Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson disagrees with President Obama‘s decision to require religious schools, hospitals and other non-church institutions to provide employee health plans that cover contraceptive services.

Says Nelson spokesman Dan McLaughlin: “The federal government already is making an exception for churches. And Sen. Nelson thinks there should be an exception for church-affiliated organizations. It’s a matter of religious freedom.”

The policy has created a firestorm of opposition from the Catholic church and Republicans, with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio emerging as a leading critic. Some Democrats have also expressed unease. Rubio and Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin are cosponsoring a bill to repeal the rule.

Nelson, who is up for reelection this year, wants a compromise solution, McLaughlin said.

“(H)e wants to make sure women’s health is protected,” McLaughlin said. “He feels there has to be way to do both of these things. One state, for instance, allows religious employers to enroll workers in a plan with a reduced premium, and then employees who want contraception can pay for the extra coverage.”

Gov. Rick Scott will speak at this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, joining a lineup that includes encore performances by Sen. Marco Rubio and U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation.

CPAC is the conservative movement’s premiere annual showcase. Rubio’s status as a rising star of the right was confirmed when he was booked for a featured 2010 speaking gig while former Gov. Charlie Crist was still the establishment favorite for Florida’s GOP Senate nomination. Tea party megastar West keynoted last year’s conference.

Mitt Romney‘s 2012 presidential bid arguably began four years ago at CPAC when he chose the venue to announce he was dropping out of the 2008 Republican nomination hunt. Romney, who has had his troubles firing up the GOP conservative base this year, was considered the conservative alternative to John McCain in 2008.

Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are all scheduled to speak at this year’s CPAC, which begins Thursday and ends Saturday.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio is back in the (state) Capitol in a new office more than a dozen floors above his old digs in the Speaker’s office this morning, hours before state lawmakers kick off the 2012 legislative session.

Rubio, a Miami native and former House Speaker who was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010, said he set up shop in the Capitol to stay close to what’s going on in the state.

“There’s no doubt about it. We don’t want to lose touch with the state. From my experience as the speaker and as a legislator, there are a lot of issues that the state is facing that…overlap with federal issues” including the Everglades and the space program, Rubio said. “I think being here is going to allow us to have a person on the ground especially during the legislative session but throughout the year that’s literally just a few doors away from key decision makers at the state level.”

Rubio shook hands with lobbyists, well-wishers and Capitol staffers but also got an earful from a group of tea partiers unhappy with his votes supporting the Patriot Act and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that some critics believe gives the federal government the ability to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens accused of terrorism.

Rubio – whose tea party support helped clinched his U.S. Senate victory – argued that the law does not do that.

“I would never have voted for a bill that allows them to detain innocent American citizens in military tribunals. It’s just not true. We looked at that issue back and forth, left and right, up and down. It’s just not true. I would never support it if it did,” Rubio insisted.

But Paul Henry, a Monticello tea party activist and former state trooper, disagreed.

“What Sen. Rubio’s not aware of is this exact language that’s in there,” Henry said later.

One section of the law reads: “The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.”

“But that does not prohibit them (from doing it),” Henry said. “I’m not required to drive a car. I could walk.”

Rubio’s votes disappointed some members of the dozens of tea party groups gathering in the Capitol for the session’s opening day, but they insisted they’re not giving up.

“We helped get the Republicans in the House and they still voted for the debt ceiling. We helped get so-called conservatives get elected and they vote for the Patriot Act. I think you are seeing a lot of widespread discouragement of all the energy spent to get to this point and we still have to go back and tell them what being a conservative means,” said Henry Kelley, a Tea Party Network leader from Fort Walton Beach.

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who once ruled the state House as speaker, will return to the Capitol on Tuesday for the session’s opening day — and the formal opening of his office in the 22-building.

Florida’s senators typically have a Tallahassee office. Democrat Bill Nelson, for example, has had space in the city’s federal courthouse building since he took office in 2001.

Rubio, however, will be in the Capitol itself — on the 21st floor in space subleased by the Republican-ruled House to the former speaker from West Miami. The senator’s office will be paying $1,325 monthly for the 886 square feet he’ll command, according to lease documents.

 

U.S. Rep. Connie Mack, R-Cape Coral, has become the instant frontrunner in the GOP Senate primary and runs virtually even with Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, a new Quinnipiac University poll says.

“The entrance of Congressman Connie Mack into the Senate race changes what had been shaping up as an easy reelection for Sen. Bill Nelson into a tough fight that the incumbent could lose,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “The fact that Mack is essentially tied with Nelson, who has been a statewide political figure for two decades, should set off warning bells at Democratic headquarters.”

Mack, whose office announced he would enter the race Oct. 26, gets 32 percent of GOP primary support in a poll taken Oct. 31 to Nov. 7. Placing a distant second is former appointed Sen. George LeMieux at 9 percent, followed by businessman Mike McCalister at 6 percent and 2 percent apiece for former state House Majority Leader Adam Hasner and former restaurant CEO Craig Miller.

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Whoever wins the 2012 Republican presidential nomination can carry Florida if he adds Sen. Marco Rubio as his running mate, according to a new poll by Suffolk University in Massachusetts.

The poll of 800 Florida voters has a 3.5 percent margin for error and was conducted Oct. 26-30 — after news stories detailed that Rubio’s Cuban-born parents came to the U.S. before Fidel Castro‘s 1959 takeover rather than afterward, as Rubio’s official Senate biography stated.

In a Rubio-free scenario, the poll found Mitt Romney as the strongest GOP nominee against President Obama in Florida. Obama and Romney tied at 42 percent in a hypothetical matchup. Obama beat Herman Cain by a 42-to-39 percent margin and Rick Perry by a 46-to-34 percent margin.

When respondents were asked to choose between an Obama-Joe Biden ticket and a nameless Republican nominee with Rubio as running mate, the GOP tandem won by a 46-to-41 percent margin.

But an Obama-Hillary Clinton ticket would beat a nameless Republican-Rubio ticket by a 46-to-43 percent margin in Florida, the poll says. And Obama and Clinton would win 50-to-41 against a hypothetical GOP ticket without Rubio.

Says Suffolk’s David Paleologos: “In Florida, Marco Rubio is Superman, but Hillary Clinton is the Kryptonite.”

The poll found the GOP presidential primary race virtually tied, with Romney leading Cain by a 25-to-24 percent margin

With a Washington Post article accusing him of embellishing the story of his family’s departure from Cuba, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio defends himself today with an article in Politico.

The Washington Post article notes that Rubio’s parents first came to Miami in 1956 — before the 1959 revolution that installed Fidel Castro. Rubio says his parents wished to return to their homeland, but concluded they could not do so after visiting the communist island in 1961. Rubio was born in Miami in 1971.

“If The Washington Post wants to criticize me for getting a few dates wrong, I accept that. But to call into question the central and defining event of my parents’ young lives – the fact that a brutal communist dictator took control of their homeland and they were never able to return – is something I will not tolerate,” Rubio writes.

Rubio concludes the article with words similar to the ones he used in his November victory speech.

“I am the son of exiles,” he writes. “I inherited two generations of unfulfilled dreams. This is a story that needs no embellishing.”

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THE VILLAGES — Mitt Romney took another shot at Republican presidential rival Rick Perry‘s position on Social Security today but directed most of his salvos at President Obama during an appearance here this afternoon.

He also weighed in on New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie‘s decision not to enter the race and on Sen. Marco Rubio‘s prospects as a vice presidential candidate.

Romney spoke to a crowd of about 250 people in this heavily Republican Central Florida retiree community. About 40 Democrats in blue T-shirts — a large turnout for this area — stood outside holding signs critical of Romney.

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The New Yorker‘s Ryan Lizza was asked by conservative blogger/radio host Hugh Hewitt why so many people are pushing New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to run for president, but not Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.

Said Lizza: “Because Marco Rubio is going to be the vice presidential nominee no matter what. And in fact, I think you should start this on your show. We should rename the Republican primary process the contest to be Marco Rubio’s running mate.”

The exchange occurs at the end of an interview about faith, politics and journalism.

Palm Beach County Republican Party Executive Director Greg Langowski has been hired by Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio‘s office to be a regional director for five counties.

The office will handle constituent service and other issues for Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River and Okeechobee counties and will probably be headquartered in Palm Beach County.

Langowski, 33, who grew up in Palm Beach County and graduated from Palm Beach Atlantic University, has been the county GOP’s top staffer for roughly six years, helping organize the annual Lincoln Day dinner and other fundraisers and events.

County GOP Chairman Sid Dinerstein says he’s putting together a short list of candidates to replace Langowski, who starts his new job next month.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who was 9 years old when Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980, reflected on growing up in “Ronald Reagan’s America” and offered a Reaganesque take on free enterprise and the role of government and in a Tuesday speech at the Reagan Library in California that further boosted Rubio’s soaring national profile.

Rubio, who regularly deflects suggestion he’d make an ideal 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee, echoed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in saying the GOP should ease up on bashing President Obama.

“I know that it is popular in my party to blame the President, the current President. But the truth is the only thing this President has done is accelerate policies that were already in place and were doomed to fail. All he is doing through his policies is making the day of reckoning come faster, but it was coming nonetheless,” Rubio said.

Read the full text of Rubio’s speech after the jump….

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A new poll for the business lobby Associated Industries of Florida shows President Obama deadlocked with former Republican Mitt Romney but holding a 5 percentage point lead in the Sunshine State over newly minted contender, Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

The survey, by McLaughlin & Associates, was conducted Aug. 8-9, with 600 likely general election voters questioned in Florida. It has a margin-of-error of plus-or-minus 4 percent.

Ryan Tyson, AIF’s vice-president of political operations, pointed out that the poll showed 44 percent of Floridians are willing to re-elect Obama. But, Tyson said, that level of support represents “a bad sign for the president.”

The poll included a narrower survey of  223 likely Republican primary voters about their preference for a nominee. Romney topped Perry by 27 percent to 16 percent, with Minnesota U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachman third, with 10 percent support.

Twenty-two percent of Republican primary voters were unsure of a favorite, the poll showed. Jon Huntsman, the former Utah governor who is running his national campaign out of his wife’s ex-hometown, Orlando, doesn’t appear to be getting any in-state bump – drawing support from a mere 3 percent of Floridians surveyed.

Home cooking can help, though. Thirty-three percent of those responding said they were more likely to support a Republican for president, if Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio was on the ticket as a vice-presidential candidate.

Conservative Club For Growth Prez Chris Chocola is underwhelmed by the four announced GOP Senate candidates in Florida.

“There’s nobody there right now that we think is at the Rubio level,” Chocola says in an interview with The National Journal’s Hotline On Call. Former House Majority Leader Adam Hasner has been the most aggressive candidate in likening himself to conservative freshman Sen. Marco Rubio; other candidates are former appointed Sen. George LeMieux and businessmen Mike McCalister and Craig Miller.

Chocola says he’s interested in talking to U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, who hasn’t slammed the door on the possibility he’ll run in 2012 for the seat held by Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is backing George LeMieux in a heated GOP primary for U.S. Senate.

Barbour, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee who briefly considered running in the 2012 presidential race, called LeMieux a “solid conservative” in a statement released this morning by LeMieux’s campaign.

“I am honored to earn the support of a principled conservative like Haley Barbour. When Governor Barbour was RNC Chairman, he helped orchestrate the Republican Revolution in 1994 that built the type of conservative majorities we need to turn our country around,” LeMieux said in the release. “More importantly, from his leadership during hurricane Katrina to his work passing key pro-life legislation, Governor Barbour is a case study in effective conservative governance.”

LeMieux is struggling to shake off his ties to Gov. Charlie Crist, who appointed LeMieux to replace former U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez when he resigned mid-term. LeMieux, a one-time close ally to Crist whom the former governor called “The Maestro,” did not seek reelection to the seat, which now-U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio won after Crist quit the GOP and ran against him as an independent.

LeMieux will face off in the primary against Delray Beach’s Adam Hasner, a former state House member who also served as the chamber’s majority leader.

Wealthy Delray Beacher Nick Loeb is toying with entrée into the race but is waiting until gal pal Sofia Vergara, star of Modern Family, gets past the Emmy Awards next month. Chris Ruddy, another Palm Beacher and CEO of the influential West Palm Beach-based conservative publication NewsMax, has ruled out getting into the candidate fray.

A Quinnipiac University poll last week showed that 53 percent of Republican voters remain undecided in the Senate primary but found Plant City tree farmer and retired Army Reserve Col. Mike McCalister leading the current four-candidate field with a meager 15 percent.

Behind McCalister in the poll were both LeMieux, with 12 percent, and Hasner, with 6 percent. Former Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse CEO Craig Miller weighed in with 8 percent support.

The Talking Heads’ 1983 “Burning Down The House” video (above) features an appearance by the late actor and comedian Rockets Redglare. Sen. Marco Rubio’s “Save The Whole House Or It Will All Burn Down” video features an appearance by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass, around the 7:40 mark.

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio‘s Saturday speech on the national debt is a YouTube sensation, drawing more than 310,000 hits as of this afternoon and possibly boosting his standing among independent voters.

(By comparison, it appears the most YouTube hits for Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson were generated by this 106,000-view gem from 2009 in which he and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., sing Elton John‘s Rocket Man.)

Rubio backers suggest his debt speech contributed to a sudden improvement in Rubio’s approval/disapproval rating among independents — from 40/35 in a Quinnipiac poll taken July 27 through Sunday to 54/29 in a poll taken Monday and Tuesday.

Some major Republican money-raisers are joining GOP Senate hopeful Adam Hasner‘s South Florida leadership team.

They include auto magnate and former Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman, who led the recent successful effort to recall Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez. Also coming aboard is national GOP money-raiser and former Marco Rubio finance chairman Al Hoffman of North Palm Beach. Boca Raton developer and Republican Jewish Coalition big wheel Ned Siegel is part of Team Hasner, as is businessman/arts patron/thoroughbred horse breeder Earle Mack.

Hoffman was U.S. ambassador to Portugal, Siegel was ambassador to the Bahamas and Mack was ambassador to Finland under former President George W. Bush.

“I can say without question that Adam Hasner is far and away the best candidate we can send to Washington to stand shoulder to shoulder with Marco Rubio,” said Hoffman, who in addition to raising money for Rubio was a key financier for the presidential campaigns of Bush and John McCain.

With the Senate expected to pass a bipartisan debt ceiling compromise soon and send it to President Obama, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson made their closing arguments.

“I cannot support this plan because it fails to actually solve our debt problem, fails to diminish the risk of a credit rating downgrade and is not a long-term solution to avert a debt crisis. This plan still adds at least $7 trillion to our debt over 10 years,” Rubio said in a statement just released by his office.

Said Nelson in wrapping up a floor speech this morning: “All of us agree that government spending must be cut, that the public debt must be reduced – otherwise, our economy will not recover and America will no longer be in good standing around the world.

“So, let us all come and reason together, as the Good Book says.

“Let us pass this plan – so we can turn our attention back to creating jobs.”

Read their complete statements after the jump….

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Americans For Tax Reform founder Grover Norquist, whose no-tax-hike pledge was signed by Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and most other GOP members of Congress, says the debt ceiling deal approved by the House Monday and headed for Senate approval today is “a victory for Reagan Republicans.”

Find out where Rubio and Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, as well as Palm Beach County legislators, stand on the debt compromise by clicking here.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson announced via Twitter late this morning that he’ll support the debt-ceiling compromise, tweeting: “This is going to cut almost $3 trillion from the deficit. It’s not a perfect plan, but it’s something we need to have right now.”

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio will vote against the deal, his spokesman just said.

The two leading Republicans vying to take on Nelson in 2012 were critical of the bipartisan compromise.

Former appointed Sen. George LeMieux: “This deal is no time for celebration; it offers no significant debt reduction for our children and grandchildren and no fundamental reforms that will solve Washington’s spending addiction.”

Former state House Majority Leader Adam Hasner of Boca Raton: “The only thing Washington is better at than out of control spending is declaring false victory.”

Sen. Marco Rubio on the Senate floor Saturday. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., makes an appearance around the 7:40 mark.

Both of Florida’s U.S. Senators were talking about extremism Saturday as the debt-ceiling drama played out.

Said Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson on MSNBC: “This is the extreme right wing, which had very successful numbers be elected to Congress last year, and that’s been the problem you’ve seen play out over the last four days. Poor old John Boehner, the speaker of the House, he couldn’t round up enough Republican votes to pass his own measure. And so it’s this kind of ideological politics that the people of this country are getting fed up with. But, you know, elections have consequences. And that’s what we’re seeing now. And I think you’ll see the pendulum’s coming back to the center and you’ll see an opposite reaction next election.”

Said Republican Sen. Marco Rubio on the Senate floor a few hours later: “I have heard all these attacks and name-calling. If we had $1 billion for every time I heard the words ‘tea party extremist,’ we could solve this debt problem…Let me read some quotes about this debt limit and I found some pretty extremist quotes.

“Here’s one.

“It says, ‘The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I, therefore, intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt.’ A quote from a tea party extremist, right? No. This is a quote from March 16 of 2006 from Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.”