Democratic state Sen. Ted Deutch said this morning he won’t participate in a congressional debate this afternoon with Republican Ed Lynch and no-party candidate Jim McCormick because he needs to attend a Senate Ways and Means Committee hearing in Tallahassee.

The three are running in an April 13 special election to replace retired U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler.

WFTL 850-AM said it had lined up the three candidates for a 4 p.m. debate on The Jeff Katz Show.

But Deutch released a statement this morning saying his participation was never a sure thing because of his schedule in Tallahassee. Deutch says he hopes to schedule a debate at another date.

Lynch accused Deutch of short-changing constituents in Palm Beach-Broward congressional District 19.

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Aside from a West Boca Chamber of Commerce breakfast debate last month, this afternoon’s event is the only scheduled meeting of Democrat Ted Deutch, Republican Ed Lynch and no-party candidate Jim McCormick.

Post On Politics will be part of the panel questioning the candidates. Submit a suggested question in the comments section below and maybe it’ll get asked. If it’s really good, Post On Politics might ask it and claim credit for thinking it up.

Meek

Vice President Joe Biden, who was visiting Israel at the time of the announcement, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have blasted the plan, straining relations with America’s strongest ally in the Middle East.

“What started off as an internal, domestic disagreement within the Israeli government has turned into an unnecessary international dispute complicated by some undiplomatic language from U.S. administration officials,” Meek said today.

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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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As local supporters and opponents of health care overhaul took to the streets Tuesday to make their case, it was clear that many supporters of the Democratic legislation don’t see it as the culmination of decades of struggle but as a starting point for future changes.

“The day after it’s passed we’re going to start working on it to improve it. It’s a mess,” said Charles Oliver of Delray Beach, one of about 15 demonstrators at a MoveOn.org event outside U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson’s office in West Palm Beach. Oliver wants a government-run public option, and says even if it doesn’t make it into the emerging legislation now, the bill will provide “a structure” for future change.

About 30 opponents of the Democratic legislation made their case Tuesday outside Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Klein’s office in Boca Raton at an event organized by conservative tea party and 9-12 groups.

Read more here.

Mark Foley at the Forum Club last week. Photo by Damon Higgins.

Last week, he made his first appearance at a Forum Club of the Palm Beaches luncheon since his 2006 resignation in a national firestorm over sexually charged Internet messages he sent to former congressional pages.

This week, Foley is planning to attend Wednesday night’s 66th annual Radio and TV Correspondents’ Dinner as a guest of Talk Radio News. It’s Foley’s first Washington appearance since his resignation, according to Foley publicist Jamie Holmes.

Foley On Politics airs Tuesdays at 6 p.m. on Seaview Radio 95.9 FM and 960 AM and at www.seaviewam960.com

Some of the West Palm Beach coffee party group, from Flickr.com

But the meeting of about 40 people in West Palm Beach was predominantly white, and a perusal of Coffee Party USA photos from around the nation on Flickr.com shows mostly white faces.

“I’m a little surprised that there aren’t more young people and more people of color. I’m glad to see these people, though,” said Phil Stelly of North Palm Beach, who is 54 and black. He left early from Saturday’s meeting at a Panera Bread restaurant, but said he remains interested in the nascent group.

Two black women took part in the West Palm Beach meeting. Local organizer George Papison said he believes several participants were Latino.

“I would have liked to have seen more participants of color, but I don’t know whether we had any control over that….I would have liked to have seen more younger people, frankly,” said Papison, who is 59.

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Frankel

Frankel can’t seek a third term unless the city charter is changed, a process that would probably require a petition drive and referendum between now and November.

“I have no initiative under way,” Frankel said, and nothing planned. But, she added, “a lot of things could happen” in the next few months.

Read about it in this week’s Politics column.

A picture from the West Palm Beach event from the Coffee Party U.S.A. page on Flickr.com

“To me, government is the answer. I’m really sort of perplexed,” said one coffee partier.

The event was one of hundreds nationwide. Read more here.

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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Although Democrat Eric Massa has resigned from Congress amid sexual misconduct allegations, Republicans want a continued ethics inquiry into the Empire State tickler and how much Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders knew about his conduct.

Sound familiar?

As this Washington Post article notes, “GOP leaders cited as precedent the committee’s 2006 decision to investigate claims that Mark Foley, a Florida Republican, sent sexually explicit messages to former male pages. The committee’s decision came after Foley stepped down from Congress. That inquiry also examined how some House leaders ignored claims about Foley’s conduct while others tried to shield his behavior from public disclosure.”

The House voted 402-1 today to keep the Massa investigation open.

A 2009 rant by MSNBC’s Rick Santelli helped launch the conservative tea party movement.

Now an Obama supporter’s Facebook rantings have launched an alternative “coffee party” that will try to gain traction Saturday with gatherings across the U.S., including one in West Palm Beach.

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In the poll of 492 Florida Republican voters by North Carolina-based Public Policy Polling, Romney gets 52 percent to 21 percent for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and 18 percent for former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Romney, Huckabee and Palin were the only choices given in the poll, which has a 4.4 percent margin of error.

Romney also leads the Republican pack in a PPP poll of Colorado.

“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.

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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WEST PALM BEACH — After speaking to a packed Forum Club of the Palm Beaches lunch here today, once and possibly future Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney deflected questions about a 2012 White House run (he says he’ll think about his future after the November midterm elections) and punted on the Charlie Crist-Marco Rubio GOP Senate primary (”Usually I stay out of primaries”).

But Romney, in a brief sit-down with The Palm Beach Post, was a little more expansive in discussing his altercation last month with electro-hop artist Sky Blu on a plane waiting to take off from Vancouver.

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Harrell

Harrell said she was inspired by Iraqi voters who were not intimidated by terrorists who tried to disrupt the elections. Harrell said explosions of home-made “bottle bombs” slowed down voting but didn’t scare away voters.

“They were not intimidated by this. They were very angry…They were in total defiance of the terrorists,” Harrell said by telephone from Baghdad, where she’s staying at the U.S. Embassy.

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WEST PALM BEACH — Former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley and former GOP activist and bond underwriter Kevin McCarty are making their first post-scandal Forum Club appearances at today’s sold-out luncheon speech by Mitt Romney.

Foley, once a Forum Club regular, hasn’t been back since he resigned in a 2006 Internet sex scandal.

“People have been begging me to come back to the Forum Club,” Foley said as he worked the Kravis Center ballroom before the lunch.

McCarty was released in January after serving eight months in federal prison for failing to report wife Mary McCarty’s honest services fraud as a Palm Beach County commissioner. She’s serving a three-and-a-half-year sentence. Kevin McCarty declined to comment.

WEST PALM BEACH — Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele was in town this morning to launch a 60-second ad aimed at attracting GOP donors. The spot accuses President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of “experimenting with America” and favoring “massive government expansion, government takeovers, redistribution of wealth and staggering debt to countries like China and the Middle East.”

The GOP is spending less than $1 million nationally on the campaign. The ads will run on cable rather than pricier broadcast TV stations. In addition to the West Palm Beach market, the ads will run in Greensboro, N.C., Cincinnati, Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Okla., a GOP spokesman said.

To view the ad, click here.

Steele appeared briefly at the West Palm Beach Marriott before about 30 GOP activists, including Palm Beach County Republican Chairman Sid Dinerstein, Broward GOP Chairman Chip LaMarca and Republican congressional hopefuls Ed Lynch and Allen West.