After former Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin told Fox News that U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, should be considered as a 2012 GOP running mate, West told CNN this morning that he’s “always willing and ready to serve my country” and Democrat Patrick Murphy sent off a fundraising appeal.

“Like Palin, West blankets the news with outrageous right wing propaganda and will serve to increase the conservatism on the Republican side of the ballot,” Murphy said in an e-mail to potential donors.

Murphy last month followed West from Palm Beach-Broward congressional District 22 to a new Treasure Coast-Palm Beach District 18. The Palin e-mail is an example of how Murphy, who has never run for office before, hopes to use West’s national tea party following to motivate a national base of Democratic donors who want to defeat him.

Walt Disney World will be the crossroads of 2008 vice presidential candidates when Sarah Palin keynotes the Republican Party of Florida’s main fundraising dinner on Nov. 3, less than a week after Vice President Joe Biden headlines the Florida Democratic Party’s annual money meal.

Palin will speak at a $150-and-up dinner at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort, the GOP announced this afternoon.

Biden is keynoting the Oct. 28 Democratic dinner at Disney’s Contemporary Resort.

THE VILLAGES — “Unlike some of the other flavors of the week, I am Haagen-Dazs black walnut with substance,” Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain declared Wednesday while launching his book tour here.

Cain has been using variations on the “black walnut” line since Sarah Palin called him “the flavor of the week” after his Florida straw poll victory.

A few hours after Cain invoked the ice cream metaphor, Palin announced she won’t be a presidential candidate in 2012.

Before Palin’s announcement, Cain said he wasn’t concerned about the possibility she’d run.

“If Sarah Palin gets in, we’ve got one more person in the race. That’s all it is. I’m not so much worried about that, and here’s why: If you have tracked, we have tracked our support. The thing about Cain supporters is we build and we build and we build. They don’t defect. My supporters are not going to go and run to the flavor of the week.”

Gov. Rick Scott and Republican Senate hopeful Adam Hasner are among the “host of conservative rock stars” on the agenda for this weekend’s third annual RedState Gathering in South Carolina.

Texas Gov. and all-but-declared 2012 GOP presidential hopeful Rick Perry is part of the weekend lineup, as are Palmetto State conservative stars Sen. Jim DeMint and Gov. Nikki Haley. RedState’s Erick Erickson, an early Hasner backer, is the one conferring rock-star status on the event’s speakers.

The event includes a Saturday night screening of the new Sarah Palin pic The Undefeated with an appearance by filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon.

Palm Beach County Republican Chairman Sid Dinerstein says presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, who headlined the local GOP’s annual Lincoln Day dinner in February, has “viability issues” after slamming the Paul Ryan Medicare plan as “radical” and “right-wing social engineering” and then backtracking on the criticisms.

And Dinerstein says Gingrich or Sarah Palin as the party’s 2012 nominee would distract efforts to defeat President Obama.

“If Newt Gingrich or Sarah Palin, who I like, were our nominees, then instead of the election being a referendum on the president, which is what we need it to be, it would be a referendum on them, which is what we don’t need it to be. And Republicans have to be sophisticated enough to make this election a referendum on the president,” Dinerstein said Thursday night before a Boca Raton Republican Club dinner.

Palin has been looking a lot like a candidate lately.

“I’m hoping that she doesn’t get in the race. I am a fan. She falls under the ‘Life’s not fair’ category that I have. But, yes, I don’t want her in the race,” Dinerstein said.

Dinerstein is neutral in the presidential primary, but he’s never been shy about prognosticating. Back in April 2007, Dinerstein said that eventual 2008 GOP nominee John McCain was “yesterday’s candidate” and Mitt Romney lacked “traction” while enthusing over Rudy Giuliani‘s prospects in Florida.

PALM BEACH — Former New York Mayor and 2008 Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani left the door open for a 2012 run tonight, saying he’d think about launching another White House bid if it looks the GOP might otherwise pick a nominee who is “too right-wing.”

Giuliani backed away from his previous suggestion that he’d be more likely to run if Sarah Palin got in the race. He said another potential 2012 GOP candidate, Mitt Romney, should declare the health care plan he championed as governor of Massachusetts was a mistake.

Giuliani spoke for about 90 minutes to a Palm Beach Republican Club crowd of about 200 at The Colony hotel.

During a Q-and-A session, he was asked about his January comments on CNN that he’d be tempted to run if Palin were a candidate. Giuliani called that remark “rash.” But he said his fears of the GOP choosing a nominee who can’t win a general election might prompt him to run.

“If all we are faced with are candidates that are too far right so that they can’t win the general election, then that’s when I’d reconsider doing it,” Giuliani said.

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Manuel Pintado, the 47-year-old University of Massachusetts sociology student and self-described “political activist” accused of threatening state Rep. William Snyder of Stuart, was released from custody by a Massachusetts judge Monday and ordered to present himself in court in Martin County by Friday morning to face charges.

Martin County Sheriff Robert Crowder, who sent detectives to Massachusetts to escort Pintado to Florida, said he’s “baffled” by the judge’s decision and has “grave concerns” that Pintado won’t show up. (Read Crowder’s entire statement after the jump.)

A lengthy article on Pintado in the University of Massachusetts Daily Collegian says friends and relatives describe Pintado as “an amiable pacifist with a passion for immigrants’ rights and state support of public higher education, though they said he suffers from anxiety and could sometimes become swept up in his own dedication and act excitedly.”

The article quotes Pintado’s son-in-law as saying Pintado did something dumb, “right up there with all the teenagers who call in fake bomb threats to their junior high schools and people like Sharron Angle who call for citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights, or Sarah Palin or people who show up to political rallies with nooses and shotguns, but he is not a killer, not even close.”

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Republican U.S. Rep.-elect Allen West, appearing on NBC’s Meet The Press Sunday, said the Transportation Security Administration could have done a better job of “marketing” the controversial new pat-downs of air travelers.

West was part of a roundtable talk that began about halfway into the program. Click here for a transcript.

In an example of the “heartfelt change of views” Charlie Crist described in Tuesday night’s Senate debate, the Republican-turned-independent governor who once promoted Sarah Palin’s vice presidential candidacy is up with a new ad saying he’s the only Senate candidate who can prevent Florida from “extremism….the road Sarah Palin, the tea party and Marco Rubio want to take us down.”

The ad illustrates another big change for Crist. Once the slam-dunk Republican favorite for the Senate seat, the no-party Crist is now compelled to close his ad by reminding voters: “Don’t forget to find me on line 9 on your ballot,” where he’s listed between Rick Tyler and Lewis Jerome Armstrong.

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