Vice President Joe Biden will stump for Democratic Senate nominee Kendrick Meek in Hollywood today at a Florida Democratic Party fund-raiser.

Republican Senate nominee Marco Rubio says it’s a reminder of the “failed stimulus experiment” that was backed by the administration and by Rep. Meek and then-Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, who’s now an independent running in the Senate race.

With Gov. Charlie Crist by his side, Vice President Joe Biden vowed that the Sunshine State has the president’s full support as residents and business owners cope with the continuing impacts of oil on beaches and inland waters from the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

“This region has been hit hard by acts of God and now by an act of man. We’re going to be feeling the effects, and you’re going to be feeling the effects, for some time to come. But we also intend to stick with this region until it has been made whole,” Biden said early this evening, referring to the devastation of 2004 Hurricane Ivan on the Panhandle. “We’re not going anywhere. We’re staying here until the job is done.”

Flanked by Deepwater Horizon incident commander U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the state’s newly-appointed disaster response leader Capt. Steve Poulin and Crist, Biden spoke of the importance the Gulf of Mexico plays in the “cultural ecosystem” of the coastal communities where fishing has come to an abrupt end.

“There’s in a sense a way of life at stake here, not just an economic concern,” Biden told reporters reading from a prepared statement to a group of reporters in front of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter “Oak” at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola.

“We’re not going to forget the people of the Gulf until their economy is back up and running, until this is cleaned up, until the oil is stopped from gushing from the bottom of the ocean floor. We’re not going to end this until everyone is made whole,” he said.
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Democratic U.S. Rep. and Senate candidate Kendrick Meek criticized the Obama administration’s response to Israel’s decision to build 1,600 homes in a disputed area of East Jerusalem.

Vice President Joe Biden, who was visiting Israel at the time of the announcement, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have blasted the plan, straining relations with America’s strongest ally in the Middle East.

“What started off as an internal, domestic disagreement within the Israeli government has turned into an unnecessary international dispute complicated by some undiplomatic language from U.S. administration officials,” Meek said today.

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The White House announced this morning that Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, will be in South Florida on Saturday — exact location and time not yet announced — to meet with members of the Haitian-American community and responders who are mobilizing relief efforts after Tuesday’s 7.0 earthquake devastated Haiti.

More details are expected Friday.

Speaking about the economy this afternoon at a Boca Raton fundraiser, Vice President Biden said Florida’s economiy is “still in trouble.”

Florida, Arizona and California, Biden said, “got killed when this bubble burst, and you’re still getting killed.”

But nationally, Biden said the economy was improving, according to a pool report of the fundraiser.

“We’re getting to the end of this toboggan run,” Biden said. “We’re no longer talking about a depression. We’re talking about the shape of a recovery.”

“We inherited a God-awful mess,” he said

Biden spoke for about 30 minutes and then took questions behind closed doors for another half-hour

Among the crowd of about 60 people — who paid between $1,000 and $30,000 to attend — were state Sens. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, and Jeremy Ring, D-Parkland; Fort Lauderdale attorney Mitchell Berger; and Palm Beach County Democratic Chairman Mark Alan Siegel.

The fundraiser, for the Democratic National Committee and Organizing for America, was held at the home of Mark Gilbert.

Vice President Joe Biden will make a lunchtime money stop in Palm Beach County today, attending a fund-raiser for the Democratic National Committee at the Boca Raton home of Democratic moneyman Mark Gilbert.

Tickets start at $1,000.

Gilbert was campaign finance chairman for Ron Klein in 2006 when the Democratic challenger raised more than $4.1 million and ousted incumbent Republican Rep. Clay Shaw to represent a Palm Beach-Broward congressional seat. Gilbert also raised money for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.

“It’s important for Palm Beach County to have people with a national voice and a national reach that allows our view to be put forth,” said county Democratic Chairman Mark Alan Siegel, who’s going to the lunch.

After the Boca stop, Biden heads to Miami for another fund-raiser. President Obama was in Miami Beach to raise money for Democratic House and Senate candidates on Monday night.

George LeMieux was sworn in as a U.S. Senator this afternoon by Vice President Joe Biden in the U.S. Capitol. LeMieux, an attorney was was a Broward County GOP chairman and right-hand man to Gov. Charlie Crist, was appointed by Crist last month to replace Sen. Mel Martinez, whose resignation took effect Wednesday.

LeMieux, who’ll serve the final months of Martinez’ term, has said he won’t seek election to the seat in 2010 when Crist runs for it.

“There are tremendous issues facing this nation, and although my time in Washington will be brief, I intend to work hard every day to address these critical challenges and serve the people of this unique, diverse and wonderful state,” he said in a statement released by his office.

Read LeMieux’s entire statement after the jump……

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George LeMieux, the attorney and former top aide to Gov. Charlie Crist who was tapped by Crist to serve the last 16 months of Mel Martinez’ Senate term, will be sworn in this afternoon on the Senate floor at 2:45 p.m.

Martinez officially retired Wednesday.

Vice President Joe Biden, in his constitutional role as president of the Senate, will administer the oath to LeMieux.

C-Span 2 will carry it live.

Democrats were quick to decry Gov. Charlie Crist’s appointment of former top aide George LeMieux to fill a U.S. Senate vacancy as cronyism. But this The New York Times politics blog post argues that Crist appointing LeMieux as a placeholder while he runs for the seat in 2010 isn’t much different from the Kennedy family arranging for Benjamin A. Smith II to keep John F. Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat warm until Ted Kennedy was old enough to run for it in 1962.

A more recent parallel, writer Peter Baker notes, is this year’s appointment of Vice President Joe Biden’s former Senate chief of staff, Ted Kaufman, to hold Biden’s Delaware Senate while the VP’s son, Beau Biden, is expected to run for it next year.

Vice President Joe Biden will visit an Orlando middle school on Wednesday to tout Florida’s $3.5 billion share of the economic stimulus package for education.

Biden will be joined by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan. They’re scheduled to appear at Jackson Middle School in Orlando at 10 a.m.

Not all of the money is being spent in schools or on teachers, however.

Florida’s three-year education stimulus cash includes money for school lunch equipment, homeless education, independent living programs and services for older blind individuals.

Perhaps the White House duo will receive a warmer welcome than Congressional members touting the president’s health care package at raucous town hall meetings throughout the country.