Check out our Jane Musgrave’s account of how Wednesday’s planned Forum Club of the Palm Beaches Senate candidate debate between independent Gov. Charlie Crist and Democrat Kendrick Meek came unglued late this afternoon.

The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving Picture Technicians and Allied Crafts had announced plans to picket the event because of a long-running dispute with the Kravis Center. But the union, which has endorsed Meek, apparently didn’t want to deny its favored candidate a key opportunity to face off against Crist, the former Republican who now threatens to take away significant Democratic support from the Democratic nominee.

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Gov. Charlie Crist says he won’t attend a Forum Club of the Palm Beaches debate with Democratic Senate rival Kendrick Meek Wednesday because the stagehands’ union plans to picket the event over a long-running labor dispute with the Kravis Center, where the event is scheduled.

Meek was planning to walk with the picketers outside the Kravis Center, then attend the debate.

Here’s the statement Crist sent to our Jane Musgrave moments ago:

“I deeply regret being unable to attend tomorrow’s Forum Club meeting – a meeting I have attended on numerous occasions in the past, and truly enjoy. An extensive labor dispute has been brought to my attention, and given these difficult economic times, I call on Congressman Meek to join me in standing up for Florida’s working families by not crossing the picket line. The Forum Club is an esteemed organization, and I look forward to addressing them in the near future.”

Democratic Senate nominee Kendrick Meek and independent Gov. and Senate candidate Charlie Crist will appear at the Sept. 15 Forum Club of the Palm Beaches lunch in West Palm Beach. Republican nominee Marco Rubio was also invited, but couldn’t make it because of a scheduling conflict, Forum Club director Gayle Pallesen said.

The Crist-Meek pairing, while not the original intent of organizers, highlights what many Dems have come to view as a second Democratic primary in the Senate race. With former Republican Crist aggressively courting Democratic votes, Meek released a primary-style radio ad today highlighting Crist’s past professions of conservatism from his Republican days and telling voters — presumably Democrats — “Don’t be fooled.”

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With Gov. Charlie Crist making a late cancellation to attend an oil spill powwow in Louisiana with President Obama, state Reps. Carl Domino, R-Jupiter, and Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach, filled in as speakers at today’s Forum Club of the Palm Beaches lunch.

Responding to an audience question about partisan rancor, Sachs said Domino “has really become the most bipartisan Republican in the Florida House.”

Working with the other party isn’t necessarily seen as a virtue in a competitive partisan primary like the one Domino faces against state Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, for a state Senate seat.

“In this political atmosphere, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing,” Domino said of Sachs’ remark. “I’ll take it as a good thing.”

U.S. Supreme Court Justice and frequent swing vote Anthony Kennedy will speak at a Forum Club of the Palm Beaches lunch on May 14. Tickets are available only to members of the Forum Club and the Palm Beach County Bar Association.

Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer and the retiring John Paul Stevens have spoken to the Forum Club in the past. Former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was a Forum Club speaker as well.

WEST PALM BEACH — Former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley and former GOP activist and bond underwriter Kevin McCarty are making their first post-scandal Forum Club appearances at today’s sold-out luncheon speech by Mitt Romney.

Foley, once a Forum Club regular, hasn’t been back since he resigned in a 2006 Internet sex scandal.

“People have been begging me to come back to the Forum Club,” Foley said as he worked the Kravis Center ballroom before the lunch.

McCarty was released in January after serving eight months in federal prison for failing to report wife Mary McCarty’s honest services fraud as a Palm Beach County commissioner. She’s serving a three-and-a-half-year sentence. Kevin McCarty declined to comment.

After two weeks of bad publicity over its handling of a Nigerian jihadist’s attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas Day, the Obama administration will try to shift the focus to the economy today, Politico’s Mike Allen reports.

Toward that end, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s lunchtime speech today to the Forum Club of the Palm Beaches is expected to lay out an administration initiative to “prevent, prosecute, and punish financial fraud.”

After the massive Ponzi schemes of South Floridians Bernie Madoff and Scott Rothstein, West Palm Beach is a natural backdrop for Holder’s announcement.

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U.S. Sen. George LeMieux ruled out a run for attorney general next year but was less definitive when asked today about challenging Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson in 2012.

Republican LeMieux was interested in the AG race before Gov. Charlie Crist appointed him to serve the final 16 months of former Sen. Mel Martinez’s Senate term. LeMieux has said he won’t run for a full Senate term next year when Crist seeks the seat.

In response to an audience question at today’s Forum Club of the Palm Beaches lunch, LeMieux said he can’t serve in the Senate and run for AG.

“This is the most important time in American history for Florida to have two senators. So as much as I would like to be attorney general — it’s a wonderful position, I was the deputy attorney general (when Crist was AG) — I don’t think I can do both.”

He continued: “As for 2012, the future will take care of itself. I’ve got to do the job I’m doing now and hopefully the best job I can and then we’ll figure out what we’re going to do…We’ll make whatever decisions we can for the family after my time is over.”

Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and 2008 GOP presidential hopeful who now heads the Free and Strong America PAC, will speak at the Forum Club of the Palm Beaches in March. In the insanely early speculation about the 2012 presidential race, Romney is one of the most bandied-about names.

Florida Republican Sen. George LeMieux will speak at the Forum Club on Nov. 23 — his first major address to a Florida audience since being appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist in August.

Forum Club lunches are held at the Cohen Pavilion at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach. Public tickets for LeMieux’s speech are $55 and must be purchased in advance by calling the Forum Club at (561) 304-0570.

CNN senior politcal analyst Bill Schneider will be the headliner Friday when the venerable Forum Club of the Palm Beaches kicks off its latest powerlunch season.

The event will be at the Cohen Pavilion at the Kravis Center, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach. Public tickets are $55 and may be purchased at the event. The buffet begins at 11:30 a.m.

Other Forum Club speakers confirmed so far: Ted Kennedy biographer Peter S. Canellos on Oct. 23, National Urban League CEO Mark Morial on Dec. 15, U.S. Attorney Gen. Eric Holder on Jan. 8 and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson on Jan. 28.

Gen. David Petraeus stopped mid-anecdote to give a remarkably detailed shout-out during his speech at today’s Forum Club of the Palm Beaches luncheon:

“This country can never have too many Airborne, Air Assault, Pathfinder, Ranger-qualified infantry non-commissioned officers like that man right there,” Petraeus said, singling out retired Army Drill Sgt. Kurt Denmon of Boynton Beach in a crowd of 760.

The two haven’t met. But Denmon, a Desert Storm combat vet who teaches in the ROTC program at Florida Atlantic University, wasn’t surprised that Petraeus sized him up by looking at the various patches and badges on his Class A uniform.

“We can look at our uniforms and we can describe our careers,” Denmon said.