Longtime legislative staffer Kathy Mears, whose most recent government post was as Gov. Charlie Crist’s liaison with the legislature, has gone to work for her former boss Daniel Webster’s campaign for Congress.

Webster, a former House Speaker who also served as Senate Majority Leader before leaving office due to term limits two years ago, is running against U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, the outspoken Orlando Democrat who consistently gets into trouble for his controversial remarks.

“Don’t get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly,” was Grayson’s analysis of GOP opposition to Democrats’ health care reforms in Sept. 2009 and likened the current health care system to a holocaust. Grayson also suggested that former VP Dick Cheney was a vampire.

More recently, Grayson got into hot water for running a campaign attack ad calling Webster “Taliban Dan” in which he uses a video clip of Webster saying wives should submit to their husbands and accusing accusing the Christian conservative of wanting to “impose his radical fundamentalism on us.”

Webster was actually instructing husbands not to rely solely on the Bible’s instructions for wives to submit but to pray for husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church.

Former state Sen. Daniel Webster won’t run against U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson despite pressure from GOP leaders for the conservative Republican to enter the race.

Grayson, a freshman Democratic Congressman from Orlando, catapulted to infamy with his characterization of Republicans’ health care proposal as “Don’t get sick and if you do get sick, die quickly.”

Grayson then drew even more criticism after an “apology” on the floor likening the current health crisis to the Holocaust.

Webster, a Christian conservative who served nearly three decades in the Florida legislature and served as House Speaker, said in a statement that despite encouragement from supporters he was prompted to “follow a principle that has always served me well: ‘When in doubt, don’t.’”

“I do firmly believe that in every public office there needs to be a resurgence of the basic principles on which this Republic was founded, and a return to our original standards of integrity and character,” he said.

Video link from politico.com

Freshman U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Orlando, came under fire from Republicans this week after summarizing the Republican health care plan as “Don’t get sick” and, if you do, “Die quickly.”

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele called Grayson’s remarks “a calculated scare tactic and smear” and said Democrats serious about “civil debate on the floor of the House” should demand an apology.

Grayson took to the House floor Wednesday to offer an “apology” that drew more GOP outrage: “I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner to end this holocaust in America.”

Florida House Majority Leader Adam Hasner, R-Boca Raton, who is a devout Jew, responded: “Comparing the American health care system to the systematic murdering of over six million Jews is totally outrageous and unfit for someone holding public office. Congressman Grayson should apologize to the Jewish community and the families of those whose loved ones were brutally executed.” (more…)