As oil plumes threatened Floridas Panhandle shoreline Monday, the region prepared for a presidential visit in hopes of bolstering oversight and jump-starting cleanup efforts.

President Barack Obama is scheduled to spend the night in Pensacola Monday in preparation for a local tour Tuesday and a national address later Tuesday from the Oval Office in which he is expected to ask BP to set aside billions in cash to pay for future cleanup efforts.

WASHINGTON -- Under the current imperfect administration of the Universe, most new ideas are false, so most ideas for improvements make matters worse. Given California's parlous condition, making matters worse there requires ingenuity, but voters managed to do so last Tuesday.

With Rep. Pat Patterson, R-DeLand, term-limited and running an underdog campaign for the Republican state CFO nomination, a battle is developing to replace him in the 26th District House seat with serious candidates from both parties in the mix.

Four candidates have emerged in the district, which stretches across Flagler and Volusia Counties, west of Daytona Beach. The district includes Lake Helen, Orange City, De Leon Springs and parts of DeLand.

Though state waters in Escambia County had been closed to saltwater fishing for less than a day, some of the areas fishing-related businesses Monday afternoon were already fretting the loss of customers.

Today weve done about $20 in business, said Doug Vance, owner of Grays Tackle and Guide Service.

Bill McCollum's offensive against Rick Scott's well-publicized "mistakes" at Columbia/HCA is shining a light on McCollum's own health-care record in Congress.

Anyone who's been paying attention to the increasingly acrimonious Republican gubernatorial campaign knows by now that Scott was chairman and CEO of the HCA hospital chain when it was fined $1.7 billion by federal authorities.

On Monday former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, best known for his stab at the 2008 Republican presidential nomination and widely considered a candidate for the GOP nod in 2012, backed Attorney General Bill McCollum for governor and offered endorsements for other Sunshine State Republicans.

Newly released Census data show that Florida's Gulf Coast has grown more rapidly than any other coastal region of the country. It's a population shift that has the Obama administration on the horns of a dilemma.

The Senate this week will continue trying to make headway in passing the $115 billion tax extenders bill. Remember, this is the bill that adds about $60 billion to our debt.

Gov. Charlie Crists veto of HB 1143, a measure requiring women considering having an abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy to have an ultrasound, led to like-minded reactions from the governors rivals in a tight contest for the open U.S. Senate seat in November.