Tallahassee lobbyist and longtime campaign adviser John Mac Stipanovich dismisses those underfunded candidates who emerge and promise a mostly grass-roots campaign, built on glad-handing Florida voters.

Stipanovich is a campaign realist who served as chief of staff to ex-Gov. Bob Martinez and adviser to such political stars as Jeb Bush, Katherine Harris and Charlie Crist. He evokes a simple standard for statewide candidates:

The barbecue rule.

A mood swing swept Florida this week.

With the clock on the Gulf oil spill passing the 50-day mark, Florida officials jettisoned their measured response and began loudly airing frustration with British Petroleum and cleanup efforts, as tar balls, sheen, boom and skimmers became the vocabulary of a Sunshine State summer.

Tax breaks for Gulf coast property owners could be part of the mix in a proposed special session sparked by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill which Gov. Charlie Crist is looking to call as early as next month.

Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink pushed Crist to embrace the tax reduction plan Tuesday as the governor and Cabinet heard presentations from BP along with state environmental, wildlife and revenue officials about the effects of the massive spill.

The Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster could lop $2.2 billion off Floridas still-fragile economy and cost 39,000 jobs mostly in the tourism and fisheries industry, a University of Central Florida economist predicted Monday.

Hotel and restaurant industry leaders said the first signs of that decline are emerging as the encroaching oil spill diminishes what for most had been a strong Memorial Day weekend, possibly fueled by the states television advertising campaign.

The plotline of Floridas summer of oil got a little thickerlast week.

Tar balls started making their way onto Pensacola Beach as sheen from the Deepwater Horizon rig neared the states Gulf coastline for the first time since the April 20 disaster. State leaders including Gov. Charlie Crist, Attorney General Bill McCollum and Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink all made detours to the Florida Panhandle with political careers and the states tourist industry now at stake.

The odds on close to $1 billion in extra Medicaid money which Florida officials have been banking on for months have gone from looking like a sure thing to what one observer said Tuesday was 50-50 at best.

Already ridiculed by the Legislatures ruling Republicans, Gov. Charlie Crist is poised to further antagonize many of those in his former party when he signs Floridas $70 billion budget Friday.

Crist is expected to veto the Legislatures shift of $160 million out of the states Department of Transportation trust fund into public school spending, a move that had been pushed by Republican leaders in the House but supported reluctantly by the Senate.

Gov. Charlie Crists switch on the militarys dont ask, dont tell policy Thursday left the no-party Senate contender caught in a crossfire of criticism from his Democratic and Republican opponents.

With Congress moving toward votes on repealing the policy that prohibits gays from serving openly in the military, Crist dropped his support for continuing the ban. As recently as Monday, Crist told reporters that the current policy, has worked pretty well for America.

But by Thursday, Crist said he supports the repeal.

U.S. Reps. Corrine Brown and Mario Diaz-Balart have filed a lawsuit seeking to block a proposed constitutional amendment aimed at overhauling how congressional boundaries are drawn.

Brown, D-Jacksonville, and Diaz-Balart, R-Miami, earlier this year testified before legislative committees against the FairDistricts proposal, Amendment 6 on the November ballot. The lawsuit, filed late Monday in Leon County Circuit Court, echoes the lawmakers testimony that the measure misleads voters and could hurt minority representation in Congress.

A century-old provision of the Florida Constitution may soon be dusted-off for the first time before the state Supreme Court, with the fate of millions of dollars in state funding to religious organizations hanging in the balance.

The states First District Court of Appeal is asking justices to decide whether Florida has violated its constitutional ban on state money going to any church, sect, or religious denomination, or in aid of any sectarian institution.