Arizona Sen. John McCain, who effectively ended Mitt Romney‘s 2008 presidential hopes by defeating him in that year’s Florida primary, will hit the campaign trail for Romney on Thursday.

McCain will appear at town hall meetings in Sun City and Madeira Beach in the Tampa Bay area.

No immediate word on whether Romney will attend, but it seems unlikely considering he’s participating in a CNN debate in Jacksonville that night.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is planning a New Hampshire visit this week and a spokeswoman said Monday he will decide whether to run for president “very soon,” fanning a campaign flame he’s been kindling since at least spring, when he talked of running in a speech before the Palm Beach Republican Club.

Then, he hinted that he would run if the GOP would nominate a candidate hizzoner considered “too right-wing.” Now, he plans to meet with law enforcement officers, National Rifle Association members, and Dartmouth College faculty while he mulls another run.

Giuliani banked heavily on Florida when he ran for president in 2008. He finished third here, shouldered out when then-Gov. Charlie Crist endorsed eventual nominee John McCain. Giuliani ended his campaign a day later.

With the 2012 Republican presidential field still in flux, prospects of a Giuliani candidacy could be expected to draw buzz in South Florida, effectively New York’s sixth borough.

But Palm Beach County GOP Chairman Sid Dinerstein, a Giuliani fan, said it’s more likely the presidential profile of ‘America’s Mayor’ has waned.

“I just don’t think a lot of voters, especially newer voters, have stopped thinking of him,” Dinerstein said. “But this is a year when anything can happen. And when we have people still talking about jumping in, I think as a Republican, that says they think they can win.”

Political newbie Pam Bondi scooped her GOP rivals for attorney general with an endorsement today from conservative icon Sarah Palin.

Palin, who was Sen. John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential election, backed Bondi along with a handful of other female GOP candidates throughout the country today.

“We desperately need these conservative leaders who won’t kowtow to the Obama administration’s big government overreach into our states, small businesses, families, and individual lives,” Palin wrote on her Facebook page about Bondi and Iowa attorney general candidate Brenna Findley.

Palin ‘s endorsement this late in the primary game could translate into some last-minute campaign cash for Bondi, a former prosecutor who’s kicking off a state-wide, four-day bus tour beginning tomorrow in Tallahassee.

The endorsement is a snub of Bondi’s opponent Holly Benson, a former Florida House member who also served under Gov. Charlie Crist as secretary of both the Department of Business and Professional Regulation and the Agency for Health Care Administration.

Benson recently launched a television ad in which she calls both Bondi and the third GOP AG candidate Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp liberals.

Associated Industries of Florida sent a press release demanding an investigation of Public Service Commissioner Nancy Argenziano to Florida Power & Light Co. for review yesterday, officials for both groups said.

A version of the release posted on The Sayfie Review shows the author of the release as “FPL_User” last saved by “Lisa Garcia” and the company as “Florida Power & Light.”

Lisa Garcia works for Ron Sachs Communications, the Tallahassee-based PR agency handling media for AIF on the issue.

AIF has joined FPL in support of its requested $1.3 billion base rate hike.

FPL is a member of the business backed association that refuses to reveal its membership or how much they pay to belong to the group.

The latest bit of drama in the FPL/Argenziano/PSC serial unfolds as the regulatory panel is scheduled to vote on the Juno Beach-based utility proposed $200 million rate increase to cover the costs of nuclear plants not yet built.

Sachs executive Alia Faraj, a former spokeswoman for Gov. Jeb Bush, said that her shop crafted the press release and gave it to FPL.
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Whether they’re running for president or a state House seat, Republicans in need of campaign cash often find their way to Bill Diamond’s Palm Beach home.

Florida Attorney General and 2010 governor candidate Bill McCollum will be the latest GOP office-seeker to belly up to Diamond’s political ATM when he attends a fund-raising lunch there Wednesday.

A veteran of New York City Republican politics, the 73-year-old Diamond co-owns a real estate business and was elected to the Palm Beach town council this year.

He was a regional administrator for the U.S. General Services Administration under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, then was former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani’s commissioner of administrative services from 1994 to 2001.

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State Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, was an early supporter of John McCain’s 2008 presidential bid when former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was the GOP presidential frontrunner in the state.

McCain returned the favor today, endorsing Bogdanoff in her bid for the seat of state Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, who’s giving up the seat next year to run for chief financial officer.

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Jeb Bush, who turns 55 today, decided to give John McCain a gift – his endorsement.

Golly. . .when was the Florida primary?

The Q bets Mike Huckabee is really steamed – there goes the election.

In a statement from the McCain campaign both men say the other is really swell.

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John McCain’s campaign spokeswoman confirms that U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez will appear with McCain in Miami in about an hour to endorse McCain’s GOP presidential bid.

A knowledgeable source said Martinez, who is traveling with McCain today, is likely to make the formal announcement at a 5 p.m. meeting with the Latin Builders Association in Miami.

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Declaring the Republican Party a “pro-life party,” Tom Gallagher’s gubernatorial campaign argued Friday afternoon that Charlie Crist is trying to take Florida Republicans into a “pro-choice” direction.

Crist, Gallagher’s rival in the GOP primary, has repeatedly said he opposes abortion. But his refusal to support a 24-hour waiting period before a doctor can perform an abortion has been seized by Gallagher’s campaign as proof that Crist is not “pro-life.”

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A new national CNN poll has surprisingly bad numbers for Jeb Bush.

Here’s excerpts from CNN’s report:

With the presidential election more than two years away, a CNN poll released Monday suggests that nearly half of Americans would “definitely not vote for” Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Among the Republicans, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani fared better than the Democrats, and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush fared worse.

Only 30 percent said they would “definitely not vote for” Giuliani; 34 percent said that of McCain.

As for Bush, brother of the current president, 63 percent said there was no way he would get their vote. The younger Bush has denied interest in running for president in 2008.

Read more here.