After 10 Glorious Years, Sunshine State News and I Are Passing the Baton

Is Gov. Charlie Crist reaching out to national Democratic leaders? With rumors flying that Crist, who is an independent candidate for the U.S. Senate, is talking to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid about caucusing with the Democrats if elected, the campaign team of former House Speaker Marco Rubio, the likely Republican nominee, is demanding to know what is going on.

Former Rep. Loranne Ausley, the Democratic candidate for state CFO, is using the short special session on Tuesday to take aim at her Republican opponent -- Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach. This week, we witnessed a complete failure of leadership and a complete waste of taxpayer dollars, said Ausley. The gavel-and-go strategy was nothing more than a charade and an attempt to play partisan political games without addressing the real problems facing real families and real businesses who are hurting as a result of the spill.

U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam, the Republican candidate for Floridas next commissioner of agriculture and consumer services, announced he brought in more than $205,000 in the second quarter of 2010. While the Putnam team did not say how much of the second quarter was in-kind donations, Putnam has assembled an impressive war chest -- with more than $1.3 million on hand.

State of the nations unemployment woes? Trust the Wall Street Journal to unsheathe its knives on this one as only the Journal can do. In an editorial in Tuesdays paper, Stimulating Unemployment, the Journal pointed out that President Barack Obama shouldnt be so eager to stage a look-at-these-poor-victims-of-Republican-heartlessness show, because all it does is call attention to the pathetic numbers of his own administration and the Democratic Congress over which he seems to have no control.