Sources close to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, the 2008 presidential candidate who has moved to Florida and has become active backing Republicans across the Sunshine State, said he will back three more Florida Republicans today.

Jeff Greene, the billionaire running in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate nomination, went on the attack this weekend, reminding Floridians about his opponents connections to controversial figures -- linking Marco Rubio and Charlie Crist to disgraced former RPOF chairman Jim Greer and linking Kendrick Meek, through his mother Carrie, to controversial developer Dennis Stackhouse.

The Alliance for Retired Americans, a seniors advocacy group with 4 million members in the nation and 200,000 in Florida, announced it is backing U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, frontrunner for the Democratic U.S. Senate nod. "Throughout his career, Kendrick has demonstrated a strong commitment to improving the quality of life for older Americans, said the Alliance in its endorsement. His leadership on issues such as fighting Social Security privatization and strengthening the Social Security and Medicare systems exhibits that commitment.

Attorney General Bill McCollum won the Brevard County GOP's straw poll Saturday, but it wasn't exactly a landslide. Edging Rick Scott 247-178, McCollum maintained his front-runner status in the race for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. Of course, if the straw poll had been taken a month ago, the operative question would have been "Rick who?" The Brevard poll also suggested a tighter-than-expected contest for attorney general, with Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp besting former prosecutor Pam Bondi 209-177.

Taking another step toward commercial manned space flight, a Falcon 9 rocket was launched from Kennedy Space Center Friday. Built by SpaceX, a Silicon Valley-based company, the nine-engine, 180-foot rocket carried a mock-up of the company's spacecraft, named Dragon. NASA, which funded the project with $1.6 billion, hopes to use the Falcon-Dragon vehicle for hauling cargo and, someday, astronauts to the International Space Station.

In the very first sentence of his letter seeking an additional $100 million for Florida from BP, Crist misstates the mileage of Florida coastline along the Gulf of Mexico as 1,260. That's actually the total mileage for all of Florida's coastline. Only a little more than 770 miles of the state's coastline actually borders the Gulf. The other 580 border the Atlantic Ocean. Read the letter yourself in the attachment.

Today, Attorney General Bill McCollum negotiated a settlement with Office Depot, Inc. for $4.5 million. The settlement came as a result of allegations against Office Depot that claim the company "overcharged governmental agencies for office supplies in violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Practices Act," according to the attorney general's communications office press release.

In blogging about Attorney General Bill McCollum's appeal to Gov. Charlie Crist to sign the "ultrasound bill," Miami Herald scribe John Frank thought he detected a "contradiction."

While Republican gubernatorial candidate businessman Rick Scott attacks Attorney General Bill McCollum for links to disgraced former RPOF Chairman Jim Greer, the leaders of the Florida Democratic Party, which has blasted McCollum over Greer, do not think Scott has any credibility when it comes to ethics.

Former House Speaker Marco Rubio, the leading Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, weighed in on the numbers showing the national unemployment rate has gone down to 9.7 percent. Rubio does not think the numbers prove much solace for the economy due to increased government spending, even saying that the job growth is the result of public sector jobs.

Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Karen Thurman fired her latest volley over disgraced former Republican Party of Florida chairman Jim Greer being arrested. Current RPOF boss, Sen. John Thrasher, R-Jacksonville, took some exception over Thurmans call for William Shepherd in Attorney General Bill McCollums office to recuse himself from the case. Thurman sent Thrasher a letter today and tried to link Republican leaders to Greer.

With the national unemployment rate falling to 9.7 percent, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, the leading Democratic candidate in the race for the U.S. Senate, is expressing some hope that the economy is coming around -- and he is praising the Obama stimulus package for the start of the turnaround and claims that the measure led to more than 153,000 jobs across Florida.

Despite conventional wisdom holding that new independent gubernatorial candidate Bud Chiles would hurt the Democratic nominee more than the Republican one, GOP candidate Bill McCollums camp is tearing into Chiles.

With Moodys Investor Services reporting today that American ports will continue to face economic challenges for the next 12 to 18 months, Gov. Charlie Crist signed a measure reforming regulation of Floridas 14 seaports today. Other states in the region, including Alabama, Virginia and Georgia, will revamp their ports for the expansion of the Panama Canal that will be complete in 2015.

Gov. Charlie Crist is asking British Petroleum for an extra $50 million to fund the state's response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. With an oil sheen and tar balls looming not 10 miles off the coast of Pensacola, Crist sent a letter to BP America President Lamar McKay for $30 million for supplemental protective measures and $20 million for incremental local and state preparedness support costs over the first 60 days of the spill.