From Rasmussen Reports today:

The race to become the next U.S. senator from Florida remains a very close one between Republican Marco Rubio and Independent Charlie Crist as both potential Democratic candidates struggle to gain traction.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Florida finds Rubio earning 35% support and Crist capturing 33% of the vote. Prospective Democratic candidate Kendrick Meek remains a distant third at 20%. However, for Meek, that reflects a five-point gain from earlier in the month. 

With Meek as the Democratic nominee, three percent (3%) say they’d vote for “some other candidate,” and eight percent (4%) remain undecided.

If real estate billionaire Jeff Greene wins the Democratic nomination, the numbers are Crist 36%, Rubio 34% and Greene 19%.

From Public Policy Polling today:

Rick Scott is looking like the frontrunner to be the Republican nominee for Governor of Florida, although both he and Bill McCollum have been badly bruised by their primary fight. Scott leads McCollum 43-29.

Indecision reigns in the Democratic Senate primary. Kendrick Meek leads Jeff Greene by a 28-25 margin that’s pretty inconsequential given the survey’s margin of error. The bigger story is that 37% of voters remain undecided, and that both candidates continue to be relatively unknown even to the party base.

Here are the new productions from the top Democrats running for U.S. Senate in Florida. Palm Beach businessman Jeff Greene showcases his family while state Rep. Kendrick Meek says he’s the real Democrat in the race.

On a related side note, The Hill is reporting that the Democratic National Committee has shifted $333,333 to the Florida Democratic Party as party of the national party’s $50 million get-out-the-vote campaign for the fall.

At the peak of the housing frenzy, California landlord Jeff Greene made a shrewd move that countless American investors and homeowners wish they would have mimicked. He bet that borrowers who took out subprime mortgages would default.

The trade paid off big, netting Greene profits of perhaps $500 million, perhaps $800 million – all for an investment of about $24 million. Greene’s win pushed him from millionaire to billionaire and was detailed in the 2009 book The Greatest Trade Ever.

Now that he’s a candidate for the U.S. Senate, Greene’s trade is campaign fodder. Greene used a financial instrument known as a credit default swap to make his bet, and his opponent in the Democratic primary, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, has accused Greene of pushing the housing market into a tailspin.

Story here.

The campaign for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Greene is claiming today’s Washington Post profile (we linked to it here) quotes him out of context saying there was “all kinds of this crazy stuff” in the Koran.

The campaign played us a tape from the relevant portion of the Q&A session with the Wynmoor Democratic Club. Here’s a transcript:

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Some other memorable quotes from Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Greene in a Washington Post profile today:

“I like lots of career politicians; I’m not against all career politicians,” Greene said. “I am against the career politicians I’m running against.”

“I’m not an expert on Muslims,” Greene said. But he added that anyone who knows anything about the Koran knows that it contains “all kinds of this crazy stuff. And unfortunately that’s motivating a lot of these extremists.”

He doesn’t hide from his friendship with “Hollywood Madam” Heidi Fleiss (“She’s a businesswoman”) or his feud with film director Ron Howard (“He screwed me”). He denies the anecdotes about his extravagant life as a bachelor detailed in “The Greatest Trade Ever,” a book by Wall Street Journal columnist Gregory Zuckerman, two copies of which are in a bookcase in Greene’s billiards room. (“I’ve never even been into strippers or had a hooker,” he said. “It’s not my thing.”)

Here’s the second web video from the Kendrick Meek campaign following his debate with Democratic U.S. Senate primary opponent Jeff Greene. The debate was hosted by The Palm Beach Post at the paper’s auditorium on Tuesday.

The latest video hits Greene for avoiding questions about the fortune he made from the meltdown of the housing market. Greene will not say exactly how much he earned or how much he invested. He also literally turns his back on reporters when CBS 4 Miami reporter Jim DeFede asks if any banks Greene invested with accepted federal stimulus money.

However, Meek’s accusation that Greene fled after the debate is a bit misleading. The clip of WPLG reporter Michael Putney saying, “Jeff Greene has left,” comes after Putney spent several minutes asking Greene questions. Viewers will notice that just about everybody else had left the room by then, too.

Meek’s campaign released the first post-debate video on Wednesday.

All of this took place before our esteemed panelists got to the third question of the debate.

For a recap of the entire debate (eventually there was some talk about policy for those interested in that kind of thing), click here.

And if you’d like to relive all 90 minutes, click over here.

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Greene criticized primary opponent Kendrick Meek for taking campaign contributions from “special interests,” but says he won’t release his tax returns that would show which of those same companies he might have invested in.

“Talk to my wife,” Greene said after the debate today. “I made a commitment to my wife when I got in this race that I would not provide tax returns. We’re very concerned about privacy and security and it’s not something we’re willing to do.”

As chance would have it, Greene’s wife, Mei Sze Chan, was standing next to him when he said that. So a reporter asked her.

“Hell no,” she said. “He promised me.”

Now that the debate is over, weigh in with your thoughts.

Read a recap here. And watch the video of the entire 90-minute event, hosted by The Palm Beach Post, to be published on by clicking here.

The candidates are here and we’re about to get started.

You can watch the live stream and live tweets by clicking on here.

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Greene’s campaign spokesman Luis Vizcaino responds to the Kendrick Meek campaign memo this morning:

“Kendrick Meek led the people of Florida over a cliff when he sponsored homeownership fairs entitled Ten Weeks to Homeownership that targeted first-time home buyers essentially persuading people to take-on risky loans that they could not afford. And now, in a desperate attempt to save his failing campaign, Meek tries to place blame elsewhere for the thousands of people that lost their homes, when he should be looking in the mirror.

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Those are the odds from Florida pollster Tom Eldon on the Democratic U.S. Senate primary between Palm Beach real estate tycoon Jeff Greene and U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek of Miami. Eldon helped us handicap the race in preparation for tomorrow’s debate at The Palm Beach Post‘s world headquarters in West Palm Beach.

Eldon gives Greene the edge based on money. Greene, along with Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott, has the rare combination in Florida politics of “outsider” status and deep pockets.

But for all of Greene’s money, Eldon isn’t too impressed with Greene’s television ads. “I don’t know why he’s spending so much face time with the camera,” Eldon says. “He might not be the right messenger to sell his campaign. He’s just not that good on camera.”

Eldon also warns that Greene could be more susceptible in a Democratic primary to political attacks about how he earned his money (he bet heavy on the real estate meltdown with credit default swaps). Conversely, Scott might not face the same degree of criticism among GOP voters about the $1.7 billion in Medicare and Medicaid fines his company racked up.

“I’m close to taking the McCollum-Scott race off the board,” Eldon said. “There’s a word for what McCollum’s doing right now. And it’s flailing.”

Click here to watch a live video broadcast of the meeting starting at 2:30 p.m.

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.