State officials’ high-flying days are over.

Gov. Rick Scott is selling the state’s two airplanes, saying the $2.4 million a year to operate the aircraft is a waste.

Scott’s offering the 10-year-old Beech King Air 350 and 2003 Cessna Citation Bravo on the Aircraft Shopper Online website. Bids will open at 2 p.m. on Feb. 9.

“The privilege of using a state-owned aircraft is an unnecessary burden to taxpayers, especially when lower-cost travel options exist,” Scott said in a press release. “As elected officials it is our responsibility to utilize the most affordable options for official business, and I do not believe state-owned airplanes are the best option.”

State lawmakers, Florida Supreme Court judges, Cabinet officials and, of course, the governor, have used the plane to travel around the state and, in some cases, run into trouble for cruising back and forth between Tallahassee and their hometowns or elsewhere on the taxpayer dime.

Former Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp and former Department of Juvenile Justice Secretary Frank Peterman both got into trouble for allegedly misusing the plane.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin tried to sell one of her state’s planes on eBay, but she wound up selling it through a jet broker.

Jeb Bush says on CNN’s John King, USA that he won’t run for president in 2012.

Asked if he’d support Sarah Palin, Bush said, “if Sarah Palin is the nominee and she’s running against Barack Obama, you betcha.”

Whoever the Republican nominee is in 2012 should have a “big and bold and aspirational” agenda that provides a positive alternative to Obama, Bush says.

The interview runs on CNN tonight at 7 p.m.

Republican Senate nominee Marco Rubio will be on hand Saturday when Sarah Palin headlines a Republican National Committee fund-raiser in Orlando with RNC Chairman Michael Steele.

GOP guv nominee Rick Scott won’t be there — his campaign says he’ll be at a long-planned campaign barbecue in Jacksonville that day.

The Florida Democratic Party hopes to benefit from the Palin visit as well. Dem Chairwoman Karen Thurman sent out a blast e-mail today asking for $10 donations to combat the “Sarah Palin/Marco Rubio/Karl Rove extreme philosophy they want to impose on Florida.”

Palin’s merely the latest potential 2012 GOP White House aspirant to campaign for Florida candidates. Scott appeared Tuesday with Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty in Naples. And former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was in the state earlier this month for Scott.

Barack Obama carried congressional District 22 in 2008, but Republican congressional challenger Allen West’s latest ad is banking on significant Obama fatigue in the swing district. With Obama coming to Alonzo Mourning’s house in Coral Gables next week to raise money for Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, West’s ad portrays Klein and Obama as out of touch with economic miseries.

“You and Ron Klein should leave that closed-door, high-roller fund-raiser and drive by our shuttered businesses and foreclosed homes,” says West. “I’ll go anywhere you wish to debate your failed big government policies.”

Klein’s camp, meanwhile, notes that Sarah Palin — who endorsed West in March — will be at The Breakers in Palm Beach tonight for what our Jose Lambiet reports is a private dinner hosted by Newsmax owner Chris Ruddy.

West won’t be there, campaign manager Josh Grodin said. While Klein and Dems regularly play up Palin’s endorsement of West, Grodin said West didn’t know Palin was coming to town, has never met her and didn’t know he was being endorsed by her until it showed up on her Facebook page.

West and Klein are among the candidates expected at a League of Women Voters forum at Temple Torah at 8600 Jog Road west of Boynton Beach tonight beginning at 7 p.m.

Sarah Palin will be in Palm Beach Wednesday for a dinner at The Breakers, former Palm Beach Post political editor Brian E. Crowley says in his Crowley Political Report. Other details are unclear.

Palin was scheduled to appear in Miami on Wednesday, but that event was scrubbed.

The day before Tuesday’s primary election, political newcomer Pam Bondi brought out the big guns: a robo-call recorded by conservative darling Sarah Palin.

The “Mama Grizzly” calls Bondi “a real prosecutor and a true conservative” who is “sharp, selfless and ready to stand for you” in the call released today.

Bondi was a Democrat for 16 years before switching to the GOP a decade ago.

Listen to Palin tout “my friend Pam Bondi.”

Maybe Bondi, who’s in a race too close to call against Holly Benson and Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp, can help Palin as well.

Palin’s endorsees, mainly tea party favorites or political outsider’s like Bondi, have not fared well in primaries throughout the country thus far.

Pam Bondi nailed down about $50,000 at a last-minute fundraiser in Jacksonville this evening hosted by business biggies Steve Halverson, president of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, and Ericka Alba, head of Associated Industries of Florida. Both business groups are backing Bondi in the primary.

Bondi, in a tight GOP primary for attorney general against Holly Benson and Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp, made her last in-person pitch for campaign funds before the midnight deadline tonight after which candidates are barred from collecting cash until after the primary election on Tuesday.

The event took place at Halverson’s posh home overlooking the St. John’s River, a far cry from the tiny store front in downtown Lake City where she shook hands with about a dozen locals eager to meet the political neophyte in person.

At both events on Bondi’s four-day sweep of the state before Tuesday, Bondi spoke about comments she made during a radio call-in program this weekend that fired up Kottkamp’s campaign.

“With the unions, I am totally against the secret ballot. We cannot have the secret ballot. Everything has to be public. The votes have to be public. We have to have transparency to make sure that everything is on the up and up. We have to protect our businesses in this economy more than ever,” she said on Tico Perez’ WDBO radio show this weekend.

What she said meant she supports the union-backed card check included in the Employee Free Choice Act that would allow unions to organize if 50 percent of workers check a card in public. Under existing law, workers can vote for or against unionization in federally supervised, private-ballot elections.

“By forcing workers to sign a card in public–instead of vote in private–Card Check opens the door to intimidation and coercion,” the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which opposes the Employee Free Choice Act, says on its website.

Kottkamp’s camp immediately jumped on Bondi, who since said she misunderstood the question and repeatedly insisted she opposes the unions’ card check program.

Here Bondi talks about her FOXNews pals Sean Hannity and Greta Van Susteren and her endorsement from conservative darling Sarah Palin before clarifying her position on card check.

Halverson, who said Bondi collected about $50,000 in donations at his soiree, also backed up Bondi on where she stands on the issue that he said is ‘virtually a litmus test” for candidates.

“Obviously, card check is virtually a litmus test. I can absolutely assure you that what Pam said – that’s she’s been opposed to card check from the very beginning. If anybody heard that or heard comments from her desperate opponent to the contrary, rest assured that isn’t the case,” Halverson said.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich endorsed Holly Benson in a tight three-way GOP primary for attorney general today.

“The next Attorney General of Florida will have to take the lead on the lawsuit challenging Obamacare,” said Gingrich said in a press release issued by Benson’s campaign. “In my opinion, there is no one more qualified to do this than Holly Benson. So today, I am proud to endorse Holly’s candidacy for Florida Attorney General.”

Benson, a former state House member who also served as secretary of both the Department of Business and Professional Regulation and the Agency for Health Care Administration, received the endorsement of conservative biggie Gingrich the day after primary opponent Pam Bondi nailed down the support of Tea Party idol Sarah Palin.

“It is a true honor to have the former Speaker’s support of my campaign,” Benson said in a statement. “Newt has been at the cutting edge of conservative policies, leading not only a conservative banner but also leading our party to victory after decades of being the minority in Congress. He is a true conservative icon, and I am proud to have his endorsement.”

The GOP opponents are battling to prove their conservative stripes with their endorsements. Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp has the support of Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly, considered the matriarch of the modern conservative movement and conservative activist John Stemberger, head of the Florida Family Policy Council.

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.

At the weekend’s Southern Republican Leadership Convention in New Orleans, Sarah Palin appears to be a big fan of Marco Rubio’s GOP Senate bid in this video posted on the pro-Rubio Shark Tank blog.

Sarah Palin’s use of crosshairs to target Democratic House incumbents is dangerous symbolism, Democrats say. But a party spokesman says it’s “a stretch” to compare Palin’s imagery to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s use of red and white bullseyes last year to target Republican incumbents.

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On her Facebook page, former GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin is supporting Republican congressional candidate Allen West and two other military veterans running for Congress.

Palin doesn’t mention West’s opponent, U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, by name, but calls the two-term incumbent “a leftwing ideologue who’s marched to the beat of Nancy Pelosi on every issue from cap-and-tax to the stimulus, TARP, and, of course, Obamacare.”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who keynoted Monday’s Forum Club of the Palm Beaches lunch, is the early 2012 presidential frontrunner among Florida Republicans, a Democratic polling firm says.

In the poll of 492 Florida Republican voters by North Carolina-based Public Policy Polling, Romney gets 52 percent to 21 percent for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and 18 percent for former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Romney, Huckabee and Palin were the only choices given in the poll, which has a 4.4 percent margin of error.

Romney also leads the Republican pack in a PPP poll of Colorado.

It isn’t just Republicans who are trying to capitalize on the tea party movement and Scott Brown’s surprise Massachusetts Senate win.

As the April 13 special election approaches to replace former Democratic Rep. Robert Wexler in Palm Beach-Broward congressional District 19, Democrat Ted Deutch’s campaign has sent a mailer to voters in the heavily Democratic district warning that “Republicans & The Tea Party Want To Capture YOUR Congressional Seat!”

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In Florida, any Republican strategy for statewide victory includes The Villages, the massive retirement community and GOP stronghold near Ocala. So one couldn’t help but wonder about the 2012 presidential sweepstakes when Sarah Palin visited The Villages today.

As the GOP’s vice presidential nominee in 2008, Sarah Palin drew tens of thousands at the retirement community. As the author and promoter of Going Rogue, Palin drew a smaller crowd today but one filled with enthusiasm.

The Associated Press puts the crowd at about 700.

The Orlando Sentinel says “hundreds” and includes some photos.

The St. Petersburg Times says the crowd was “perhaps as high as 1,000.”

The Ocala Star-Banner weighs in with a crowd estimate in the 1,500-to-2,000 range.

Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin told National Review on Tuesday that she’s considering an endorsement in the Florida’s Republican U.S. Senate primary between Gov. Charlie Crist and former House speaker Marco Rubio:

She says she’s had a chance to look at the Crist-Rubio race “just on the surface.” But she adds, “I’m just being asked about it really in the last week or two, so I’ll dig more into it. I’ll find out what the guys are holding in terms of positions and see where maybe I can help.”

Keep in mind that her 2008 running mate, John McCain, has endorsed Crist. And with the McCain & Palin camps already trading blows in the wake of the former Alaska governor’s Going Rogue biography, imagine the potential sideshow a proxy fight could set off if Palin lines up behind Rubio…

Palin will be in Florida on Tuesday for her book tour:

*Noon: Jacksonville, Books-A-Million, 1910 Wells Road.

*4 p.m.: The Villages, Barnes & Noble, 1055 Old Camp Road, Lake Sumter Market Square.

*7 p.m.: Orlando, Barnes & Noble, Colonial Plaza, 2418 East Colonial Drive.

Most Democrats who represent congressional districts that went for Republican John McCain in 2008 voted no on the recent health care bill. Democrat Chris Craft hopes to win election in such a district in 2010, but he’s for the health care legislation.

Read about Craft’s position in this week’s Politics column, along with the latest on Irv Slosberg’s plans and the warning from not one but two local Dems about Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

In a preview of their upcoming book, The Battle for America 2008, Washington Post reporters Dana Balz & Haynes Johnson write that Gov. Charlie Crist was among John McCain’s six finalists for vice president:

McCain’s search for a running mate had started in the spring with about two dozen names. Palin was not a serious candidate. One person said she wasn’t even on the initial list; others said she was — barely. It was only later in the summer, when the campaign team became alarmed at the size of Obama’s lead among women, that she was added to the list of genuine contenders. “Toward the end of the process, in July, we started taking a look at, like okay, who are we missing? Let’s take a sharper look at women candidates and try that one more time,” Davis said. “That’s when Palin came on.” Palin, he added, “stood out significantly from the rest of that list.”

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Republican Gov. Charlie Crist is getting it from both ends of the political spectrum.

First, Crist’s GOP primary opponent Marco Rubio blasted Crist in a press release, challenging Crist to an online debate if the governor is too busy to find time to debate. Rubio has asked Crist to participate in 10 debates before their primary election next year. But Rubio’s campaign noted that while the governor has not responded, he does have time to attend a fundraiser this weekend at the home of Real Housewives of New York television star Jill Zarin.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has unveiled the above web ad. The group says its hoping to show that Crist “put his own political ambitions ahead of his constituents. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and New Hampshire Attorney General Jill Ayotte are also featured in the spot.

“Republicans seem to be making a habit out of abandoning their posts when the times get tough,” DSCC Communications Director Eric Schultz said in a statement. “Charlie Crist created an enormous economic mess in Florida, and is now fleeing at the first chance he gets.”

Republicans respond:

“First it was President Bush, now it’s Governor Palin – when will the Democrats stop trying to turn Republican candidates into other people and finally focus on the critical issues facing America, like bipartisan health care reform and skyrocketing unemployment?” said National Republican Senatorial Committee spokeswoman Amber Wilkerson.

“Obviously the Democrats are nervous about Governor Crist’s candidacy if they’re spending this much time lobbing these pathetic attacks instead of figuring out how to turn our nation’s economy around. Perhaps they should redirect their energies toward accomplishing something positive for the American people.”

Asked today about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s comment that it would be “politics as usual” to finish out her term as a lame duck, Gov. Charlie Crist replied, “Is that what she said?”

“She did what’s right, obviously, for her family and, you know, her circumstances and I respect that,” Crist told reporters today. “Whatever is best for her is what she should do. And I’m sure that’s what she feels she’s doing.”

Does this help or hurt her in future campaigns?

“I have no idea. I honestly don’t,” Crist said