On Thursday morning, the Florida Retail Federation PAC announced its endorsement of U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam, the Republican candidate for agriculture and consumer services commissioner.

The campaign team of Sen. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, unveiled a web video on Thursday morning that accused Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, their rival for the Democratic attorney general nomination, of running a negative campaign.

Locked in a close primary battle with a little over a month until the primary election, the three candidates fighting it out for the Republican nomination for attorney general announced on Wednesday that they would hold a debate on Saturday, July 31.

The debate between Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp, former Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Holly Benson and former Assistant State Attorney Pam Bondi will be held at noon on the Florida Decides Forum show which will be hosted by Bay News 9 in Tampa and News 13 in Orlando.

With President Barack Obama signing Wall Street reform legislation on Wednesday, Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Karen Thurman said Florida would greatly benefit from the new reforms.

Republican gubernatorial hopeful Rick Scott released his economic plan on Wednesday morning and he is claiming his seven steps will lead to 700,000 new jobs over the next seven years.

My seven-point plan isnt complex; in fact, its based on proven common-sense business principles, said Scott. I am the only candidate with a proven record of creating private sector jobs and my comprehensive 7-7-7 plan will put our financial house in order, balance the budget, and create the jobs Floridians desperately need.

Public Policy Polling just released a poll revealing state CFO Alex Sink, the likely Democratic candidate for governor, has a solid lead over Republican front-runner Rick Scott and a commanding lead over Attorney General Bill McCollum.

The poll had Sink with 36 percent, Scott with 30 percent and independent candidate Bud Chiles with 13 percent. Sink did even better against McCollum -- 37 percent for Sink, 23 percent for McCollum and 14 percent for Chiles.

Is Gov. Charlie Crist reaching out to national Democratic leaders? With rumors flying that Crist, who is an independent candidate for the U.S. Senate, is talking to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid about caucusing with the Democrats if elected, the campaign team of former House Speaker Marco Rubio, the likely Republican nominee, is demanding to know what is going on.

Former Rep. Loranne Ausley, the Democratic candidate for state CFO, is using the short special session on Tuesday to take aim at her Republican opponent -- Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach.

This week, we witnessed a complete failure of leadership and a complete waste of taxpayer dollars, said Ausley. The gavel-and-go strategy was nothing more than a charade and an attempt to play partisan political games without addressing the real problems facing real families and real businesses who are hurting as a result of the spill.

Conservative activist and businessman Chris Nwaskie is running in a crowded Republican primary to take on U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, who has been in Congress since 1992. Nwaskie who, like the rest of the Republican field, is not doing well in terms of cash on hand, went after Brown for being silent on recent contentions from the NAACP that the tea party movement is racist.

U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam, the Republican candidate for Floridas next commissioner of agriculture and consumer services, announced he brought in more than $205,000 in the second quarter of 2010. While the Putnam team did not say how much of the second quarter was in-kind donations, Putnam has assembled an impressive war chest -- with more than $1.3 million on hand.