The Capitol will soon be the stumping ground for GOP White House hopefuls, according to Senate President Mike Haridopolos, who called the Sunshine State “the most important state in the presidential election.”

Haridopolos, who’s seeking the national spotlight himself as a U.S. senate candidate, said the unidentified candidates have “reached out to me” and “I’ve reached out to them” and will announce soon who’s coming to Tallahassee.

“I think it will be beneficial for Florida to find out some of the ideas because we face a multitude of problems in the state and if a person is seeking the presidency I think they should come to Florida and let us know what they think,” Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, told reporters at his weekly Q-and-A this morning.

UPDATE: Gov. Rick Scott and the Senate prez disagree on whether Florida should move back the presidential primary from January to March.

“My belief is I don’t want to lose any of the delegates, so I want to have it as early as we can. But I don’t want to lose any of the delegates,” Scott told reporters. That sort of sounds like he doesn’t want to anger national GOP leaders who will punish the state by slashing its number of delegates if the primaries aren’t later.

Senate President Mike Haridopolos says he’s “comfortable with where we’re at right now” regarding Florida’s early primaries that caused partisan turmoil three years ago.

“I didn’t see it as chaos. I thought it was great. I thought that Florida was a player,” said the Merritt Island Republican who’s seeking a spot on the national stage in the U.S. Senate. “Florida influenced in a huge way not just who won the presidency but who the nominee was. I think that was a good thing.”

Sen. Arthenia Joyner, a Democrat from Tampa, filed a bill this week that would push back Florida’s presidential primary until March after Florida Democratic Party Chairman Rod Smith asked his GOP counterpart Dave Bitner to support the move.

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