Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich‘s staying power as a top-tier candidate will be tested by the less-than-hardline stance on illegal immigration he articulated in Tuesday night’s CNN debate.

Republican strategist Alex Castellanos called it a “Nixon-goes-to-China” moment.

Or will it be a Rick Perry-goes-to-Orlando moment in which a candidate plummets after running afoul of the GOP base on the immigration issue?

Read about it in today’s Palm Beach Post.

Today is the 75th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s birth. He did not invent rock and roll, or the jumpsuit, or the often-cringeworthy melding of politics and pop culture — but he contributed mightily to these and many other fields. Check out our Leslie Gray Streeter’s appreciation here.

The Republican scramble for the Palm Beach-Broward seat of Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, puts GOP heavyweights and business partners Scott Rothstein and Roger Stone in rival camps.

Attorney Rothstein – who’s raised money for the likes of Charlie Crist, John McCain and George W. Bush – is backing state Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, in the Senate District 25 race.
Legendarily dapper bad boy and unabashed Nixon admirer Stone, a partner with Rothstein in a Fort Lauderdale-based consulting biz, is behind Delray Beach businessman Nick Loeb.

Stone said he’s friends with Bogdanoff but has an “antecedent” relationship with Loeb’s family, going back to the days when he and Loeb’s father were early Ronald Reagan supporters. Though he’s known as a creative hitman, Stone says that, in this race, “I’m not here to engage in negative politics.”

Bogdanoff, Loeb and state Rep. Carl Domino, R-Jupiter, are in the GOP primary to replace Atwater, who’s running for chief financial officer

Guess who says Nixon had a pretty decent legacy aside from Watergate? Click here to find out.

Moments after he was sworn in as the newest Palm Beach County commissioner this morning, Steven Abrams invoked another unelected Republican who came to office to replace a disgraced predecessor.

Abrams, appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist after Mary McCarty resigned in a corruption scandal, referred to Gerald Ford’s famous quote upon succeeding Richard Nixon in 1974: “I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president by your ballots. So I ask you to confirm me with your prayers.”

Our Jennifer Sorentrue reports on it here.