Politico's top story of Thursday morning regales the woes of organized labor's political campaign fundraising as it limps into election year 2012.

The Robin Bravender story claims that unions have been slow to coordinate their spending strategy under the new campaign rules: "They dont appear to have clear fundraising goals. Many say theyre planning to stick with the same tactics theyve turned to in the past, even after a bruising 2010 election."

Rick Scott is showing he's no drive-by governor. When he questioned last week whether anthropology grads are prepared for the job market, it wasn't just something he posed to a Tallahassee luncheon crowd. He also sent a detailed list of questions to state university officials, asking for information on issues related to whether graduates are primed and ready to find a good job based on their education.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., accepted an award for his conservation efforts at an assembly Friday in Lake Mary.

"Audubon of Floridas Theodore Roosevelt Award goes to lawmakers whose conservation efforts have made a notable impact on Floridas ecosystems and wildlife. Roosevelt was one of the founding members of the Florida Audubon Society and established the first National Wildlife Refuge at Pelican Island.

Congrats, Charlie, it's your anniversary.

Yes, it's been one year exactly since Florida completed its $197 million land deal with U.S. Sugar Corp., when Gov. Charlie Crist bought Floridians what amounts to a draft pick to be named later.

RPOF Chairman Lenny Curry issued a statement Tuesday on President Barack Obama's visit to Florida:

As the president comes to Florida today to raise money for his campaign, news reports say he will also be meeting with unemployed construction workers. During that meeting he should explain why his original $825 billion stimulus has failed to create jobs for them. Obama himself has admitted that the shovel-ready jobs included in the original stimulus were not as shovel-ready as we expected. We just cant trust Obama to get the job done.

Carole Crist, wife of pretend-to-be-partyless former Gov. Charlie Crist, became the first to go last week.

Go where? Over to the Democrats. She changed her registration -- it's official.

Think of Carole as a trial balloon. Charlie floats her up, sees how the wind blows, and should it blow her toward any of those Dems with the big bucks for, say, another Crist run for something-or-other -- whatever office we've got out there -- then Charlie might launch his own Big Campaign Balloon.

Jacksonville is set to be the next Florida battleground for presidential candidates, according to a press release issued Saturday by the Republican Party of Florida.

After consultation with campaigns and Republican officials, the RPOF and CNN have selected Jan. 26 in the northeastern Florida city as the date for the CNN/RPOF Republican Debate.

It's nearly Florida's time to shine. And if you listen to the nation's talking heads, the Sunshine State GOP has what Phil Musser, a former director of the Republican Governors Association and a frequent consultant in the state, calls "the real chance to be the decider."

In the 2012 election's early and highly speculative stages, strategists see Iowa and South Carolina as potentially good fits for Rick Perry, while Mitt Romney could do well in New Hampshire and Nevada.

A little bad weather never put off the Sarah Palin faithful, and so it was Saturday in Indianola, Iowa, as a boisterous crowd of about 2,000 braved driving rain and a muddy field at a tea party rally to hear Palin attack "crony capitalism" and the "permanent political class" that reinforced it. It's destroying the U.S., she said.

It's barely moving right now, but a tropical depression in the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana has shut down almost 6 percent of the regions oil production, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The system, which virtually popped up out of nowhere, is located at about 210 miles (338 kilometers) southwest of the Mississippi River mouth, the Miami-based center said today in an advisory issued before 8 a.m. EST Friday. The depression may become a tropical storm later in the day before reaching Louisiana over the weekend.