Saying he has “a lot of concerns” about the immigration reform bill backed by Sen. Marco Rubio, former Rep. Allen West didn’t say no this morning when a Washington radio interviewer raised the possibility of West challenging Rubio in a 2016 GOP Senate primary.

WMAL host Larry O’Connor said many tea party conservatives who helped elect Rubio in 2010 aren’t pleased with Rubio’s immigration stance.

“There’s a lot of people whispering maybe he should be primaried in 2016. What about an Allen West primary challenge for that Senate seat?” O’Connor asked.

Said West: “That’s a pretty heavy lift, because you’re talking about running against a sitting senator, and of course, then, that creates that schism that the other side would love to see happen.”

When O’Connor noted that West was “not saying no,” West was silent for a second, then said “Chirping, chirping, chirping” with a laugh.

West suggested he might run “if I see people that are not taking our country down the right path, if I see people that are not standing up for the right type of principles and putting their own party politics before what is best for the United States of America…We’ll see what happens down the pike. God will set my feet on the right path.”

Florida voters give Republican Sen. Marco Rubio a 51 percent job approval rating while disagreeing with his vote against gun background checks and having an overall negative view of Rubio’s handling of immigration issues, a new Quinnipiac University poll says.

Hillary Clinton would top Rubio in Florida by a 53-to-41 percent margin if the two were running for president, the poll says. That’s virtually unchanged from a March Quinnipiac poll. Clinton would defeat former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush by a 50-to-43 percent margin, compared to a 51-to-40 percent advantage she enjoyed in March.

Clinton would be a much stronger 2016 presidential candidate in Florida than Vice President Joe Biden, the poll says. Bush would defeat Biden in the Sunshine State by a 47-to-43 percent margin and Rubio would have a 45-to-43 edge — essentially dead heats considering the poll’s 2.9 percent margin of error.

The survey of 1,176 registered voters was conducted June 11-16.

While 51 percent of Florida voters approve of the job Rubio is doing, 35 percent disapprove. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson has 51 percent approval and 29 percent disapproval scores.

President Barack Obama gets 47 percent approval and 48 percent disapproval from Florida voters in the new poll, substantially worse than in December, when 54 percent approved and 42 percent disapproved.

Despite the recent controversies involving the IRS and Justice Department, Florida voters’ view of whether Obama is “honest and trustworthy” is virtually unchanged from November, shortly after he carried the state on his way to re-election. In the new poll, 50 percent of Floridians say the president is honest and trustworthy, while 45 percent disagree. In a November survey, 52 percent of Florida voters found Obama honest and trustworthy while 43 percent did not.

Republican-turned-independent-turned Democratic former Gov. Charlie Crist was in Washington supporting his new team at Thursday night’s Congressional Baseball Game for Charity.

Crist posed with Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Jupiter, in a picture that Murphy’s campaign circulated along with news that the freshman House member had belted an RBI double in the first inning. Murphy may be a rookie, but he showed a veteran’s awareness of political visuals, wearing a jersey from Indian River State College in his Treasure Coast swing district.

The Democrats shellacked the Republicans 22-0.

“Is there any better proof we need more young & Hispanic Republicans in Congress?” said Miami-based Republican strategist and CNN contributor Ana Navarro on her Twitter account.

On his Twitter account, Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Okeechobee, managed to find a silver lining for the GOP: “Didn’t go our way but raised a lot of money for some great charities.”

U.S. Reps. Patrick Murphy, D-Jupiter, and Tom Rooney, R-Okeechobee, are on the rosters for tonight’s Congressional Baseball Game, a tradition that goes back more than 100 years.

Republicans hold a 38-to-36 advantage, with one tie, in the games. But Democrats have dominated since Louisiana Rep. Cedric Richmond, a former college player, took office in 2011 and brought his overpowering pitching to the game. Republicans are hoping to counter Richmond this year with freshman Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Ponte Vedra Beach, who pitched in the 1991 Little League World Series and at Yale.

DeSantis, Rooney and Murphy are the only Floridians in the game.

Murphy can pitch and play center field for the Democrats. Rooney plays first base for the GOP squad.

The Palm Beach County Republican Executive Committee voted Wednesday night to appoint an “ad hoc special audit committee” to review party finances over the past 18 months.

The review, to be performed by five REC members, comes after a severe fundraising downturn led the party to slash its budget by 44 percent, from $310,000 to $172,667.

Former county GOP Chairman Sid Dinerstein, who opted not to seek re-election in December after 10 years on the job, said he has nothing to hide, but argued the “audit” would only generate bad press for the local party.

“If you want to keep this in The Palm Beach Post, vote for the motion. If you’re ready for Ira and I and all of us to shake hands…and do the work of the committee, vote no,” Dinerstein said.

The “Ira” Dinerstein mentioned is current Chairman Ira Sabin. Earlier in the meeting, Sabin and Dinerstein blamed each other for the party’s financial woes. But Sabin, who was treasurer from 2010 to 2012, agreed with Dinerstein that an audit would bring negative attention.

“My feeling is, as Sid’s is, let’s get it out of the newspapers,” Sabin said.

Sabin and Dinerstein ended up shaking hands toward the end of the meeting.

Palm Beach Republican Club President Marie Davis, who narrowly lost to Sabin in the December vote for party chair, argued otherwise.

“From the point of view of the public looking at us and the Democrats looking at us, this is probably a very good idea to move forward with a very general audit. I think we’ll be happy that we did in the long run,” Davis said.

“And also keep in mind the donors also read The Palm Beach Post, and if they think we’ve done an internal audit to see how we can conduct business better, I think that will make fundraising a little bit easier,” Davis said.

Davis’ argument carried more weight than the arguments of the current and former chairmen. REC members voted 67-to-19 to go ahead with the financial review.

The cash-strapped Palm Beach County Republican Party is turning to Angela Graham-West — a Raymond James financial adviser, former business professor and the wife of former U.S. Rep. Allen West — for marketing and fundraising help.

County GOP Chairman Ira Sabin said Graham-West, who is volunteering her time, will have the title “interim director of marketing and fundraising.”

With the local GOP plagued by lackluster fundraising, Sabin has laid off the party’s two paid staffers and tonight will ask Republican Executive Committee members to approve a 44 percent slashing of the local party budget, reducing it from the $310,000 approved earlier in the year to $172,667.

Graham-West said her role “won’t be so much fundraising as marketing…The idea is to bring some energy and a bit more excitement and just attract a broad range of people, which is what, on the national level, the Republican Party is supposed to be doing.”

She added: “Not being able to raise money is a symptom of not attracting a lot of people to what you’re doing and having them believe in what you’re doing.”

Graham-West attended a Forum Club of the Palm Beaches lunch on Tuesday in which Republican pollster and strategist Frank Luntz discussed the national GOP’s problems with attracting voters.

Graham-West, who said she agreed with much of what Luntz said, was asked how much the local GOP can do to counter broader Republican branding problems.

“There are issues on the national level,” she said. “But this is all I can do.”

Just in case Democratic gubernatorial candidate Nan Rich lacks material for her speaking gig tonight at a West Palm Beach Democratic Club meeting, Republican Party of Florida Chairman Lenny Curry is offering her some lines of attack she can pursue against potential Democratic primary rival and former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist.

With polls showing fledgling Democrat Crist would defeat Republican Gov. Rick Scott in 2014, the state GOP has been painting Crist as a flip-flopper by issuing daily “This Date In Crist-ory” reminders of Crist’s Republican past.

Curry and the GOP have also spent the last two weeks fanning the controversy over the Florida Democratic Party’s decision not to give Rich a speaking slot at Saturday’s annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Broward County.

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South Bay City Commissioner Shirley Walker-Turner‘s trial on charges she violated Florida’s open-meetings law has been pushed back to September because of her attorney’s health.

If convicted of the misdemeanor offense, Walker-Turner would likely be removed from office by Gov. Rick Scott. Scott suspended Walker-Turner and two other South Bay elected officials in December when they were charged with violating the Sunshine Law. After Walker-Turner won a special election last month, Scott reinstated her pending the outcome of the Sunshine Law case.

Walker-Turner was scheduled to go on trial before Judge August Bonavita this morning. But her attorney, Jeffrey Weiner, filed a motion this week saying he expects to undergo surgery this week or next week and cannot try the case.

Palm Beach County Assistant State Attorney Michael Dutko did not oppose the motion.

Walker-Turner’s trial is now set for Sept. 18.

The Sunshine Law requires public officials to conduct public business in public. Walker-Turner and commissioners John Wilson and Linda Johnson were charged with agreeing in private meetings to approve a $25,139 payment to former city manager Corey Alston for unused vacation time. The three elected officials never huddled together, but prosecutors said Alston acted as a “conduit” through a series of one-on-one conversations with each official.

Johnson was found guilty in a March trial and Wilson entered a guilty plea last month. Walker-Turner pleaded not guilty. She has said she had private conversations with Alston about his vacation pay but “at no time did he tell me what Wilson or Johnson had stated on an issue.”

Former Wellington mayor Kathy Foster has launched a 2014 candidacy for the Palm Beach County commission seat of term-limited Jess Santamaria.

Foster, a Democrat, is the first of what could be several candidates to run for the western-county District 6.

“I have been actively involved in the western communities for over 30 years. Running for the county commission is the next logical step in what amounts to a lifetime of service to my community,” said Foster, who was active in efforts to incorporate Wellington and was the village’s first mayor in the 1990s.

Democrats hold a 42.6-to-30.1 registration advantage in the district.

A congressional aide implicated in an absentee ballot scheme in Miami-Dade County while working on a Democratic campaign there also had “a very limited role” producing web videos for Democratic U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy’s 2012 campaign.

Murphy was “dismayed” by the news about consultant Jeffrey Garcia, whom the Murphy campaign characterized as a minor player who had no involvement in absentee ballots or get-out-the-vote efforts during Murphy’s 2012 victory over former Republican Rep. Allen West.

Jeffrey Garcia resigned Friday as chief of staff to Rep. Joe Garcia, D-Miami. The Miami Herald reported that Jeffrey Garcia, who is not related to Rep. Garcia, took responsibility for a plot to submit hundreds of fraudulent requests for absentee ballots during the 2012 primary when he was a top adviser to Joe Garcia’s campaign.

Jeffrey Garcia runs Palm Media LLC, which according to Federal Election Committee reports was paid $24,000 by Murphy’s campaign from April 2011 to April 2012 to produce web videos.

“Congressman Murphy was dismayed to hear today of the of the wrong doing involving Mr. Jeff Garcia. The integrity of the electoral process is vital to our political system,” said a Murphy campaign statement over the weekend. “Mr. Garcia’s media company had a very limited role in the campaign which included producing some web videos. He was not one of the campaign’s primary consultants and had no involvement in the campaign’s field program, absentee program or outreach to voters.”

BOCA RATON — Michael Steele, the African-American who was Republican National Committee chairman from 2009 to 2011, said the GOP doesn’t need a lot of high-priced consultants to diagnose its problems with blacks and other minorities.

“You don’t need to spend a million dollars to figure out, hey, we just got our behinds kicked. You don’t need to convene grand meetings and press conferences to know that you lost the Hispanic vote, the Asian vote, the African-American vote, the female vote, the gay vote, the vote of every class of citizen except old white men,” Steele said at a dinner aimed at wooing blacks into the conservative fold.

“And nothing against old white men, but America is more than that and our conversation has to go beyond that because, as I said, America has changed,” Steele said. “Nor do Republicans have to keep repeating — and Lord, please, let them stop – ‘We need to reach out to fill-in-the-blank.’ Just shut up and do it already. Just shut up and do it already because if you listen you’ll understand that that’s what Americans want you do to.”

Steele, former Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, Congress Of Racial Equality spokesman Niger Innis and author Kevin Jackson spoke at the event sponsored by Boca Raton orthodontist Larry Kawa. Roughly half the audience of 400 was black.

Floridians for Immigration Enforcement, the Pompano Beach-based group that demonstrated outside Sen. Marco Rubio‘s recent Port St. Lucie appearance, has rented a billboard along Interstate 75 in Ocala to slam Rubio for co-sponsoring the “Gang of Eight” Senate bill that includes a pathway to citizenship.

While it’s a fairly minor expenditure in a pricey media state, the billboard is one indication that Rubio’s tireless efforts to sell immigration reform to conservatives have not succeeded in winning over many of the hard-liners who are influential in GOP primaries.

FLIMEN includes several Palm Beach and Treasure Coast activists who say Rubio promised them as a 2010 Senate candidate that he would oppose amnesty for people who are in the country illegally. Rubio says the measures in the bill that would allow millions to attain legal status are not amnesty.

FLIMEN Legislative Director Jack Oliver alluded to Rubio’s potential presidential ambitions in blasting the Senator.

“I predict that no politician who votes for the Senate immigration bill will ever be elected to higher office,” Oliver said.

Some prominent black Republicans and conservatives — including former U.S. Rep. Allen West, former Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll and former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele — are coming to Boca Raton on Thursday for a dinner that aims to bring African Americans into the conservative fold.

The event, which is expected to draw 450 people, is being underwritten by Dr. Larry Kawa, a Boca Raton orthodontist. Kawa is a Republican donor who founded a PAC called American Courage, but he said he’s paying for everything himself — including the dinner and speakers’ travel costs — so the event won’t be tied to the GOP or political organizations.

“The idea is that I want to help enhance awareness within the black community of fiscal conservatism and how it affects them,” said Kawa, who is white. Kawa said he put together a list of 450 dinner invitees by contacting friends and patients who are black and some black churches, including politically connected Rev. O’Neal Dozier‘s Worldwide Christian Center.

In addition to West, Carroll and Steele, the speaker lineup will include Congress Of Racial Equality President Niger Innis and author Kevin Jackson.

WEST PALM BEACH — Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Jupiter, and Rep. David Joyce, R-Ohio, called for more cooperation between Republicans and Democrats when they appeared together at a Forum Club of the Palm Beaches lunch today to discuss a bipartisan bill to trim the deficit.

Murphy and Joyce are both freshmen and part of a bipartisan group seeking to find common ground on deficit issues. They co-sponsored a bill called the Savings, Accountability, Value and Efficiency (SAVE) Act, which identifies about $200 billion in savings over 10 years by adopting efficiency recommendations from the Government Accountability Office.

The $200 billion in savings amount to about 3 percent of the $6.3 trillion in projected deficits over the next decade, but Murphy and Joyce said their bill is at least a start.

“We are not going to solve the world’s problems overnight. We are freshman members. But we’re changing the tone and step by step that’s what we need to do in this country is change to the tone and get back to bipartisanship,” Murphy said.

“I view myself as a fact-based problem solver,” said Joyce, a former prosecutor whose district includes some Cleveland suburbs and northeast Ohio. “It’s about time we take off our red jerseys and we take off our blue jerseys and we put on our red-white-and-blue jerseys and do what’s right for this country.”

Murphy and Joyce were asked by an audience member if they feared that working across the aisle would make them targets for a primary challenge.

Joyce decried the influence of conservative groups that pressure Republican House members to vote their way or face primary opposition. He specifically mentioned Grover Norquist of Americans For Tax Reform, which asks candidates to pledge to oppose all tax increases.

“I want taxes to do go down. But we can’t sign stupid pledges that abdicate our responsibility to some outside party,” Joyce said.

Both Murphy and Joyce represent battleground districts and are expected to be top targets in 2014. Joyce said he is also bracing for possible opposition from within the GOP.

Joyce was asked if any Republicans tried to dissuade him from appearing with Murphy.

“I’m not endorsing him (Murphy), I’m coming down to endorse the system and what we need to do in D.C. to fix it,” Joyce said in an interview.

Freshman U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Jupiter, is one of the national GOP’s top 2014 targets, so it’s likely that a parade of Republican figures will come to Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast over the next 18 months to assist efforts to defeat him.

Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., was in town recently to interview potential Murphy challengers. McHenry heads up recruiting efforts for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Rep. David Joyce, R-Ohio, is scheduled to make a Murphy-related visit on Friday — but not to try to oust Murphy from Congress.

Joyce and Murphy are co-sponsors of the Savings, Accountability, Value and Efficiency (SAVE) Act, which aims to trim $200 billion in federal spending over 10 years by implementing some efficiency recommendations put forward by the Government Accountability Office.

Murphy and Joyce are scheduled to discuss the SAVE Act and the prospects for bipartisan cooperation at a Forum Club of the Palm Beaches luncheon on Friday at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach.

Read more here.

Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, during a Senate Finance Committee hearing today on the Internal Revenue Service’s admitted targeting of conservative groups when they applied for tax-exempt status, used his time to question why “social welfare” organizations are allowed to engage in any political activity at all.

It’s part of an effort by Democrats on the committee to shift focus from the hassling of tea party groups to the interpretation of the tax law that says 501(c)(4) groups must be operated “exclusively” for social welfare purposes.

IRS regulations say an organization meets the “exclusively” standard if it is “primarily engaged in promoting in some way the common good and general welfare of the community.”

Nelson decried the “enormous money” going through 501(c)(4) organizations and asked “How could you all in the IRS allow the tax breaks funded basically by the taxpayer (to be spent) on these political campaign expenditures?”

He added: “I understand the king’s English, and it says the promotion of social welfare does not include direct or indirect participation or intervention in political campaigns. Now, how you interpret that to say that that does allow some intervention in political campaigns is beyond me.”

FORT LAUDERDALE — After urging Broward County Republican activists to improve GOP messaging, Gov. Rick Scott was asked Monday night about his veto earlier in the day of $1 million for Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw‘s “violence prevention” program.

Legislators approved the money for a special unit aimed at heading off potential violence, including an anonymous tip line for callers to report on suspicious activity by their neighbors.

“We want people to call us if the guy down the street says he hates the government, hates the mayor and he’s gonna shoot him,” Bradshaw told The Palm Beach Post last month. “What does it hurt to have somebody knock on a door and ask, ‘Hey, is everything OK?’ ”

Supporters hailed the measure as a way of potentially preventing another Newtown or Aurora mass murder. Critics said it smacked of Big Brotherism.

Scott addressed neither issue Monday night, instead offering a fairly generic explanation for the veto, which was part of $368 million he nixed from the state’s $74.1 billion budget.

“Here’s what I did: I went through the budget making sure I did the three things that are important for families. I went through and said look, what are the programs, the legislative proposals that are going to help us build jobs, improve education and keep the cost of living low because we’ve created an efficient government. That’s how I went through all of them,” Scott told reporters.

Asked if there was anything about the sheriff’s program in particular that stood out, Scott said: “There’s a lot of great programs around the state. That was how I thought about it.”

FORT LAUDERDALE — Speaking to Republicans in one of Florida’s most heavily Democratic counties, Gov. Rick Scott tonight said the GOP should win every election if Republicans do a better job of telling their story to voters.

Scott, who was narrowly elected in 2010 and faces a tough re-election fight next year, exhorted the party faithful at the Broward County Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Day dinner.

“I have not met one Floridian that should be anything but a Republican,” said Scott.

The GOP is the party of job creators, Scott said, and he said it should also be the party of people who rely on government social programs.

“Let’s say that you need a safety net,” Scott said. “Let’s say you need unemployment insurance or you need something to take care of you while times are hard before you get back on your feet, whether that’s health care, whether that’s unemployment insurance, whatever it is. Who pays for it? People that have jobs. So if you need anything from the government, any government, you should absolutely be a Republican because it won’t be there if it wasn’t for people who had jobs and build businesses.”

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Responding to the unfolding revelations that the Internal Revenue Service singled out conservative groups for extra scrutiny, U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Okeechobee, says it’s time to “tear it down and start over.”

Rooney is co-sponsoring bills that take aim at the IRS and its key role in implementing Obamacare.

“With the power to tax comes the power to destroy, and when the agency with that power becomes corrupt, we have a responsibility to tear it down and start over,” a Rooney statement says. “The IRS has proved that it is both biased and corrupt, and I have completely lost faith in its ability to enforce the tax code honestly, fairly and effectively, and so have my constituents.”

Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Jupiter, quickly called for an investigation of the IRS while Reps. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, and Lois Frankel, D-West Palm Beach, used the IRS scandal to take aim at the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

Read about it in this week’s Politics column.

Fox News Channel has signed former U.S. Rep. Allen West as a contributor.

The conservative firebrand often appeared on Fox programs during his single term in the House and chose Fox as the venue when he conceded his narrow loss to Democrat Patrick Murphy in November.

“Representative West’s congressional and military experience along with his fearless approach to voicing key issues will provide a valuable point of view to the Fox News lineup,” said a statement from Bill Shine, the executive vice president of programming for Fox News.

In addition to his Fox duties, West will continue to be director of Next Generation TV programming for conservative PJ Media, where he hosts a subscription-only online TV show.