Florida businesses are working the immigration system to ramp up their projects and create jobs. And they're not looking for day laborers.

Adding more drama to an already colorful election, Lawton Bud Chiles III, son of a Florida political legend who served three terms in the U.S. Senate and two terms as governor, announced Thursday he was leaving the Democratic Party and launching a gubernatorial campaign with no party affiliation.

While emergency responders girded for an expected landfall of oil on Floridas coastline within the next few days, political figures mapped out plans and threw a little mud as frustration mounts over what has become the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.

Attorneys for indicted clients rarely shy away from hitting hyperbolic high notes. To say that Jim Greer's lawyer, Damon Chase, is heated up is an understatement.

"It's outrageous," the Orlando attorney said of the ex-Republican Party chairman's arrest Wednesday morning. "Twelve armed gunmen stormed his house and held his wife and children at bay while ransacking the place for 3 1/2 hours."

Saying "Elian Gonzalez was treated better," Chase denounced the "government thugs" who pressed the state's case against Greer.

WASHINGTON -- The only thing you need to know about the upcoming Republican primary race in Nevada is: Who does Harry Reid want to win?

In another instance of strange bedfellows, the answer is the same person the tea party people are backing -- former Nevada Assemblywoman Sharron Angle. When tea partiers and Democrats are on the same team, Republicans might need to worry.

Shortly after former Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer was arrested Wednesday morning, a flurry of candidates for office and other state political leaders reacted by releasing statements to the media: Here are excerpts from a few of those statements:

Gov. Charlie Crist requested in a letter to the U.S. Department of Commerce Wednesday that the federal government declare a commercial fishery failure in Florida due to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The designation would pave the way for Florida to receive federal money to compensate for the losses the commercial and charter fishing industry sustains from the spill. Florida would be the fourth Gulf state to receive the designation since the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon oil rig sank more than a month ago.

With U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam vacating his congressional seat to run for commissioner of agriculture and consumer services, a three-way race is shaping up as a serious challenger to the Democrats and Republicans has emerged on the Tea Party line.

The 12th Congressional District contains most of Polk County but also portions of Osceola County as well as the eastern part of Hillsborough County. Bartow, Brandon, Lakeland, Plant City and Winter Haven all fall in the district.