A poll conducted by Magellan Strategies for the New Hampshire Journal finds that former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts remains in the lead in the first primary state, but a new candidate -- Gov. Rick Perry of Texas -- makes his debut with a strong second-place showing.

The poll was unveiled Wednesday.

The recent tumult over the debt ceiling deal, the subsequent S&P downgrade of U.S. debt and resulting stock market rollercoaster ride have Florida finance officials patiently weathering the storm.

National markets exhibited a Jekyll and Hyde act last week, plunging hundreds of points down one day then hundreds of points up the next, as traders attempted to make sense of the domestic debt deal, Europes debt crisis, the fallout from the earthquake in Japan and the persistent discord in the Middle East.

Florida Republican Congressman Vern Buchanans bill to open up the bicameral "supercomittee," tasked under the recent federal debt-ceiling deal to cut spending, received some conservative support Wednesday when the National Taxpayers Union (NTU) backed the bill.

The NTU, which has been fighting for decades for lower taxes and smaller government, has sent letters to all members of Congress urging them to back Buchanans bill, which is sponsored by U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., in the Senate.

If there was one clear winner of this year's legislative session, which was dominated by a sweeping, ambitious Republican agenda that left no issue untouched, it was lobbyists.

In spite of Florida's economic woes, legislative lobbyists raked in as much as $52 million from April to June, up from as much as $49.3 million spent on lobbyists that same time last year.

Lobbying firms Gray Robinson; Ron Book; Smith & Ballard and Southern Strategy Group earned the most, with each reporting income of greater than $1 million for the quarter.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott on Tuesday defended legislative actions that prompted a leading rating agency to downgrade the credit rating of the South Florida Water Management District, which oversees billions in debt for a host of issues from flood protection to Everglades restoration.

Following on the heels of its decision to downgrade its debt rating on the U.S. government from AAA to AA+, Standard & Poor's last week did the same for the water management district.

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann's campaign says she does not plan to participate in Florida's Presidency 5 straw poll next month -- dealing another blow to the state Republican Party's quadrennial event.

"Congresswoman Bachmann is working hard with a focus on the 2012 caucuses and primaries. There are no plans for her to take part in any other straw polls, including the Florida poll," Doug Sachtleben, a spokesman for the Minnesota lawmaker, said in an e-mail to Sunshine State News Tuesday.

If Florida lawmakers cant fix the states skyrocketing, fraud-ridden personal injury protection (PIP) insurance system, it should be abolished, Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater said Tuesday.

Its my thought that in this session (2012), if we cant come up with a package we believe will be able to arrest the growth rate of premiums on the people of Florida ... that we need to consider the alternative, Atwater said after a Cabinet meeting.