Free Republic

As Mitt Romney puts the South Carolina primary in his rear-view mirror and hits the accelerator in a bid to win Florida, he may discover himself crashing headlong into the bitter legacy of Charlie Crist, the former Florida governor who defected from the GOP and was soundly defeated for the U.S. Senate by Marco Rubio. Romney’s “Charlie Crist” problem is this: Romney’s chief campaign strategist and several of his most senior campaign staff were Crist’s top political advisers — the same ones who crafted Crist’s moderate, ignore-the-tea-party strategy epitomized in Crist’s famous “hug” of President Barack Obama. That strategy led...

TAMPA - You may never have heard of Peggy Land, unless you're a Tampa Democratic political insider. She's a proverbial little old lady in tennis shoes, but along with her late husband John, she has also been a faithful Democratic political donor - some $20,000 to the party and its candidates over the last decade or so, plus more from fundraisers in their home, and none to Republicans. So who is Land backing in the U.S. Senate race?

TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is now investigating the state Republican Party’s finances and former GOP Chairman Jim Greer, who was ousted last month in a revolt within the ranks over spending. Party Chairman John Thrasher announced today that an audit he ordered…showed a possibly illegal relationship between “a senior-level official” of the party and a company doing business with the GOP… Greer resigned amid an uproar over a secret contract he entered into with Delmar Johnson, former executive director of the Republican Party of Florida. The contract paid Johnson a commission on fund-raising for the state...