When state senator and Florida Republican Party Chairman John Thrasher shared a St. Augustine stage last week with statewide GOP candidates at a tea party rally, it was conveniently located in his district.

Florida will become the third state to seek a waiver of the controversial medical-loss ratio provision of the Affordable Care Act, the remnants of President Barack Obama's health-care reform law signed in March.

With Sen. John Thrasher of Jacksonville, chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, vowing that the incoming Senate will be the most conservative upper chamber in 40 years, the Republicans gleefully look to expand their majority in November -- and believe they have a great chance of doing so.

But it wont be easy. And it's highly likely they will win the four more seats it would take to reach a supermajority. They're close -- and will be closer after Nov. 2 -- but they are likely to fall two seats short.

With Congress abandoning plans to vote on taxes before Election Day, the clock is ticking toward Dec. 31 and the expiration of the Bush tax cuts.

Disgruntled donors who want Gov. Charlie Crist to return contributions made when he was a Republican will have to file their cases individually, a senior circuit court judge ruled Thursday by rejecting a motion to allow thousands of cases to be joined in a class action lawsuit.

An ambiguously worded state statute could put Florida in the middle of another national controversy this fall.

While admitting to not having seen what's in the Republican "Pledge to America" today, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Kendrick Meek used its tenets to attack the policies and records of both Republican Marco Rubio and the no-party-candidate Charlie Crist.

WASHINGTON -- Although a Niagara of vitriol is drenching politics, the two parties are acting sensibly and in tandem about something once considered a matter of constitutional significance -- the process by which presidential nominations are won.

WASHINGTON -- When facing a tsunami, what do you do? Pray, and tell yourself stories. I am not privy to the Democrats' private prayers, but I do hear the stories they're telling themselves. The new meme is that there's a civil war raging in the Republican Party. The tea party will wreck it from within and prove to be the Democrats' salvation.