Up briefly, a website on which Gov. Rick Scott hailed the work of tea party activists has been taken down by the Republican Party of Florida.
"The site was launched prematurely without final content and legal review from the party," said RPOF spokesman Trey Stapleton.
"We have been coordinating with the governor and he agreed with Chairman [Dave Bitner's] decision to pull the site until the review process is complete."
The up-and-down episode raised the hackles of hypersensitive tea partiers who suspect that the GOP took the site offline because Scott wasn't sufficiently deferential to Republican lawmakers.
On the site -- RickScottForFlorida.com -- the governor called on Floridians to urge their legislators to pass his budget.
A suggested e-mail read: "Please join with the majority of Floridians who denounce the out-of-control spending that is happening in Washington and in Tallahassee."
Scott's office on Wednesday directed Sunshine State News' questions to the RPOF, noting that the party funded the site.
Meanwhile, an undercurrent of discontent and distrust continues to churn among some tea party members who express increasing frustration with the state Republican Party.
Patricia Sullivan, head of the Tea Party Network, a coalition of 58 tea groups around the state, said she took notice of a recent RPOF press release tweaking Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and the two-year anniversary of the failed federal stimulus program.
"I wrote an e-mail saying, 'That's nice. When are you going to issue a statement about [Republican] Congressman John Mica [plumping for the high-speed rail project]?'"
"I never got a response," Sullivan said.
The RPOF was similarly mum during the intra-party squabble that followed Scott's rejection of federal high-speed rail funding. A dozen GOP state senators signed a letter asking the Obama administration to give the state another chance at the money, and Scott was subsequently challenged by one of those senators, Thad Altman, who joined with a Democrat to sue Scott at the Florida Supreme Court.
In contrast to those prickly relations, Scott has had warm ties to the tea party movement since his insurgent primary challenge to establishment Republican Bill McCollum.
Tea groups -- including the Florida TEA [Taxed Enough Already] Party, which has been sued unsuccessfully over its use of the "tea" name -- helped to energize the conservative base and propel Scott to a narrow victory over Democrat Alex Sink last November.
Still smarting from McCollum's defeat, some old-guard Republicans remain distant, if not dismissive, of tea partiers they consider ideological rabble-rousers.
At the RPOF's winter meeting in Orlando, only one candidate for party chairman even mentioned the tea party in the final speeches.
Joe Gruters got no applause when he called on delegates to reach out to "tea party and 9/12 groups." The Sarasota County Republican chairman, who had been singled out for praise by Scott during the campaign, finished a distant third in a five-person field.
RPOF's Stapleton downplayed any political friction and dismissed any conspiracy theories regarding the website.
"We're in constant communication with the governor. There was just a glitch in the process," he said.
Stapleton said he could not say who authored the content of the site. "I don't know how it was put together. But the site has to be balanced," he stated.
When will it be back up?
"There's no time frame. As soon as possible. We'll all agree on the content before it's relaunched."
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Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or (772) 801-5341.
