While U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina is being praised for backing Marco Rubio in Florida, there have been more than a few grumbles about how some candidates DeMint backed came up short on Election Day -- leaving the Democrats in control of the U.S. Senate. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council announced on Wednesday that his organization would lead a prayer effort for DeMint, hoping to get a million Americans to pray for the senator.

With Congress headed back into session next week, outgoing Republican U.S. Sen. George LeMieux called on Thursday to ban earmarks. Next Tuesday, members of the next session of Congress will vote on whether to continue the ban on earmarks, said LeMieux. While I will not take part in that vote, I strongly urge members to approve the ban and focus on ways to shrink government, end deficit spending, and pay down the national debt. Democrats should follow suit.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is headed back to Iowa -- where he won the Republican presidential caucus in 2008. Huckabee, who moved to Florida earlier in the year where he has been active in politics, will head to the Hawkeye State to speak to the Iowa Family Policy Center on Nov. 21.

More than a week after losing the U.S. Senate election, Gov. Charlie Crist used the occasion of Veterans Day to promote the states Employ Florida Vets website to help retired military personnel find employment in the private sector. Florida is proud to be home to more than 1.6 million veterans, and we can never repay our debt of gratitude to them, said Crist. These brave men and women have sacrificed much, and many have made the ultimate sacrifice defending our country.

Floridas newest U.S. senator -- and the nations latest political star -- weighed in on Veterans Day on Thursday.

According to a report from RealtyTrac, a California-based company that tracks foreclosed properties, one in every 155 Florida housing units received a foreclosure filing in October. The state's foreclosure rate was second only to Nevada, which had a one in 79 rate for the month. It was the third month in a row Florida has had the second highest foreclosure rate.

It shouldn't surprise anybody in Florida who's been watching state politics that Politico's list of "10 of the greatest 2010 campaigns" would include Marco Rubio -- but guess what? The list begins with Rubio.

The Florida Family Association (FFA) claimed another victory on Wednesday when David Caton announced that, after receiving e-mails from FFA members, Kodak pulled the plug on sponsoring DeGrassi: The Next Generation on Teen Nick. The FFA targeted DeGrassi due to, as Caton put it in an e-mail sent out on Oct. 27 to his supporters, the show targets teens with gay propaganda and other immoral behavior.

Any minute now, President Barack Obama's bipartisan commission on reducing the federal debt will release a draft calling for a tax code overhaul and deep cuts in miliatary and domestic spending starting in 2012. The idea, according to the New York Times, is to whack off close to $4 trillion from all projected deficits for eight years -- till 2020.

Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, now serving as the Ohio chairman of the Freedom and Faith Coalition headed up nationally by Ralph Reed and as a senior fellow for the Family Research Council, has launched a new group to push for a constitutional amendment forcing Congress to balance the federal budget. Blackwells new group is called Balanced Budget Amendment Now and they are demanding a congressional vote on the matter by October 2011. Heres the text of the proposed amendment: Amendment XXVIII Section 1.

Gov.-elect Rick Scott named two members to his transition team on Wednesday and pledged that its members would not lobby the state for the next year. Scott named Pat Gleason, currently working in Gov. Charlie Crists office as director of Cabinet affairs, to serve as open government coordinator to the transition. Scott also tapped Christopher Kise of Foley & Lardner to serve as the teams counselor. Kise previously served as counselor to Crist and as state solicitor general.

How could we have missed him? Yesterday's blog enumerating potential replacements for Florida Democratic Party Chair Karen Thurman failed to mention Rod Smith. Now reports are surfacing that the ex-state senator has an inside track for the job. One Miami Herald blogger plumped Smith's candidacy this way today:

Tip of the cap to Taegan Goodard and the team at Political Wire, for signaling out this quote from U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina in a story from the Weekly Standard by Stephen Hayes. "Marco Rubio is a natural leader and is likely to be a leader of our Party, said DeMint in the article. In five years, no one will remember Jim DeMint, and Marco will be president."

In the latest line of attack in his battle with U.S. Rep. Tom Price of Georgia to become Republican Policy Committee chairman, U.S. Rep. Connie Mack of Florida -- fifth in line in the congressional Republican leadership -- weighed in to support extending the tax cuts initiated by then-President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003. Mack sent a memo to all his Republican colleagues explaining the need for keeping the cuts.