Now that Jeb Bush has taken himself out of the 2012 presidential sweepstakes, the former Florida governor is delving more deeply into humanitarian endeavors.

The PAC for 100,000-member Associated Industries of Florida handed Rick Scott his most prestigious recognition yet on Wednesday, endorsing both the health-care executive and his opponent, Attorney General Bill McCollum, in the Republican primary for governor.

The rock-'em, sock-'em campaign by Rick Scott and Bill McCollum is driving up the negatives of both GOP gubernatorial candidates, a new poll reports.

One looks like a tanned, slicked-back lothario, whirling across the floor on Dancing with the Stars; the other, a bitter, lonely wallflower at the high school prom.

With the fate of Floridas public campaign finance law before a federal court, Republican Bill McCollums campaign continues to work the margins with millions of dollars swirling around and passing between murky political committees.

Many of the wonderful-sounding ideas that have been tried as government policies have failed disastrously. Because so few people bother to study history, often the same ideas and policies have been tried again, either in another country or in the same country at a later time -- and with the same disastrous results.

With less than a month until the primary election Aug. 24, Greenacres' Sen. Dave Aronberg shot down the idea of holding 11 debates with Sen. Dan Gelber of Miami Beach, his rival for the Democratic attorney general nomination.

The campaign trail took a number of prominent politicians to South Florida on Tuesday. U.S. Senate candidates Gov. Charlie Crist and U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek spoke to the Florida Sheriff's Association 2010 Annual Summer Conference in Fort Lauderdale. So did Republican gubernatorial primary candidate Rick Scott. Meek later spoke to the United Democratic Club of Century Village in West Palm Beach