Sink talks with Business Development Board members. Photo by Damon Higgins.

Sink, who is Florida’s chief financial officer, kicked off a two-month “Business Plan for Florida” tour at the Business Development Board headquarters here. (Click here to see a copy of Sink’s plan.)

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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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“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.

The flame war between GOP operative Michael Caputo and Sen. Paula Dockery (and her campaign for governor) over a Tea Party schism got hotter last night.

Caputo, who’s involved in a federal lawsuit a bunch of Tea Party activists filed against Orlando political gadfly Doug Guetzloe and his brand of Tea Partiers, and Dockery exchanged a rash of e-mails yesterday peppered with questions about their links to Guetzloe in the spirit of “Will the real Tea Party people please stand up?”

Caputo says he is not being paid by Attorney General Bill McCollum, Dockery’s GOP primary opponent in the governor’s race.

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The Florida Democratic Party is running a television ad blasting GOP candidate for governor Bill McCollum.

The TV spot was released the same day the the Republican Governors Association let loose a television campaign slamming Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, the presumptive Democratic nominee for governor.

The FDP ad blames McCollum for costing taxpayers billions of dollars during his two decades in Congress.

The RGA ad roasts Sink for earning millions of dollars as NationsBank’s Florida chief in 1998 while giving pink slips to thousands of bank workers during the financial institution’s buy-out of Barnett Bank.

The Democrats’ ad skewers McCollum for voting for Congressional pay hikes four times, for his $75,000-a-year Congressional pension taxpayers are now footing and for voting five times to increase the national debt that skyrocketed to $4.7 trillion while the Republican was in office.

“Bill McCollum. Just another Washington politician Florida can’t afford,” the 30-second commercial ends.

McCollum’s campaign dismissed the Sink ad in much the same way her campaign responded to the RGA ad earlier today. Both sides accused the other of being “misleading” and “desperate.”

“This is a weak, misleading ad from a candidate and party desperate to salvage a message-less, issue-less campaign that has been roundly derided by even their strongest supporters. Alex Sink needs to stop complaining and start explaining. She eliminated thousands of Florida jobs will taking millions in salary and bonuses. The Republican Governors Association raises serious questions and Alex Sink will have to answer to Florida voters in November,” McCollum campaign Kristy Campbell wrote in a press release.

State senator and GOP governor hopeful Paula Dockery blasted Republican operative Michael Caputo for linking her with Orlando politico Doug Guetzloe, the center of a Tea Party turf battle playing out in federal court.

Guetzloe joined forces with Dockery in fighting the SunRail/CSX deal during the special legislative session and has supported her candidacy against Attorney General Bill McCollum in the Republican primary for governor.

Caputo, a Republican operative who has worked on campaigns in and out of the U.S. and who is closely linked with Roger Stone, and a variety of local Tea Party groups filed a lawsuit against Guetzloe and his cohorts accusing them of hijacking the “real” Tea Party and asking the court to order him to stop using the “Tea Party” moniker.

The flame war began when Caputo sent out an e-mail questioning whether Guetzloe is secretly backing Dockery’s campaign and calling the Lakeland Republican a “liberal.”

Dockery responded with an e-mail asking Caputo with some answers plus her own list of questions.

Guetzloe “is not and has not been paid by my campaign or on behalf of my campaign. I am asking you to refrain from making this claim as you have now been formally told there is no truth to your assertion. Please provide your rationale for making these false claims,” she writes.

The exchange also includes a “Who’s the better Republican?” line with Dockery saying she’s a life-long GOP’er who was first elected in 1996.

Caputo one-ups her there: He says he’s been a Republican since he first got into politics in the 1980s when he worked on President Ronald Reagan’s reelection campaign.

Dockery also tries to extricate herself from the Tea Party wars, writing: “I have absolutely nothing to do with the forming of another party and have, in fact, suggested that the formation of a “tea party” will actually harm reform-minded Republican candidates like me.”

Caputo’s snarky response to Dockery also challenges her to distance herself from Guetzloe.

“If you seek Tea Party support for your candidacy, your work with Doug Guetzloe does not endear you to thousands of authentic Florida Tea Party activists who are enflamed by his hijack attempt of their name and cause,” Caputo wrote.

“If what you say is true, it is not enough to stand silently. We ask you to denounce Guetzloe’s Tea Party political party. Please call upon him to disband it immediately and demand he end his personal threats
on true citizen activists in Florida’s Tea Party movement. Our plaintiffs - 34 Tea Party activists and organizations deeply concerned about the damage of Guetzloe’s third party - can help get your message out.”

Read the three messages after the jump.
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The Republican Governors Association hammered Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, the state’s presumptive Democratic candidate for governor and former banker.

The ad is the RGA’s first TV campaign for the 2010 election season and shows that the Florida governor’s race will be one of the premier gubernatorial battles in the country.

Attorney General Bill McCollum is facing off against long-shot state Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, in a GOP primary.

The ad charges that Sink did away with thousands of jobs while president of Florida’s NationsBank operations while earning $8 million in salary and bonuses, capitalizing on the current animosity toward bankers who took billions of dollars in federal bail-out money, spent much of it on executive bonuses and did little to ease the nation’s credit crunch.

The RGA also launched a new website - alexsinksflorida.com - featuring the video, which ends “Alex Sink. Not one of us. One of them.”

Sink was head of NationsBank in Florida when the financial institution acquired Barnett Bank, in 1998, for $62 billion. The merger resulted in the loss of 6,000 jobs, many of them in Florida, according to the ad.

Attorney General Bill McCollum said today that the state will not join a federal whistleblower lawsuit against a PVC pipe manufacturer accused of selling millions of dollars of faulty water and sewer lines to local governments on projects around the country.

McCollum said his office agreed with the U.S. Justice Department that the case is without merit.

“After we looked at it, we concluded the same thing. So we chose not to join in this one,” McCollum, who is running in a GOP primary against Sen. Paula Dockery for governor, said.

McCollum has a team of lawyers looking into about 150 whistleblower - or qui tam - lawsuits at any given time, he said.

McCollum said his office will announce its involvement in a similar case within a few days “but not this one.”

State Sen. Dan Gelber, a Miami Beach Democrat running to replace McCollum, asked the attorney general yesterday to join four other states and dozens of cities, counties and water districts in the whistleblower suit filed in federal court in California.

Gelber bristled at McCollum’s reason for not joining the suit.

“That’s perplexing to me. Is the AG’s position that Florida won’t initiate an action unless the federal government does? I can’t believe that that is their position because that defeats the purpose of having your own attorney general who can vindicate the rights of your citizens,” Gelber said. “You must have got his quote wrong because no attorney general would cede the right of their citizens in that manner.”

A former employee of the company alleges that the pipes, used for sewer and water lines and supposed to last up to 50 years, leak and break as quickly as the first year of use and can rupture and explode.

Court documents show that Florida was among the governments initially involved in the lawsuit in 2006.

The allegedly faulty pipe was used in a Ft. Pierce project in 2003.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs claim that it will cost millions of dollars for local governments to dig up and replace the faulty sewer and water lines at a time when they can least afford it.

The gubernatorial campaign fur continues to fly in the battle between Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink and Attorney General Bill McCollum, this time over what is a tax “cut” and whether they’re good or bad for businesses.

Sink’s campaign took a swing at McCollum for opposing tax cuts for small businesses to jump-start the economy and create jobs.

In fact, McCollum told reporters yesterday that he didn’t think targeted tax credits or incentives work out so great in the long term.

Here’s what McCollum said after a speech to the National Federation of Independent Business.

“Targeted tax credits, in my experience in Washington, were minimally effective. They can be in the short run but they’re not in the long run very effective,” the former Congressman said.

After the two campaigns traded insults on other matters throughout the day, Sink’s campaign blasted McCollum for being against tax cuts.

“Career politician Bill McCollum says tax cuts don’t work, but he’s just plain wrong- wrong for small businesses, wrong for our economy, and wrong for everyday Floridians. The choice in this election just got a little clearer- a career politician who cites his decades in Congress as a reason to oppose tax cuts versus a businesswoman who knows what it’s going to take to get our economy back on track,” reads a press release issued by Sink’s campaign spokeswoman Conchita Cruz.

Hang on.

McCollum spoke about tax credits or tax incentives. Are they the same as tax cuts?

“He said tax credits and tax credits are tax cuts,” Sink said in an e-mail from Cruz.

This from McCollum’s campaign spokeswoman Kristy Campbell.

“It is laughable that Alex Sink, who has made thousands in personal campaign contributions to liberal tax-and-spend Democrats, would try to assert she is a fiscal conservative. Following more political stunts from her official office at taxpayer expense, Alex Sink has resorted to ridiculous attempts to obfuscate the facts.

“Bill McCollum has a bullet-proof record of fighting to cut taxes across the board for families and businesses that speaks for itself,” Campbell said in a press release.

It didn’t take long for Attorney General Bill McCollum’s campaign to slap Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink’s proposal to save $10 million a year by leaving her agency’s middle management positions unfilled after workers retire or leave the state.

The GOP candidate for governor’s campaign called Sink’s announcement a political publicity stunt by her official state office.

“On the heels of a failed publicity stunt calling for Florida’s first Paperclip Czar, it is clear that Alex Sink is running her political campaign out of the Department of Financial Services at the taxpayers’ expense.

“If Alex Sink is serious about streamlining government, maybe she should begin by cutting back on the bloated political and public relations operation being funded by the tax dollars of hardworking Floridians – one that she disingenuously worked to expand in anticipation of her campaign,” McCollum’s campaign said in a press release issued shortly after Sink’s announcement.

McCollum’s campaign lashed out at Sink for proposing to save the state more than $200,000 by cutting back on office supplies. But McCollum’s own director of administration last week proposed doing exactly the same thing to save taxpayers at least $250,000 by reducing office supply spending, including reusing paper clips.

Sink’s campaign shot back with the following:

“Attorney General Bill McCollum’s office has been criticized for playing politics through his official office numerous times, most notably by granting a $1.4 million dollar no-bid contract to his political consultant that produced a thinly veiled campaign ad with taxpayer dollars.”

McCollum hired his former political consultant last year to produce television ads featuring the attorney general warning parents about cyber predators.

Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink and Democratic gubernatorial candidate says she’s going to shrink state government and save taxpayers up to $10 million a year by trimming middle management in her agency.

State workers don’t have to worry about layoffs, though - the former banker she’s going to leave middle management positions empty when current employees retire or resign. It will take up to 18 months to achieve the savings, long after Sink’s time as CFO has ended.

Sink’s announcement today is a continuation of her emphasis on bringing a business-like approach to government.

She recently caught fire from her GOP Cabinet colleague Attorney General Bill McCollum’s campaign for governor for promoting cost savings by cutting back on office supplies, including paper clips.

But McCollum’s own director of administration last week testified before a Senate committee that his office could save $238,000 a year by skimping on office supplies and reusing paper clips.

Sink set a goal of one supervisor for every seven workers, cutting back from a current ratio of one to five in her agency. She says taxpayers could save about $300 million a year if all state agencies did the same.

Many state agencies are already doing what Sink proposes - leaving vacant positions empty - for the past several years because of budget cuts.

Stay tuned to find out what the ratio of middle managers to workers is in McCollum’s office.

Attorney General Bill McCollum continues to defer to GOP party leaders instead of ordering an investigation into possible criminal conduct regarding credit card abuses at the Republican Party of Florida.

McCollum today said he may ask the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to look into the matter but that he would wait until the new chairman of the RPOF - expected to be Sen. John Thrasher - is elected this weekend.

Also today, Florida Democrats shut down McCollum’s anti-corruption hotline, filling up the 800 number’s voice mail in an effort to draw attention to McCollum’s refusal to investigate the credit card charges even after other top Republicans want the books opened.

McCollum said he won’t ask for inquiry until an audit of the RPOF is complete and he gets direction from the new party chairman to move although Gov. Charlie Crist last week said that party officials should open the books now.

“I’m waiting about what the new chairman might discover. I don’t see any evidence at this point of criminal behavior,” McCollum said today after a speech to the National Federation of Independent Business.

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McCollum

Sink

Click here to read about the speech.

And read expanded excerpts of McCollum’s remarks about Sink and the Sink campaign’s response after the jump….

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After dissing Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink for gloating about skimping on paper clips, Attorney General Bill McCollum appears to have taken a liking to her cost-cutting measure.

Spending less on office supplies and reusing paper clips and file folders could save taxpayers about $238,000 a year, McCollum’s director of administration John Hamilton told the Senate Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Committee this morning.

Oops.

Just a few weeks ago, McCollum mocked Sink’s efforts to stop buying non-mission critical office supplies until the end of the fiscal year in June, a savings that she estimates could be $200,000. If all the state followed her lead, taxpayers could save $14 million according to the Democratic candidate for governor.

“While Alex Sink focuses on rationing paperclips and paper products, Bill McCollum is focused on finding solutions to the severe economic challenges we face,” McCollum’s campaign said in a press release late last month.

McCollum’s campaign spokeswoman Kristy Campbell had this to say in response to our blog:

“Attorney General McCollum has remained to curbing wasteful spending throughout his tenure in office. Unfortunately, CFO Alex Sink has consistently used her office for political public relations stunts and for attacking her opponent on the taxpayers dime,” Campbell wrote in an e-mail.

And Democratic Party of Florida spokesman Eric Jotkoff had his own snap:

“We’re glad to see that career politician Bill McCollum is finally showing some concern for Florida taxpayers and eating his wrong-headed attacks on Alex Sink, even if it took some coaxing and cajoling, at least the Attorney General is finally following CFO Sink’s leadership in cutting wasteful government spending,” Jotkoff wrote in a press release.

Read the related article by Palm Beach Post columnist Frank Cerabino, Governor’s race
 an all-out battle 
of self-promotion

McCollum leads Sink, 41 percent to 31 percent, in a poll that has a 2.4 percent margin of error. McCollum held a 4-point lead in polls last August and October.

The poll also finds 57 percent of Floridians oppose the Democratic health care overhaul legislation moving through Congress and 55 percent favor increased drilling in federal waters off Florida — but not if rigs are as close as five miles from shore.

Poll respondents generally don’t support relaxing immigration laws in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti that is likely to increase the number of refugees leaving the island.

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Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican running for U.S. Senate:
“The attempted terror attack on Christmas Day was a somber reminder that we are a nation still at war. The facts surrounding the failed bombing plot are alarming. It is troubling to hear that this attempt was not stopped long before the plan was enacted.
“As more details emerge on who knew what and when, it is important that all facets of our homeland security redouble their efforts to protect the American people as we fight the ongoing war on terror.

“While I appreciate that a review has been conducted, it is much more important that our entire intelligence community proactively works to make sure this type of attempt doesn’t happen again.”

Attorney General Bill McCollum, a Republican running for governor:
“I am thankful President Obama is fully engaged on national security issues and the business of keeping Americans safe. Our approach must not be reactionary and it must not be passive. We must successfully execute a coordinated and proactive intelligence and counter-terrorism strategy to ensure the safety of our citizens. (more…)

McCollum’s primary rival, state Sen. Paula Dockery of Lakeland, is also welcome — if she buys a $195 ticket.

Find out why in this week’s Politics column.

Read the story that appeared on page 2A of the Dec. 30 edition of The Palm Beach Post.

UPDATE: Quick response on Twitter from state Sen. Dan Gelber, a Democratic candidate for attorney general: “I wish McCollum was as concerned about solving Florida’s health care crisis as he was about stopping the solving of the health care crisis.”

From Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum says he will review the federal health care bill because he has “grave concerns” about whether it violates the federal and state constitution.

“The mandate is especially troubling to Floridians who are guaranteed through the Florida Constitution to have ‘the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into [their] private life,” McCollum wrote in a statement today.

McCollum specifically refers to a provision that would require Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a fine.

“Such a ‘living tax’ is worrisome because it would be levied on a person who does nothing, a person who simply wishes not to be forced to buy health insurance coverage. Upon initial review, this appears to be contrary to the freedoms we, as Americans, have enjoyed for the past 233 years,” McCollum said.

McCollum, the leading Republican candidate for governor next year, has also written a letter to other state attorneys general asking them to review the bill in regards to the Commerce Clause and taxing power in the U.S. Constitution.

McCollum is also joining several attorneys general who are evaluating the constitutionality of a U.S. Senate bill provision that provides 100 percent federal Medicaid funding to only one state, Nebraska.

State Sen. Dan Gelber and attorney general candidate nailed down another big-name Democratic endorsement, this time from Buddy McKay, who served as lieutenant governor under the late Gov. Lawton Chiles and briefly served as governor after Chiles’ death.

Gelber, a Miami Beach Democrat and former House member, is trying to trade up for the Cabinet post just a year after he won election to the Senate.

He and colleague Dave Aronberg, a Democratic senator from Greenacres, are in a battle-of-the-endorsements.

Post On Politics had erroneously reported that the sheriffs were split on the candidates.

They are not.

Aronberg has the support of 10 Democratic sheriffs, including Palm Beach County’s own law enforcement rock star Ric Bradshaw.

Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, former state education commissioner Betty Castor and former U.S. Rep. Jim Davis have all thrown their support behind Gelber.

Republicans have lined up Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp and Holly Benson, a former House member who also served as secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration, in a GOP primary race that’s been virtually silent compared to the Aronberg/Gelber contest.

They’re all vying to replace Attorney General Bill McCollum, a Republican who is running for governor in a primary against another senator - Paula Dockery.

Gelber’s latest political aspiration has opened up the door for yet another former senator, Gwen Margolis, to return to the chamber.

Margolis, a former Senate President, left office before being termed out to make room for Gelber. If she wins, it would be the Miami Beach-area Democrat’s second return trip to the Senate. After serving in the state House, she switched to the Senate from 1981-1992 before making a losing bid for Congress. Margolis was reelected to the Senate in 2002.

Gov. Charlie Crist ordered an investigation into “Wafflegate” but his concerns about transportation officials’ possible violations of the state’s Sunshine laws aren’t keeping him from signing the bill they were writing about into law tomorrow.

Tomorrow, Crist will hold ceremonial signings in Tampa and Orlando of the sweeping rail bill passed during a special session last week.

Today, Crist acceded to Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink’s request for the inspector general investigation.

But he rejected Sen. Paula Dockery’s suggestion that he delay signing the bill that paves the way for SunRail.

Dockery’s fought for three years the deal in which the state will pay CSX at least $430 million for 61 miles of track in Central Florida for a commuter rail project. The state will share the rails with CSX, which will continue to operate freight on the line for less than $4 million a year.

The Palm Beach Post reported on Sunday that CSX played a major role in the crafting of the bill.

“For three years, the agency has been stonewalling citizens trying to examine this back-room deal. Given the secretive code words used to hide its communications, the agency has violated the public trust. Until the investigation is completed, I would encourage the governor to delay signing – or better yet, veto – the legislation we’ve now learned was authored by CSX,” Dockery, R-Lakeland, said in a statement.

Orlando Ax the Tax chairman Doug Guetzloe also asked Crist to hold off on signing the bill into law. Guetzloe and the state Tea Party Chairman Fred O’Neal have asked Leon County State Attorney Willie Meggs to investigate the matter they coined “Wafflegate.” Guetzloe also said he will file an ethics complaint and ask Attorney General Bill McCollum’s office to look into it.
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