Capitalizing on the scandal erupting over the state GOP’s credit card spending, national Democrats released a video take-off of the MasterCard “Priceless” television campaign.

The spoof highlights some of the Republican Party of Florida-issued credit card charges now-U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio made when Florida House Speaker, including $1,000 in repairs to his family mini-van.

“Getting your personal bills paid for by the Republican Party of Florida like Marco Rubio: Priceless,” the Democratic National Committee video mocks.

The state GOP may get some unwanted mail as a result of the “Priceless” satire.

“Want your bills paid for by the Republican Party of Florida? Just send them in. 420 E. Jefferson Street, Tallahassee, Florida 32301,” it concludes.

The DNC ad targets Rubio at a time when the once-long-shot candidate’s popularity is soaring while his GOP primary opponent Gov. Charlie Crist’s is on the wane.

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.

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.

The House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct wrapped up its business this morning in the wake of former House Speaker Ray Sansom’s resignation last night.

Committee Chairman Bill Galvano:

“As a result of Speaker Sansom’s resignation as a member of the Florida House, further action by this committee is rendered moot. We’re without authority to fulfill the charge of this select committee,” Galvano, R-Bradenton, said.

Lynch

“I was really surprised with how lousy the turnout was. I was expecting at least twice as many voters as that,” said Ed Fulop of the local Glenn Beck-inspired 9-12 group. Ed Lynch won a Republican primary that had only 7.4 percent turnout after all three GOP candidates aggressively courted the Tea Party/9-12 vote.

Read about it in this week’s Politics column.

Lynch

Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher said Joe Budd lost 9 votes when elections officials re-checked their numbers early this morning in response to discrepancies between the number of ballots cast and the number of voters who signed in at precincts. Bucher said a few votes had been double-counted in precincts that used two optical scanners rather than one.

New numbers still haven’t been posted on Palm Beach County’s elections Web site, but Bucher this morning said Budd got 2,585 votes in Palm Beach County (down from 2,594 posted Tuesday night), Lynch got 2,547 (unchanged from Tuesday night) and Curt Price got 1,195 (down from 1,199).

Lynch beat Budd by 84 votes in Broward County.

Based on the latest numbers, when totals from Palm Beach County’s 263 precincts are added to totals from Broward County’s 93 precincts, Lynch leads Budd by 46 votes out of 8,160 cast. That’s a 0.56 percent difference. State law requires a machine recount if the difference is 0.5 percent or less.

If outnumbered Republicans in Palm Beach-Broward congressional District 19 were fired up by Republican Scott Brown’s upset victory in heavily Democratic Massachusetts, they didn’t show it Tuesday.

About 7.4 percent of Republican voters cast ballots in the special GOP congressional primary.

Democratic turnout was about 12 percent.

Democrats have more than a 2-to-1 registration edge in District 19, where “fire-breathing liberal” Robert Wexler’s resignation to head a Middle East think tank created the need for a special election to fill the seat. The general election is April 13.

Lynch

While Broward County posted final numbers about 11 p.m. Tuesday for its 93 precincts, as of 6:45 a.m. the Palm Beach County elections office hadn’t posted results that include provisional ballots on its Web site.

Once Palm Beach County posts its final numbers, if the overall margin of the race remains closer than 0.5 percent, it would trigger an automatic recount.

Lynch declared himself the winner shortly before midnight.

The Democratic primary, meanwhile, had no drama, with state Sen. Ted Deutch racking up 85 percent of the vote.

Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher said all the ballots have arrived at the elections tabulating center in Riviera Beach. As of 10:35 p.m., 40 of 263 Palm Beach County precincts remain uncounted for the congressional District 19 primary.

In the Republican race, Ed Lynch holds a 42-vote lead over Joe Budd. Ted Deutch handily won the Democratic primary.

Bucher also said electronic cartridges from seven precincts aren’t reading properly, so the paper ballots will have to be fed through a scanner at the elections office to be counted.

“We’ve got our first endorsement for the general election,” victorious Democrat Ted Deutch just told supporters after taking a concession call from primary rival Ben Graber.

Deutch appears headed to more than 80 percent of the vote in the Democratic congressional District 19 primary.

The GOP race is too close to call. With about two-thirds of Palm Beach County precincts still outstanding, Ed Lynch has a lead of 2,205 to 1,851 over Joe Budd.

Broward County results are complete. View them here.

The primary winners and no-party candidate Jim McCormick will appear on an April 13 general election ballot to replace retired U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler.

As early Democratic returns show Ted Deutch getting more than 80 percent of the primary vote over Ben Graber, Palm Beach County Commissioner Burt Aaronson just told a crowd at a Deutch election-night party: “Let’s be good winners.”

Deutch is speaking to the group now at a homeowner association clubhouse in West Boca. He was interrupted by a campaign aide who said the Associated Press has called the race for Deutch.

“This is an extraordinary evening,” Deutch said at the beginning of his remarks.

As of 8:50 p.m., 75 of 93 Broward County precincts have reported results and 0 of 263 Palm Beach County precincts are in for the congressional District 19 primaries.

Based on early and absentee ballots and the Broward precincts, Ted Deutch is running away with the Democratic primary.

On the Republican side, Ed Lynch has a lead of 1,518 to 1,180 over Joe Budd, with Curt Price trailing with 592 votes.

Deutch

On the Republican side, Ed Lynch has 548 votes, Joe Budd has 481 and Curt Price 195.

The results are from early and absentee ballots. It’s not clear whether all of them have been counted. Results from precincts should come later this evening…..

Palm Beach County Democratic Chairman Mark Alan Siegel, based on reports from key precincts, is predicting that Ted Deutch will beat Ben Graber with “upwards of 80 percent” of the Democratic primary vote in congressional District 19.

Siegel told reporters at a Deutch election-night party they “won’t be embarrassed” if they print his prediction.

Ted Deutch has a 383-to-110 lead over Ben Graber in the first partial Democratic primary results from Broward County in the race for Palm Beach-Broward congressional District 19.

In the Republican primary, Joe Budd has 73 votes to 62 for Ed Lynch and 17 for Curt Price.

Palm Beach County early and absentee results should be posted soon. About 70 percent of the district is in Palm Beach County.

Stay tuned……

U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek held a roundtable with the Capitol press corps this morning and came out swinging at Gov. Charlie Crist.

Meek, a Democrat running for U.S. Senate, slammed Crist, a Republican who’s losing traction in a GOP primary against former House Speaker Marco Rubio, for his turn-around on abortion and his failed health care program that has been ignored by uninsured Floridians.

“Overall I think the governor’s a very nice person,” Meek, a former state legislator who is in his fourth term in Congress, began. “I don’t think he’s prepared to lead this state in the United States Senate. One, he doesn’t like to make a decision. Two, he’s very vague. And three, I believe he’s more politician than leader.”

(more…)

Gov. Charlie Crist moved the special election to replace U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler ahead a week after Jewish voters complained the original election would have taken place during Passover.

The Jewish holiday ends on April 6, the date Crist originally picked for the special election.

“Originally, the special general election was inadvertently scheduled during Passover, and out of respect to the Jewish community, the special general election has been rescheduled to Tuesday, April 13, 2010,” Crist’s office wrote in a memo announcing the new election date.

The special primary election in the heavily Jewish Congressional District 19 will still take place on Feb. 2.

State Sen. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, is considered the favorite to replace Wexler, who resigned to head the nonprofit Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation.

Deutch secured not only Wexler’s support but practically the entire South Florida Democratic delegation. He’s been endorsed by U.S. Reps. Ron Klein, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Alcee Hastings.

National GOP staff breathed a sigh of relief upon Gov. Charlie Crist’s entree into the U.S. Senate race because they believed the governor’s prolific fundraising talents would mean they wouldn’t have to lend a helping hand financially to his campaign.

But that was before three of Crist’s top fund-raisers were targeted in federal investigations in the past nine months.

And now a fourth, Jupiter sports agent and real estate investor Marc Roberts, is facing a federal lawsuit alleging he defrauded a business partner out of $100 million to support his own “lavish personal lifestyle.”

Crist has “never discriminated” in whom he takes money from, said a former state Republican Party staffer with knowledge of Crist’s fund raising. “Now he’s facing the consequences of not being careful. And it raises questions about his judgment.”

Read the whole story here.

Former Republican Party of Florida Chairman Tom Slade is backing Sen. Paula Dockery in her challenge against Attorney General Bill McCollum for governor.

Slade, who served as chairman from 1992-2000, is an unabashed critic of his own party and carries a considerable cachet among GOP insiders.

“McCollum is a nice guy, but I think he would be better in the U.S. Senate, where I think his skills are better suited. But I think Paula would do a better job of being governor. She’s got the kind of tenacity you need, and she’s got the knowledge,” Slade said in a press release.

Slade’s backing of Dockery, considered an underdog early in the race, comes as state GOP leaders gather in a secret session tomorrow to try to reunite their splintered party.

Several county leaders have asked for Chairman Jim Greer’s ouster and criticized what some call his heavy-handed tactics, including efforts to quash primary races and premature endorsements of McCollum and Gov. Charlie Crist. Crist is running against former House Speaker Marco Rubio, a GOP conservative sweetheart, for U. S. Senate.

The day after she officially joined the governor’s race, Sen. Paula Dockery lobbed a shot at the state GOP political machine that seems to be doing its best to ignore one of its own.

The front page of the Republican Party of Florida’s website has no mention of Dockery, a lifelong Republican from Lakeland, but does prominently feature a press release from her GOP opponent Attorney General Bill McCollum touting Jeb Bush’s support for him.

After Dockery announced she was running for governor, the Republican Party of Florida issued a release on behalf of McCollum’s campaign highlighting his GOP endorsements.

That earned this jab at RPOF Chairman Jim Greer from Dockery today.

“Just today, the controversial and embattled head of Florida’s Republican Party told the Orlando Sentinel that the state party would spend no money to help my opponent in the gubernatorial primary.

“Hours later, he used the party’s resources to send out an email of support for my opponent, Attorney General Bill McCollum.

“This is exactly the kind of double-speak that, under Greer’s leadership, has disenfranchised grassroots Republicans from the state party.

“Party bosses shouldn’t tell the people what to do. That didn’t work for the Politburo and it won’t work for the Republican Party of Florida,” Dockery said in a press release entitled “What are they afraid of?”

RPOF spokeswoman Katie Gordon said McCollum’s campaign was using a service that’s also available to Dockery.

“The RPOF has a long-standing policy of distributing campaign press releases to our subscribers thru the RPOF blast e-mail system at the request of any of the statewide candidates. At this point, Sen. Dockery has not requested that RPOF resources be utilized to distribute her press releases to our subscribers,” Gordon said.