MOUNT DORA – GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich came out swinging against his chief rival for the Republican nomination calling Mitt Romney “fundamentally dishonest.”

Gingrich, who has endured months of criticism about a $1.6 million consulting contract with mortgage giant Freddie Mac, said the former Massachusetts governor has far more explaining to day about his business ties than he ever did. The former House Speaker said he worked as an historian for the company.

He accused Romney, a multimillionaire businessman, of holding stock in both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and investing mortgage-backed securities with Goldman Sachs, which ultimately led to foreclosure proceedings against tens of thousands of Floridians.

“There is something so grotesquely hypocritical about the Romney campaign that it is going to meltdown in the next several weeks as Americans learn more about him,” Gingrich said.

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GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich doesn’t care about criticism – even from some of his party’s stalwarts.

He shrugged when told his party’s 2008 presidential candidate U.S. Sen. John McCain had blasted his leadership as House Speaker  and would be campaigning for rival Republican Mitt Romney throughout the state today.

“The entire establishment is in panic mode,” he said at a campaign stop late Wednesday.

The “establishment,” that not surprisingly includes the Arizona senator , U.S. Reps. Connie Mack and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and anyone else supporting Romney, is worried, he said.

“It’s disturbing people . . . that we would change Washington and they would have to live by new rules,” Gingrich said.

GOP Newt Gingrich doesn’t care about criticism – even from some of his party’s stalwarts.

He shrugged when told his party’s 2008 presidential candidate John McCain had blasted his leadership as House Speaker  and would be campaigning for rival Republican Mitt Romney throughout the state today.

“The entire establishment is in panic mode,” he said at a campaign stop late Wednesday.

The “establishment,” that not surprisingly seems to include the Arizona senator , U.S. Reps. Connie Mack and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and anyone else supporting Romney, is worried, he said.

“It’s disturbing people . . . that we would change Washington and they would have to live by new rules,” Gingrich said.

  Mitt Romney told a loud, enthusiastic crowd of Cuban-American supporters here Wednesday that if elected president he will oppose the Castro regime in Cuba “by overt ways and covert ways” and says he hopes he can help drive Fidel and Raul Castro from power.

He stopped short of calling for  military action against Cuba.

“I want to be president  at the time when we are able to say we brought freedom back to Cuba,” he said to loud applause at the historic Freedom Tower in downtown Miami. Romney was hosted there by the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC.

Romney was joined on stage by many Cuban-American political stalwarts –U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Miami), former Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart, and former U.S. senator Mel Martinez. U.S. Rep. Connie Mack, R-Naples, was also on hand.

Romney attacked President Barack Obama who he said had made concessions to the Castro regime by increasing remittances that can be sent to Cuba and allowing more Americans to travel there, which he said was only helping prop up the Castro regime.

He said “ showing an olive branch” to Cuba was the wrong approach.

“By helping Castro (Obama) is not helping the people of Cuba, he is hurting them,” Romney said.

He said if elected he would strictly enforce the economic embargo against Cuba.

  Speaking to a Spanish language televison audience, Mitt Romney Wednesday  defended statements he made during a debate in Tampa Monday, when he said some persons in the country illegally might choose “self deportation,” that is they might choose to leave the country voluntarily.

 He told Univision network’s Jorge Ramos, in an interview in Miami that was to be aired Wednesday night,  that “self deportation” would be the result of stronger enforcement, including greater use of the E-verify system that allows employers to use federal software to identify persons who use false Social Security cards. He also said he would work to expand programs that allow foreigners living outside the U.S. to apply for visas to work legally in the U.S. hopefully instigating “self deporation.”

Ramos also pressed Romney on an issue of importance of some children of immigrant families in Florida: that  a child born in the U.S., but whose parents are in the country illegally, must  pay higher out-of-state tuition rates at public colleges and universities. Earlier in the day Gingrich told Ramos he would change that policy, but Romney rejected that idea, as he continued to stake out a harder stance on illegal immigration than his main foe.

 Romney said he was interested in helping other immigrants, including some who had been abused by people smugglers –coyotes- as they tried to enter the U.S. and also those persons who are going through the legal channels to be admitted into the U.S. legally.

 Ramos joked with Romney about the fact that some people have called him a Mexican, because Romney’s father was born in Mexico. Romney explained that his father had been born in an English speaking Mormon enclave in Mexico, but never spoke Spanish. Romney himself was born in the U.S.

 But Romney joked that it was fine with him if some people in heavily-Hispanic areas of Florida thought he was Mexican.

“I would love to be able to convince people of that, particularly in a Florida primary,” he said.

Mitt Romney slammed Newt Gingrich here today for labeling him “anti-immigrant,” accusing the former house speaker of pandering to a Hispanic audience.

Earlier in the day the Gingrich camp said it was removing the air an ad that labeled Romney “anti-immigrant” after top Miami area Hispanics, including U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, condemned the ad.

“I am not anti-immigrant, I am pro immigrant,” Romney told Spanish-language network Univision newsman Jorge Ramos in an interview taped Wednesday afternoon. “It is very tempting to come to an audience like this and pander to an audience like this,” Romney said of Gingrich.

 He called Gingrich’s attack on him ”sad.”

CORAL SPRINGS  – GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich is getting used to large crowds greeting him at campaign stops. He has also become more adept at dealing with hecklers.

Ever the historian, he was quick to come up with a more than 100-year-old reference when a woman wouldn’t stop interrupting him so he could speak to the roughly 800 supporters who crammed into a parking lot outside Wings Plus on Sample Road to hear his stump speech.

“Abraham Lincoln said if you’re debating someone who will not agree that two plus two equals four you’ll never win,” he said. “I think you just met Abraham Lincoln’s debate nightmare.”

Then, just to make sure the woman got the message, he added: “Noise without knowledge is not a free society, it’s anarchy.”

The woman, who took more abuse from others at the rally than from Gingrich, was shouting accusations at him in connection with his $1.6 million contract with mortgage giant Freddie Mac. Rival Republican candidate Mitt Romney has accused Gingrich of lobbying for the firm that he says played a key role in the housing collapse. Gingrich insists he was paid as a historian and to offer advice.

MIAMI – With a full campaign schedule,  GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich hasn’t had time today to fully critique President Obama’s State of the Union address.

But during a Latin Policy Address at Florida International University and again at a packed event  in the parking lot of Wings Plus in Coral Springs, he called one of the proposals Obama floated Tuesday night “left-wing demagoguery” that could cripple the nation’s economy.

He blasted Obama’s plan to increase the capital gains tax from 15 to 30 percent  for those who make over $1 million a year.

“I’m not sure the president understood but if he actually meant what he said it would be a disaster of the first order,” Gingrich told the crowd of about 200 in an FIU school auditorium.

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MIAMI -  GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich came out swinging this morning when accused of being a hypocrite for blasting then President Bill Clinton for having an affair at the same time the former House Speaker was cheating on his own wife.

During a wide-ranging interview with Spanish-language television Univision, the twice-divorced Gingrich said he wasn’t criticizing Clinton’s sexual dalliance with White House intern Monica  Lewinsky. He said he was criticising Clinton’s response to it.

Clinton lied under oath, Gringrich said.

“I have never lied under oath. I have never committed perjury. I have never committed a felony,” he said. Clinton’s lapse was more serious because the former president is a lawyer and should have known better. Gingrich is a historian.

Further, he said, he has no regrets about lacing into CNN newscaster John King for beginning a debate last week in South Carolina by asking about his ex-wife’s claims that he asked her to embrace an “open marriage” when he was having an affair with his now wife, Callista.

With all the problems facing the country, the question about his personal life was simply inappropriate, he said. His ex-wife’s claims were false, he said.

As to his attack on the media in response to the question, he noted: The audience loved it.

NAPLES  – “He is a rock star,” an almost starry-eyed middle-aged Ans Nedoba said shortly after GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich squeezed through the crowd after his fourth and final campaign speech of the day.

And few who cheered wildly and jostled to get a picture of him would disagree.

A record-setting 6,000 people crammed into Cambier Park in historic Old Naples after sunset today to cheer and applaud the 68-year-old whose candidacy was once dismissed by party regulars. The stop capped a day in which 4,000 turned out in Sarasota and 500 greeted him at stops in both St. Petersburg and Fort Myers as his campaign bus traveled down the Republican-rich west coast.

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SARASOTA – Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is telling crowds it’s not enough to throw President Obama out of the White House.

“While he’s a start there’s a lot more about getting America on track than just Obama,” the former House Speaker said during campaign stops today.

He told crowds in St. Petersburg and Sarasota that for him to be successful when he becomes president in November, they have to throw out other Democratic lawmakers. Top on his list: Longtime Florida Sen. Bill Nelson.

“I need your help here to make sure Bill Nelson is replaced by a conservative,” he said.

SARASOTA – GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s crowds are getting bigger and his rhetoric is getting more pointed toward November.

A cheering crowd of roughly 3,000 showed up at a hangar at Sarasota-Brandenton International Airport this afternoon, by far the biggest and most enthusiastic since he hit the Sunshine State roughly 24 hours ago. Even the former House Speaker was impressed.

“When they told me how big the crowd was I was stunned,” he said.

As he did in an earlier campaign stop in St. Petersburg, he made few references to his top rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Until Gingrich’s campaign-changing win in South Carolina on Saturday, Romney was the odds-on favorite to win next week’s Florida primary. Instead, of criticizing Romney, Gingrich focused his considerable oratory skills and venom on President Obama.

The crowd ate it up.

When he talked about sending Obama back to Chicago in November, some in the crowd began chanting, “Kenya! Kenya!” a reference to Obama’s ancestral home, a place some Republicans still insist is the president’s place of birth.

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ST. PETERSBURG -  Wearing a Newt Gingrich mask and carrying a cardboard cut-out of Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Tampa man insisted he was supporting his lookalike although the lopsided wig on his daughter’s head and the sign she was carrying spoke of different intentions.

“I like to sit on the couch with Nancy Pelosi,” the man, who identified himself as Doc Riley said, pointing to his cardboard companion but clearly mimicking a line Mitt Romney used to blast Gingrich as an influence-peddler during Monday night’s debate. Further, the poster carried by his daughter, “Fannie and Freddie for Newt” is a sign that Romney’s continued harping on the $1.6 million Gingrich made as a consultant/historian to mortgage giant Freddie Mac is gaining some traction among voters.

The father-and-daughter dress up team (her blonde wig a try at impersonating Gingrich’s wife Callista) were among several protestors at this morning’s event at the Tick Tock Restaurant, that attracted scores of Gingrich supporters. There were sign-waving Occupy protestors. One man held a sign that simply said: “Vote Out Incumbents Let Someone New Steal Our Money.”

ST. PETERSBURG  – Looking at the hundreds who lined up inside and outside Tick Tock Restaurant this morning to catch a look at surging GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, a longtime political consultant was struck by one thought: These aren’t your typical card-carrying Republican stalwarts.

“I’ve been doing party events in Tampa Bay for years and these are not your party regulars,” said Michelle Todd, political director for former Gov. Charlie Crist when he made a failed 2010 bid for the U.S. Senate as an independent.

The retirees, parents and grandparents with toddlers in strollers, people who stole time off work and young people who waited in the hot sun aren’t the ones who traditionally can be counted on to turn up for GOP events, Todd said.

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An effort to move the date of Florida’s August primary is drawing mixed reviews among lawmakers and elections officials.

Citing concerns and questions, Senate Ethics & Elections Committee Chairman Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, postponed action by a subcommittee Monday on his bill (SB 1596) that would postpone the primary a week, from its scheduled Aug. 14, to Aug. 21.

Diaz de la Portilla said the proposed later date, which would also delay candidate qualifying a week until June 11-15, is aimed at giving those running in redistricted House, Senate and congressional districts more time to decide their political candidacies.

But the delay causes a host of other problems, according to some elections supervisors. Ron Labasky, lobbyist for the Florida Association of Supervisors of Election, said 22 of the 67 supervisors opposed the move — with some saying it could force them to rework contracts for polling places or cause personnel problems.

In Hillsborough County, elections officials have balked because the delay would push the primary election close to the Republican National Convention in Tampa. Security for the convention is expected to cause wide-ranging traffic problems in the city’s downtown area, Labasky told the committee.

Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher is among those opposing the primary delay, saying she’s having enough trouble educating voters on new laws, new districts and revised requirements without throwing in a date change.

 

TAMPA – With the pop hit “How Do You Like Me Now?” blaring over loudspeakers, GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich today made his first public appearance in Florida since his stunning victory in South Carolina over the weekend.

“Callista and I had a pretty good Saturday in South Carolina and we hope to have a pretty good Tuesday right here in Florida,” he said to cheers and applause outside The River, an evangelical megachurch on the outskirts of the city.

During a 15-minute speech, the former House Spearker hit on the same themes and used much of the same verbage that he used in South Carolina after stunning rival Mitt Romney by capturing 40 percent of the vote.

With his wife at his side, he reiterated that when he becomes the Republican nominee, he will challenge President Obama to seven three-hour debates. “I’ll concede in advance that I’ll let him use a Teleprompter,” he joked. “Because if you had to defend Obamacare, you would need a Teleprompter.”

However, unlike the victory speech, he was interupted by a heckler, who challenged him, yelling, “You’re not a Reagan Republican.”

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After a faith-based sermon at a Pompano Beach church, Rick Santorum went political in an afternoon Coral Springs rally, blasting Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney for being too liberal.

“Trust is a big issue in this election,” Santorum said. “How do you trust to do what they say they’ll do? Look at their record. You have someone in Massachussettes who didn’t necessarily govern all that conservatively. You had someone who when he was Speaker of the House, when Newt was Speaker of the House, within three years the conservatives in the House of Representatives tried to throw him out, and in the fourth year they did. Why? Because he wasn’t running as a conservative, and he didn’t live up to all his hype.”

With Santorum having less of an organization and less money than Romney and Gingrich, doubts linger whether Santorum can compete in Florida. But Santorum said he is the only candidate so far to win a truly neutral state.

“Just put it in this perspective: We’ve had three races,” Santorum said. “One was in Mitt Romney’s backyard state of New Hampshire. He has a home in New Hampshire and he has campaigned there for six years as governor of a neighboring state. Last night’s race in South Carolina was pretty much in Gingrich’s backyard where he staked his claim. There was one race (Iowa) in nobody’s backyard , one race where you had to go out a level playing field. We competed and we won that race. We’re going to go out and campaign all up and down the state of Florida.”

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Senate Democratic Leader Nan Rich said Friday that she will not propose alternative maps next week when the Republican-controlled chamber is expected to approve new boundaries for congressional and Senate districts.

Rich said outnumbered Democrats will take their chances that judges — who get to review the redistricting plans — will find the GOP-led effort unconstitutional.

“The court will have the last word,” Rich said.

Earlier this week, Rich said she planned to introduce a Senate Democratic plan modeled heavily on proposals already unveiled by the League of Women Voters, Democracia USA and Common Cause, which slightly reduce the minority voting populations in several districts now represented by black lawmakers.

Rich accused Republicans of “packing” Democrats into districts under the plans now before the Senate. She said the approach violates the voter-approved Amendments 5 and 6, measures, supported by most Democratic legislators and allied groups. The amendments bar district lines from being drawn that help a party or incumbents.

But Rich’s plan to unveil a map as a floor amendment was criticized by Republican senators, who said the move didn’t allow time for the revamped plan to be reviewed. More telling, though, may have been that Rich drew resistence from a few fellow Democrats — with Sen. Larcenia Bullard, D-Miami, critical of any effort that would reduce minority voting strength.

In explaining her decision to drop plans to propose maps, Rich said Friday that in debate before the Senate Reapportionment Committee earlier this week, ”there was so much vitriol, I didn’t want to see that happen on the Senate floor.”  

 

Higher tuition could be ahead for university students taking classes in the more costly — but coveted — science, technology, engineering and mathematics degree programs promoted by Gov. Rick Scott, House and higher education leaders agreed Friday.

The House Education Committee heard testimony from University of Florida President Bernie Machen and Florida State University President Eric Barron, the kick-off of a sweeping look at what the state’s university system needs to be positioned for preparing students for jobs in an evolving and still sluggish economy.

But for as innovative and results-oriented as the review is intended to be, at least one central theme was fairly predictable. Universities want to be able to charge higher tuition.

“I would charge the STEM students more, and give them something better,” Barron told the panel.

Education Committee Chairman Bill Proctor, R-St. Augustine, who is chancellor of the private Flagler College, said the approach made sense.

“If you’re going to produce more, you can only go so far on current resources,” Proctor said.

Scott, who helped spark the focus on STEM degrees with a blast last summer at universities, accusing them of producing graduates ill-prepared for the job market, is opposed to another round of tuition increases.

Scott also attempted to broaden the discussion by posting online the salaries of 52,000 employees of the state’s public universities — which have annually raised tuition by 15 percent since 2007.

Among the revelations: University lobbyists, poised to ask lawmakers for another round of 15 percent tuition hikes  this year, are among the system’s highest paid. A Post review of salary records found most lobbyists for the schools earn six-figure salaries, with many earning about $200,000-a-year.

Machen and Barron each earned more than $400,000 last year, records show.

Still, the overhead costs at Florida universities didn’t come up Friday. Proctor also acknowledged he was unsure where tuition talk would lead. Still,  it’s likely to continue through next week’s two days of committee hearings, when leaders of the state’s nine other public universities are scheduled to testify.

But Proctor said that he was satisfied that universities had done much to hold down administrative costs in recent years — even as they were seeking more in tuition. Barron also said that FSU had tightened its overhead significantly, while also reducing programs.

“Against the Tier 1 universities, my faculty salaries are about 17 percent below my peer group,” Barron said. “And this is the range where people will steal your faculty, because they realize that what they pay as an average is about what it takes to steal somebody else.”

 The Florida Legislature has cut public funding for the 11 public universities by 17 percent between 2007 and 2010.

The Legislature in 2007 also gave universities authority to raise tuition by 15 percent until they reach the national average. Florida’s $5,626 average remains one of the lowest – 45th – in the country this year.

State University System Chancellor Frank Brogan said he generally supported the idea of charging more for more costly STEM-degree programs. But he also acknowledged that students completing their degrees next year will have seen tuition rise 60 percent over their four years.

But Brogan said that over the past five years, every university in the state has cut its general revenue budget by 25 percent.

“By definition, you are a quarter leaner than you were five years ago,” Brogan said.

House Speaker Dean Cannon ordered the higher ed review as part of  his opening statements to the Legislature this week. Cannon, R-Winter Park, also said he didn’t know if recommendations floated to the Education Committee would result in legislation this year.

Florida lawmakers don’t look like they’re going to get much help from state economists in closing a looming $2 billion budget shortfall.

The state’s Revenue Estimating Conference huddling Thursday look likely to agree that tax receipts will land somewhere between $151.6 million below expected levels or finish $44.8 million more than what they forecast in the fall.

Analysts that make up the conference are holding a daylong meeting to reach agreement on revenue figures that will be used when lawmakers craft the state’s 2012-13 budget. The general theme of discussions is that Florida’s economy is brightening, but very slowly.

While there’s some dispute among the economists about whether the state’s red ink will get redder — or if it will take on a blacker hue — they do agree that tax receipts in the current budget year are coming in at a more robust level than they earlier anticipated.

A roughly $40 million boost to the 2011-12 forecast looks like it may be declared, according to preliminary figures. And that cash will also help reduce the size of next year’s hole.

If there’s any drama at the low-key economists’ skull session, it’s that those representing Gov. Rick Scott’s office and the state’s Revenue Department have presented forecast numbers that are more optimistic than those coming from the Legislature.

It’s the Economic and Demographic Research Office, an arm of the House and Senate, that is forecasting that tax receipts next year are off $151.6 million from the level they set in October.

The final forecast also will play into another legislative set piece. House Speaker Dean Cannon and Senate President Mike Haridopolos have been wrangling over when to tackle the state budget.

Cannon said lawmakers should feel confident in whatever revenue estimates are being floated to forge ahead with developing next year’s budget in the two-month session now underway. Haridopolos has been sketchier on that point — saying maybe legislators should wait until later in the spring to craft a budget for the year beginning July 1.

But the modest revenue changes that look likely to emerge Thursday may not settle that leadership tug-of-war.

Gov. Rick Scott opened the 2012 Legislature on Tuesday, saying he “cannot budge” from the $1 billion increase in school spending he has called for, insisting that lawmakers also continue to shrink the size and scope of state government.

In his second State of the State speech as governor, Scott said that fortifying the state’s fragile economy remains his chief priority.

But the multi-millionaire executive recalled his roots as a small business owner — and doughnut shop operator — in urging lawmakers to reduce red tape, taxes and other hurdles that he said continue to plague the economy.

“Taxes and regulations — they are the great destroyers of capital and time for small businesses,” Scott said in his 34-minute speech.  “Almost every dollar I earned as a shop owner went toward growing our little doughnut shops.  So, every dollar taken in taxes slowed that growth.

“Almost every minute I had in the day also went toward growing our small business.  So, every minute spent addressing some new regulation also slowed that growth,” he concluded.

The $1 billion boost in school dollars is a reversal from Scott’s first year as governor, when he signed into law a $1.3 billion cut in public school funding. Scott said he has since embraced education as a central part of economic recovery — and is demanding that lawmakers find a way to steer more cash toward schools.

While Scott addressed a joint session of the Legislature, gathered in the House chambers, a dozen Occupy Tallahassee protesters gathered in the nearby Rotunda. Shouting and carrying signs, they decried state policies which they say unfairly help corporations over lower income Floridians.

Scott’s budget proposal unveiled in December would slash Medicaid payments to hospitals by 40 percent — freeing up millions of dollars he then directs to education. But that approach has been fiercely opposed by urban hospitals that serve many of the state’s poor, elderly and disabled, and appears to have little chance of winning approval from lawmakers.

Scott, who saw many of his first-year initiatives scaled-back or ignored outright by lawmakers, said he was willing to work with the Legislature in finding a middle ground this year.

“No person, profession or party has a monopoly on all the good ideas,” Scott said. “The commitment I make to those here today is to keep open, clear lines of communication so that together our time in the Capitol can best be spent in the service of those who sent us here.  That is my pledge to you.”

A Quinnipiac University poll released Monday showed 79 percent of Floridians felt the economy is the same or worse than when Scott took office last January. But the governor Tuesday touted the state’s declining unemployment rate — 10 percent last month, down 2 percentage points since he was sworn in.

“This year and today we see the rebirth of an even greater Florida,” Scott said.

He also said the gain was proof that the private sector worked.

“In the past year, Floridians, not government, created almost 135,000 new private sector jobs…When I said, ‘let’s get to work,’ it wasn’t just a slogan. Floridians got to work and each Floridian deserves the credit,” he said.

Scott concluded, “The state of our state will continue to improve.”

 Here is Scott’s full speech: http://bit.ly/yq3AQB