Politics.

Scott’s own Let’s Get to Work committee, heavily financed by his wife, Ann‘s, cash, spent $17.5 million in 2010, second only to the Republican Governors’ Association’s $26.5 million that cycle. While Let’s Get to Work confined its spending to Florida, the RGA cash was scattered across key battlegrounds.

Two other Florida committees also were included in the institute’s national top 10 of spenders.

Both formerly opposed Scott with fierce television spots and mailers.  But once Scott defeated rival Bill McCollum in state’s GOP primary that year, the cash and attack ads from these committees were aimed at Democratic rival Alex Sink.

The Florida First Initiative spent $6 million in 2010. The committee, led by Alachua County Republican Chairman Stafford Jones, ran television spots accusing Scott of profiting from the “largest Medicare fraud in American history,” before becoming friendly toward the GOP nominee.

During the free-swinging Republican primary, the Florida First Initiative had received $1.1 million from the Florida Liberty Fund, a committee associated with House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park. That money helped sustain the scorched-earth campaign against Scott — who ultimately spent more than $70 million of his own cash to win the governor’s race.

Like the Florida First Initiative, the Cannon-allied Liberty Fund adjusted its aim after the primary, raising money from Florida corporations now intent on defeating Sink.

The third Florida big-spending committee cited in the institute’s findings, the Freedom First Committee, was tied to Senate President Mike Haridopolos and raised $3.6 million in 2010.  It, too, was a Scott enemy, turned ally.

These kinds of shadowy committees have mushroomed in recent years and their spending has climbed double that of conventional campaign donations, the institute reported. Independent spending on candidates increased 69 percent from 2006 through 2010, while the amount of campaign contributions rose by 25 percent, the study found..

In Florida, the spate of spending by these committees prompted one, short-term candidate for governor in 2010, to decry it as “legal money laundering.”

Lawton “Bud” Chiles, III, son of the late Democratic governor, who ran briefly as an no-party candidate, wanted political spending committees dubbed 527s to be required to disclose their $500-plus donors on every television ad or mailer they distribute, or when they give money to another group to use for or against a candidate.

Florida law currently requires 527s, named for the IRS code section that governs them, to report their contributions and spending on a website within five days of the activity.

But Chiles and many elections experts say most voters are unlikely to spend time tracking donations to groups with such names as Floridians for a Better Tomorrow, Floridians for Strong Leadership, or even Citizens for Transparency in Government – all 527s that he cited in his condemnation of the spending.

Miffed at the lack of hometown candidates for the newly drawn Palm Beach-Treasure Coast congressional District 18, retiring Martin County Sheriff Robert Crowder says he’s considering a GOP primary challenge to U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation.

“It looks like at the present time all the interest in running for that seat is coming out of Broward County with people relocating. First, I found that strange because I think we’ve got some good people up here who would be capable of representing their neighbors,” Crowder said this morning.

Crowder, 66, has been elected sheriff five times in Martin County and has a history of ruffling feathers in his own party, including his 2010 endorsement of and TV ad for Democrat Alex Sink in the governor’s race against GOP nominee Rick Scott.

His interest in the congressional seat was first reported by Treasure Coast political columnist Eve Samples on Saturday.

West announced Jan. 31 that he would leave his Palm Beach-Broward district to run in the newly drawn district. Democrat Patrick Murphy of Fort Lauderdale has also announced he’s following West to run for the seat. U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, lives in the district, but is running for a newly drawn seat to the west that includes many of his current constituents.

The Florida legislature approved the new districts last week. The map is already the subject of legal challenges.

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The Florida Education Association sued Wednesday to overturn the new state law that ends teacher tenure and introduces merit pay based in large part on how students perform on standardized tests.

The state’s largest teachers’ union said the measure — approved by the Republican-ruled Legislature and the first bill signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott — violates constitutional collective bargaining guarantees. Employment terms are to be decided by negotiations between teachers and school districts — not by state lawmakers, said Ron Meyer, attorney for the FEA, which filed the suit on behalf of six school teachers.

“It strains credulity that people in Tallahassee,  over in the Capitol, know better than the people on the ground,”  Meyer said.

Andy Ford, FEA president, said the new standard — approved in a mostly party-line vote, with legislative Democrats opposed — “totally changed the teaching profession in Florida.”

“It denies teachers the constitutional right to collective bargaining,” Ford said.

The merit pay legislation requires that 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation be based on student achievement on tests — including the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) and other standardized exams, most of which must still be developed by state and local educators.

Under the bill, current teachers would retain existing pay schedules and contracts — even those spanning multi-years. They could lose their jobs, though, if they drew two subpar annual evaluations within three years.

Teachers hired after July 1, however, are limited to one-year contracts and would draw raises only if rated “effective” or “highly effective.”

Former Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed a similar bill last year. But during last fall’s governor’s race, Scott made ending teacher tenure and enacting merit pay a central portion of his campaign, with the FEA throwing in heavily behind Democrat Alex Sink.

Gov. Rick Scott has a 59 percent disapproval rating and would lose a do-over election to Democrat Alex Sink by a 57-to-35 percent margin, Democratic firm Public Policy Polling says in a new survey.

If the 2014 gubernatorial election were held today, and if Republican-turned-independent former Gov. Charlie Crist were running as a Democrat, Crist would thump Scott by a 56-to-34 percent margin, the poll finds.

Asked if the Republican governor’s actions have made them more or less likely to vote Republican in the 2012 presidential race, 40 percent of all voters — and 45 percent of independents — said they were less likely to vote Republican next year because of Scott.

The June 16-19 poll of 848 Florida voters has a 3.4 percent margin of error.

The good news for rookie Republican Gov. Rick Scott: After three months of budget cutting, high-speed-rail rejecting, pension revamping and other decisions and proposals that were bound to upset some Floridians, his approval rating remains at its post-election, pre-inauguration levels.

The bad news: that approval rating was, and is, in the low 30s, according to the Democrat-oriented Public Policy Polling firm.

A new PPP survey finds only 32 percent of Floridians approve of the job Scott is doing as governor, while 55 percent disapprove. He’d lose a hypothetical do-over election to Democrat Alex Sink by a 56-37 percent margin.

In December, PPP found only 33 percent of Floridians had a positive view of their governor-elect after his narrow win over Sink. PPP’s Tom Jensen calls Scott “incredibly unpopular.”

Rookie Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, on the other hand, has an approval/disapproval score of 43/31. That’s better than two-term Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson‘s 38/34 score as he heads into a 2012 reelection bid.

Former Gov. Charlie Crist and former Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink will lead a bipartisan rally today to support a constitutional ban on offshore drilling today.

Crist, a Republican-turned-independent, and Sink, a Democrat, will appear with lawmakers and others at an event at 12:30 on the steps of the Old Capitol in Tallahassee.

Crist called lawmakers in for a special session last year to pass a similar amendment to put on the November 2010 ballot, but they snubbed him. The legislature met briefly and adjourned without doing anything after Crist abandoned the GOP and became an independent to avoid a Republican primary in the U.S. Senate race, which he eventually lost to Marco Rubio.

Before leaving office in January, Sink struggled to get BP claims czar Ken Feinberg to improve his claims process after tens of thousands of Panhandle residents, and hundreds of Floridians throughout the state, complained about problems with his Gulf Coast Claims Facility.

That system remains troubled as Feinberg is set to begin making final payments to more than 500,000 applicants for damages caused by the April 20 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster.

Yesterday, senators discussed creating a state system for victims of BP’s massive oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico to expedite the claims system.

Next Friday, Feinberg will appear before a House committee at the behest of House Speaker Dean Cannon. Hundreds of Panhandle officials and residents are expected to show up. Complaints about Feinberg’s payments from the $20 billion fund set up by BP include delays, an inability to find out where claims are in the process, and inconsistencies in who gets paid and how much.

A federal judge recently ruled that Feinberg is not independent of BP, as he contends, and ordered him to quit saying that he is.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood is so fed up with Feinberg’s erratic claims system that on Monday he asked a federal judge to take it over “to facilitate the timely and just processing of claims.”

Gov. Rick Scott added five more high-level workers to his staff – including one fired by his former gubernatorial opponent Alex Sink – as the new governor continues to put together an administration at the end of his second official week on the job.

Scott hired Melinda Miguel to come back to her old post as inspector general, which she also held under Gov. Charlie Crist.

And Scott tapped Doug Darling as his third deputy chief of staff (Darling will be in charge of Cabinet affairs). Then-Chief Financial Officer Sink axed Darling, who was her chief of the Division of Accounting and Auditing, for failing to discover a scheme to defraud the state of millions of dollars. The plan was revealed by an auditing firm. Darling, a former Marine, later went to work as chief of staff and, until now, inspector general for the Department of Environmental Protection.

Jesse Panuccio, an associate at Cooper & Kirk, and C.B Upton, general counsel for the Department of State, will join Scott’s legal team.

And Brian Hughes will go to work for Scott’s spokesman Brian Burgess. Hughes recently served as spokesman for Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater’s winning campaign. Hughes also served in the military and is a decorated Air Force vet, according to a press release on Scott’s Facebook page.

Two top-tier Florida candidates – Gov. Charlie Crist and Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink – won the dubious distinction of making MSNBC’s “Worst Candidate of 2010″ list this morning.

Crist – an independent who jumped the GOP ship when it looked like he couldn’t win a primary against Marco Rubio in the U.S. Senate race – and Sink – a Democrat who lost her bid for governor to Republican Rick Scott – were named as two of the three “worst candidates” by MSNBC hosts Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie.

But the worst of the worst, according to MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown” hosts?

Sink.

“You lost to a guy who defrauded Medicare,” Todd said when announcing the “winner, pausing for effect. “In Florida! Okay? More people on Medicare in Florida than maybe any other state.”

Scott started up and was CEO of the Columbia/HCA hospital chain that wound up paying an historic fine to the federal government – $1.7 billion – for Medicare and Medicaid fraud.

Whether or not the “Lizard King” unzipped his pants and exposed himself to a crowd of thousands more than 40 years ago remains a mystery.

Jim Morrison’s alleged antics will remain forever a part of the late rocker’s legacy.

But the charges against him for indecent exposure and public intoxication won’t.

Gov. Charlie Crist, Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink and Attorney General Bill McCollum, acting as the state Clemency Board, granted Morrison, the lead singer of “The Doors,” a pardon Thursday afternoon as one of their final acts as a panel before leaving office.

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