George Mason, a delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, predicted that the federal government would become a site of the blackest crimes. Mason proved to be prescient. Washington, D.C., is a vampire, a vampire that continually saps the American populace and the American economy of its lifeblood: liberty.

With only days to go until the Iowa caucus on Tuesday, three polls released on Thursday found the first formal contest between the Republican presidential hopefuls is very close -- with former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania entering the muddled picture. Santorum had been pulling in single digits in the Hawkeye State in most polls taken in 2011.

U.S. Rep. Connie Mack has a strong lead on his competitors for the GOP nomination to take on Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, according to a new poll by TelOpinion Research.

The survey of 780 Republican voters, conducted Dec. 15-19, shows Mack -- the son of a former senator and grandson of a famous baseball manager -- carrying 39 percent of the vote, far outpacing the rest of the field.

There must be something about election years ending in 12.

As the nation entered a war with England in 1812, DeWitt Clinton offered a strong but ultimately unsuccessfulchallenge to incumbent James Madison in the presidential election. The 1912 presidential election ranks as one of the most important and colorful in American history as Democrat Woodrow Wilson beat out Bull Moose Progressive Theodore Roosevelt, while incumbent Republican William Howard Taft placed third.

For those Republican presidential candidates who eventually conclude there is no path to the nomination, there is consolation in the notion that they won't be the ones to face the brutal onslaught being prepared for the GOP king-of-the-mountain by team Obama and its army of "objective" media allies.

A move to put state pension money into Florida tech companies has taken off, with the investment increasing six-fold in size in three years and growing to $500 million, but it's still hard to tell if it had its intended effect ofboosting the state's economy, a state review has found.

Efforts to end a two-decade-old ban on bar contests where dwarfs are tossed, and another to allow middle school-aged kids to avoid gym class, appear doomed in the upcoming legislative session.

Historically, about 10 percent of the approximately 2,000 bills filed each year make it through both chambers during the regular 60-day session. House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, widened the odds for many of the bills that have been introduced for the 2012 session that begins Jan. 10.