Former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre, a Democrat who endorsed Rick Scott in last fall’s governor’s race, was named Tuesday by the Republican governor to the state’s Transportation Commission.

Ferre, 75, was named to a three-year term — succeeding Marcos Marchena. The appointment must be confirmed by the Florida Senate.

After losing his Quixotic bid to become the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate — drawing 4.9 percent of the vote in losing to then-U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek — Ferre said Scott would be the first Republican he voted for in 54 years of casting ballots.

Ferre said he liked Scott’s plan for Florida’s economy. Ferre also said he was mad at the “exclusionary direction” of the state Democratic Party, which had cold-shouldered him in his run for Senate.

Former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre, who got 4.9 percent in the Aug. 24 Democratic primary for Senate, announced today he’s supporting Republican Rick Scott in the governor’s race.

Ferre praised Scott’s economic stance and also made it clear he’s still smarting at the way he was treated by his own party.

Said Ferre: “Despite the fact that I am a Democrat, I am deeply disturbed by the exclusionary direction of the Florida Democratic Party. Even though I was the first Hispanic Democrat elected to the Florida state legislature and the first Hispanic Democrat elected Mayor of a major US City, I was denied the opportunity to address the Florida State Democratic Convention and denied the opportunity to participate in the Democratic US Senate Debates. This ‘politics of exclusion’ is an insult to every Hispanic voter in our state. Too many 2010 Democratic office seekers stood by silently as these injustices were perpetrated.”

Read Ferre’s complete statement after the jump…

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Democratic Palm Beach County Commissioner Burt Aaronson wants Bud Chiles to drop his no-party bid for governor, telling the son of the late Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles in a letter that his candidacy could hurt Democrat Alex Sink and help elect Republican Bill McCollum or Rick Scott.

“Our job is to have a Democratic governor,” Aaronson said of the letter to Chiles that he co-signed with county Democratic Party Treasurer Bob Diffenderfer. “We love him (Bud Chiles) and his father was great, but this is not helping the Democrats elect a governor.”

Aaronson’s concern about a no-party candidate taking votes from a Democrat in a statewide race doesn’t necessarily extend to the U.S. Senate contest, where independent Gov. Charlie Crist so far is drawing considerable Democratic support at the expense of Dem Kendrick Meek or Jeff Greene.

“I look at that race slightly differently,” Aaronson said Tuesday. “I look at that race to make sure we don’t have (Republican Senate candidate) Marco Rubio.”

Aaronson said he won’t know the best way to block Rubio until after the Aug. 24 Democratic primary.

“We have three people in the primary (Meek, Greene and former Miami Mayor and health care “capitation” advocate Maurice Ferre). So I want to see what happens in the primary before we do anything.”

Two big-spending outsiders have shaken up Florida politics, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll.

Former health care exec Rick Scott of Naples, who entered the race in April, holds a 44-to-31 percent lead over Attorney General Bill McCollum in the Republican primary for governor, the poll says.

And Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene, who filed April 30, is in a virtual tie with U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek for the Democratic Senate nomination. Meek holds a 29-to-27 percent edge with 37 percent undecided. Former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre gets 3 percent.

“Mothers may tell their children that money can’t buy happiness, but what these results show is that money can buy enough television ads to make political neophytes serious contenders for major political office,” says Quinnipiac’s Peter Brown.

The poll also finds strong support among Floridians for Arizona’s new crackdown on illegal immigration — an issue Scott has featured in his barrage of ads.

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Democratic Senate hopeful Maurice Ferre talked health care during a visit with The Palm Beach Post editorial board today and said the U.S. should eventually adopt a Medicare-for-all system that includes government price-setting and spending caps based on age and medical condition.

“I would absolutely say that this is the cap on how much is available for you to spend at age 90, 87, with a heart condition of this sort, with diabetes of this sort, two legs missing and, you know, this is how much is available for you to spend. And you spend it any way you want,” said Ferre, who is 75.

Read more about it here.

Here’s a timeline of events today (so far) in the U.S. Senate Democratic primary:

11:58 a.m.: Kendrick Meek campaign blasts billionaire Jeff Greene for cashing on on the mortgage meltdown, or as Team Meek refers to it: “betting against the middle class.” From the memo:

Jeff Greene pioneered trading uncovered credit default swaps and started an arms race between big banks that ultimately led to a collapse that has been catastrophic for this country.

12:00 p.m.: Maurice Ferre’s campaign issued a statement questioning whether Greene was “fit for office.”

“It’s appalling enough that Jeff Greene made his money off of the misfortune of hard-working Floridians,” said Ferre. “It’s even more insulting that he thinks he can use his loot to buy their votes.”

2:29 p.m. Greene’s campaign responds, calling Meek a career politician who “lined his campaign pockets with special interest money while our economy plummeted.”

Not a single Florida homeowner has lost a penny because of Jeff’s investments. But in the years that Kendrick Meek has been in office almost 700,000 more Floridians have lost their jobs. And while Floridians were facing foreclosure because of bad loans, Kendrick Meek and his buddies were taking campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and failing to regulate them to protect homeowners

1. No, Gov. Charlie Crist is not giving up his Republican registration. But it’s pretty clear now that he’s decided to promote the independent streak that won him national attention as he built a bipartisan image his first year in office.

2. Speaking of Crist’s first year: With his final State of the State coming on Tuesday, here’s a timely look-back at our coverage of his 2007 speech, when he called for more environmental preservation and a voting paper trail and included a quote from Robert Kennedy:

“For him to get up there and do what he did today, he said: ‘I’m my own man,’ that was a strong message,” said Sen. Victor Crist, R-Temple Terrace, who is not related to the governor. “When he gave his final quote from Robert Kennedy, that was bold, and I watched Speaker Rubio’s face, and I turned to the two House members on either side of me, and I said, ‘Oh-oh.’ “

House Speaker Marco Rubio said Crist’s style has helped improve the tone in Tallahassee. “By far the most optimistic first day of session in the eight I’ve been a part of,” said Rubio, R-West Miami. “I think there is a general tone of cooperation.”

3. By portraying himself as an independent Republican (someone who loves guns, hates taxes and can work across the aisle), Crist is hoping to steal some of the sizzle of Rubio’s image as the anti-establishment candidate. In Broward County, Crist tried to use Rubio’s campaign against him:

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A proposal from President Obama to repeal a ban on gays serving openly in the military — better known as “don’t ask, don’t tell” — has split Florida’s U.S. Senate candidates along party lines.

“We are a nation at war. The governor believes the current policy has worked, and there is no need to make changes.”

–Republican Charlie Crist spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg.

“Marco Rubio supports the current policy and doesn’t see any evidence it needs to be changed.”

–Republican Marco Rubio spokesman Alex Burgos.

“Before the Civil Rights Bill passed, Everett Dirksen told Lyndon Johnson that, ‘This is an idea whose time has come.’ Well this is also an idea whose time has arrived.”

–Democrat Maurice Ferre

“Admiral Mike Mullen’s testimony that repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell comes down to an issue of integrity for citizens in uniform, and for the military as an institution were powerful words of conviction and truth. As a congressional cosponsor of legislation to promote a policy of nondiscrimination in the Armed Forces on the basis of sexual orientation, and having spoken to senior commanders about this issue, the position voiced by the military is a welcome one.”

–Democrat Kendrick Meek

On today’s podcast:

Patrick Ruffini is an online media consultant who most recently helped build the record-breaking fundraising machine for U.S. Sen.-elect Scott Brown, R-Mass. In Florida, Ruffini is supporting Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio. Ruffini predicted last week that Rubio would collect more money than his Republican primary opponent, Gov. Charlie Crist — a legendary campaign fund-raiser, as soon as the first quarter this year.

Ruffini was among the first to flag the upset potential in Brown’s campaign and predicted Rubio’s rise last summer, when few were giving the former Florida House speaker much of a shot. In July, Ruffini said Rubio would make it close race. Now, he tells us that Rubio is going to win.

His op-ed, ‘How Republicans won the Internet’, was published Sunday in the Washington Post.

Former Miami mayor Maurice Ferre is not the young, technologically-savvy candidate that immediately comes to mind when you think about the successful anti-establishment candidates of the past two years (Barack Obama, Scott Brown). But he is positioning himself as the outsider candidate in Florida’s U.S. Senate contest. And with a sitting governor and a House speaker two years removed from office on the Republican side and a sitting U.S. House member as his Democratic opponent, Ferre might have the most legitimate claim to that title.

In our interview, the 74-year-old Ferre criticizes Washington Democrats for trying to push health care reform in one omnibus bill. He said a better approach would be to offer the changes in smaller bills and let Republicans oppose the individual ideas.

Ferre says he’s raised just $100,000 so far $1 million last quarter for his primary opponent, Kendrick Meek), but he’s not worried. He’s focused on Orlando-Kissimmee voters so far and is expecting a big turnout from newly registered Hispanic Democrats.

LISTEN HERE (Or right click on the link to download.)

From Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Maurice Ferre:

“Of course I am for healthcare reform, but this is not the right plan for the working families of Florida.

“This plan was arrived at with unacceptable compromises. It is a special interest plan that raises taxes and favors insurance and pharmaceutical companies. I fear the President has lost sight of his original goal of extending healthcare to all Americans and at the same time controlling healthcare costs.”

Ferre is running in his party’s U.S. Senate primary against U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, who voted for the bill in the House.

Former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, said today that Gov. Charlie Crist’s call for a grand jury investigation into political corruption should be expanded to include the Republican governor, also a Senate candidate.

Ferre cited this story from BrowardBeat.com that Crist may have traded judicial appointments in Broward County in exchange for contributions from disbarred attorney Scott Rothstein to the state Republican party.

Rothstein was arrested today on federal racketeering charges.

“State campaign finance records show a troubling pattern of large contributions from Mr. Rothstein and immediate and subsequent appointments of Judges to the Fourth District Court of Appeals,” said Ferre, a former six-term mayor of Miami. “Is this pattern a coincidence? Could it indicate real corruption in the Judicial nominating process and raise legitimate questions about a possibility of Crist’s integrity and his fitness to govern?”

“Perhaps the U.S. Attorney’s investigation into corruption in South Florida should be expanded to include the Governor’s possible auctioning of judicial appointments in Broward County. We need to know what Charlie Crist knew and when he knew it,” said Ferre.

U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, D- Miami, today picked up Senate endorsements from Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink and U.S. Rep. Corinne Brown, D-Jacksonville, who had been exploring her own run for Senate.

Sink, a 2010 candidate for governor, is one of two Dems to hold statewide office in Florida. The other — U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson — hasn’t formally endorsed Meek, but was listed as a host for a Meek fund-raiser in Washington this month that was headlined by former President Bill Clinton.

Meek is the heavy favorite to win the Democratic Senate nomination, but former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre announced this month that he will also run as a Democrat.