Do a Google search for Democratic Senate hopeful Jeff Greene’s name this morning and you’ll see an ad from indie Senate candidate Charlie Crist over on the side that says “What has Jeff Greene done? Experience matters” and includes the Crist campaign’s Web address.

The Crist campaign’s seven-word dig at the billionaire Democratic Senate aspirant drew a response of more than 300 words this morning from the Greene campaign.

There’s plenty of indignation in the Greene response, but also satisfaction. With Greene battling party establishment favorite Kendrick Meek in the Democratic primary, the Greene camp says the Crist ad is a sign that “there is finally a strong Democratic candidate in the race gaining momentum.”

Read the Greene response after the jump….

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Billionaire Democratic Senate candidate Jeff Greene features his 83-year-old mother, Century Village of West Palm Beach resident Barbara Greene, in his newest TV spot.

“My Jeff, he’ll shake things up in Washington and he’ll get results. That’s what he does,” Barbara Greene says in the ad.

Barbara Greene was present Tuesday when her son visited the heavily Democratic retirement community to speak at a Democratic club meeting. She evaluated his performance as “terrific.”

Cold War Pop Culture Reference Alert!! Democratic Senate hopeful Kendrick Meek’s campaign is portraying billionaire primary foe Jeff Greene as Eddie Haskell, the sycophantic Leave It To Beaver character who regularly poured on the charm for Ward and June Cleaver before perpetrating some devious scheme or act of cruelty against his pal Wally’s younger brother, Theodore “Beaver” Cleaver.

If our memory of a couple hundred reruns of the show is correct, Meek is essentially asking Florida Democratic primary voters to be like Ward and June, who were generally wary of Eddie’s blandishments.

While perhaps the most memorable supporting character on Leave It To Beaver, Eddie Haskell (played by urban legend-spawning actor Ken Osmond) never got a spin-off show of his own. Meek’s campaign, however, has devoted an entire website to Greene.

Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene’s campaign today begins airing two ads to introduce the credit-default swapper and Democratic Senate candidate as a job-creating “outsider” appealing to voters fed up with “career politicians.”

No details yet from Greene’s campaign on the size and reach of the ad buy. Greene has pledged to spend “whatever it takes” to be competitive, starting with his primary against party establishment favorite Kendrick Meek.

Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene’s two-week-old Democratic Senate campaign pounced on a Miami Herald story about Democratic Senate frontrunner and U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek’s ties to a developer accused of stealing nearly $1 million from a failed project in Miami’s Liberty City.

The developer, Dennis Stackhouse, paid $90,000 in consulting fees to Meek’s mother and provided $13,000 to help Meek’s top Miami aide get a mortgage, the paper reported. Meek, who twice sought federal earmarks for the Poinciana Park project, told The Herald he didn’t know about the developer’s payments to his former aide or his mother and that he and his mother, former U.S. Rep. Carrie Meek, never discussed the project.

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So far the candidate suffering most from lifelong Republican Charlie Crist’s switch to an independent Senate candidacy is Democrat Kendrick Meek. With large numbers of Democrats saying they’ll back Crist in early polls, Meek gets less than 20 percent in two surveys, which show Crist leading and Republican Marco Rubio second.

“He won’t hold them. He is a Republican,” says Meek media consultant Steve Murphy. Other political pros agree Democrats are likely to gravitate to Meek as the race progresses and he becomes better known.

For now, though, Meek isn’t well-known among Democrats, creating an opening for Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene and making Meek backers like Allen Robbins worried.

Read about it here.

Jeff Greene made hundreds of millions of dollars betting the real estate bubble would burst and investing in sophisticated credit default swaps.

But in his first public appearance as a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate tonight, the Palm Beach billionaire emphasized the money he made decades ago shoveling snow, mowing lawns, teaching Hebrew school, checking IDs at a college gym and busing tables at The Breakers.

Greene, who entered the race last week, spoke for about 7 minutes tonight and received polite applause from the crowd of about 150 at a Palm Beach County Democratic Party meeting west of Delray Beach. He cast himself as an outsider running against “career politicians” in Florida’s U.S. Senate race.

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Basketball legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson headlines a Miami Beach money event on Wednesday for Democratic U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek’s Senate campaign.

Meek could need big bucks now that he faces a primary challenge from Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene, who’s vowing to spend “whatever it takes” to be competitive.

Meek’s campaign is also running a contest offering some lucky texter a chance to meet the NBA Hall of Famer.

Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene’s entry in Florida’s Democratic Senate primary a few hours before Friday’s filing deadline wasn’t the first time he made a late entrance as a political unknown into a primary race.

Back in 1982, a younger Greene with fewer commas in his net worth made a failed Republican bid for a congressional seat in the Los Angeles area.

“He came in late and pretty much used his own money. We had to spend a significant amount in the primary because he came in,” recalled David Armor, who defeated Greene in the GOP primary but lost to former Democratic U.S. Rep. Anthony Beilenson in the general election.

Read about it in this week’s Politics column

It didn’t take long for Florida’s sleepy Democratic Senate primary to get interesting.

Less than seven hours after Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene thrust himself into the race, frontrunner Kendrick Meek took a shot this afternoon at Greene’s foreclosure-fueled fortune and his accusation that Meek and other candidates are career politicians while Greene has “succeeded in the real world of hard work.”

U.S. Rep. Meek, D-Miami, says Greene “profited from the misery of millions of Americans who lost their home equity, if not their homes. That’s not the kind of candidate the Democratic party needs, and it’s not the kind of senator Florida needs.”

Greene made hundreds of millions of dollars by betting the housing bubble would burst and investing in credit-default swaps. He says the sophisticated investments were “insurance, basically” to protect against losses in his real estate portfolio.

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Rumors that he’s supporting indie Senate candidate Charlie Crist are “ridiculous — and completely false,” says former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, who has sent a fund-raising e-mail today on behalf of Democrat Kendrick Meek’s Senate bid.

Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign manager, Internet campaign innovator Joe Trippi, has signed on with Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene’s Democratic Senate campaign.

Just in case Florida’s Senate race wasn’t interesting enough, Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene plans to file papers this morning to enter the contest as a Democrat.

Greene, 55, rose from middle-class origins to make millions investing in real estate. Then he made hundreds of millions by betting that the real estate bubble would burst and investing in credit-default swaps. He’s running as an outsider, and his bio is unconventional for a politician, with cameos by Mike Tyson as best man at Greene’s 2007 wedding and Heidi Fleiss as a yearlong houseguest. (“We weren’t dating,” Greene told Forbes in a 2008 profile.)

Read about it here.