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.

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