A successful bid by the Seminole Tribe of Florida to gain a stranglehold on casino-style gambling in Florida for decades to come has exposed the state pari-mutuel industry to a world of threats that could imperil its future, industry spokespersons say.

I knew that I must have been off pretty badly when I casually wrote in this national column that Florida Gov. Charlie Crist would be a good example of a Republican that voters in critical swing states could accept in the upcoming elections for Senate and the U.S. House.

WASHINGTON -- As the Afghanistan War intensifies -- Marja, soon Kandahar, and the steady arrival of 30,000 new American troops -- it has come to be seen as Obama's war.

Not so. It's become America's war. When the former opposition party -- habitually anti-war for the last four decades -- adopts, reaffirms and escalates a war begun by the habitually hawkish other party, partisanship falls away, and the war becomes nationalized.

WASHINGTON -- The increasingly puerile spectacle of presidential State of the Union addresses is indicative of the state of the union, and is unnecessary: The Constitution requires only that the president "shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union." But a reaction may be brewing against these embarrassing events.

On Wednesday, the halls were packed with members of the Florida Cattlemans Association and the Florida Catholic Conference. Catholics and Cattlemen from around Florida were here to meet with their elected officials on important issues. For the Catholics, it was parental notification. For the Cattlemen, it was growth management.

In a speech Thursday to a hundred African American clergy and laity at the capitol, CFO Alex Sink demonstrated how difficult it can be to tell if state office holders are acting as campaigners or government officials.

Sink, the leading Democratic candidate for governor, seemed to be sounding only election themes, speaking on unemployment and education.

Florida has whacked its budget by $7 billion over the past three years. That's not just slower growth; that's a real decrease in spending.

Has Tallahassee cut all it can? Gov. Charlie Crist apparently thinks so,because he proposes a $2.7 billion hike this year.

It's a question increasingly asked, a sort of Internet Age social networking parlour game question: Who has the most friends or followers?

Could it be one of the candidates for U.S. Senate: Charlie Crist, Marco Rubio or Kendrick Meek? Or, perhaps a gubernatorial candidate: Alex Sink, Bill McCollum or Paula Dockery? One might even venture to guess it's former Gov. Jeb Bush.

A little bird told us the answer...