On Monday morning’s Fox and Friends, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney let out another one of those “I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake!” bursts of honesty which, like a burlesque revue at a leper colony, are revealing, but not in a good way. Asked if his father’s Mexican birthplace is helping him with Florida’s Hispanic community, Romney replied “You know, I wish I could claim that I’m Hispanic…”

Congressman Allen West spoke at a Florida GOP dinner last night, and had some fighting words for Democrats who are trying to mark Florida in the win column this November. He declared it a “battlefield” for citizens to stand on and tell the Democrats that their message is not going to resonate with the citizens of Florida. West called out not just President Obama, but Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and fellow Floridian Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

BBC World News anchor Katty Kay got off a cheeky one-liner that had her fellow Chris Matthews Show panelists chuckling (and in Kathleen Parker‘s case, perhaps blushing) when she assessed Florida’s importance in electoral politics by saying “It’s very big, and it swings.”

That’s probably true, but it’s fair to ask what good that does, given the state’s history of electile dysfunction.

A new poll out from Florida shows Mitt Romney with a 15-point lead over Newt Gingrich, and on ABC’s This Week today, Jake Tapper asked how Gingrich’s Florida numbers will end up impacting the rest of the race. George Will didn’t mince words, declaring right out that Gingrich does not have time on his side, and the more time he has, the more he talks, and the more he talks, the more he makes somewhat divisive remarks.

Politicians are well-known for playing standard musical fare at campaign events, but Newt Gingrich supporters who showed up early to a speech he gave yesterday in Florida would have heard a rap song playing with lyrics telling people to support Gingrich for president. The song was written by three 18-year-olds from St. Lucie, and they got permission from the campaign to play their song at the event.

Last night at a Republican fundraiser in Florida, former presidential candidate Herman Cain endorsed former rival Newt Gingrich for the GOP nomination, praising him for being a “patriot” and his willingness to press ahead in the race even after “going through the sausage grinder.” Cain appeared on stage at a West Palm Beach County Republican event a week after making his “unconventional endorsement” and made a presidential endorsement that was decidedly more conventional.

On Wednesday’s edition of Now with Alex Wagner, perpetual motion machine and Hardball host Chris Matthews showed up to liven things up. In a segment about the current slugfest between former Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Gov. Mitt Romney in Florida, Matthews (seated next to former Obama spokesman Bill Burton) called out GOP strategist Phil Musser for being a “Romney guy,” and concluded the segment by throwing host Alex Wagner off, responding to her kind outro by saying “This is how you dump guys, huh?”

On Tuesday’s Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough took a moment to speak with GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, whom he’s known for some time. Santorum told the host he was gearing up to visit his old stomping grounds in Pensacola, Florida.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, reeling from his defeat in the South Carolina primary, and now trailing in the polls in Florida, has released a new ad in the Sunshine State that goes over familiar territory like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich‘s non-lobbying for Freddie Mac and his historic ethics fine, but which is punctuated with Romney’s last enduring argument for Republican voters: Barack Obama and Co. are rooting very hard for a Gingrich win.

Mother Jones has a profile up about Reverend O’Neal Dozier, a pastor who runs the Worldwide Christian Centor in Pompano Beach, Florida, who currently serves as the honorary chairman of Rick Santorum‘s Florida campaign. Dozier is a well-known social conservative who obviously shares many of Santorum’s views on issues like gay marriage, but has made rather controversial statements that have raised people’s eyebrows over his connections to the GOP candidate.

Mitt Romney‘s campaign is looking forward beyond South Carolina and straight down to The Sunshine State. In an effort to court Florida’s Spanish-speaking contingency — particularly, it would appear, Miami’s Cuban population — Romney’s new ad features Cuban-born politicians Mario Díaz-Balart, Lincoln Díaz-Balart, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, as well as Romney’s son, Craig, all speaking entirely [...]

Current GOP frontrunner Newt Gingrich referenced a popular (among right-wingers) but baseless attack against President Obama this weekend during a speech in Naples, Florida. Challenging the President to a series of Lincoln-Douglas style debates, Gingrich told the crowd “If he (President Obama) wants to use a teleprompter, that would be fine with me.”

Unfortunately for Newt, he specifically referenced health care, a subject for which we already have a reliable debate preview.

After two 12-year-olds shared a kiss on the school playground, an administrator at Lee County, Florida’s Orange River Elementary School called… The students’ teachers? Their parents? A squad of ruler-wielding nuns? No: The sheriff’s office.

The Washington Post is having an identity crisis. It isn’t their identity that is at play– it’s Sen. Marco Rubio‘s, one they challenged because the Senator misstated the exact date of his parents’ exodus from Cuba. Those few years, they contend, turn the exodus into an emigration, and their trauma into fraud. Sen. Rubio responded in kind, writing in a column in Politico that it was “an insult to the sacrifices my parents made.” He’s wrong– his parents aren’t the ones the Post has insulted, but the parents of all million or so Cuban-American exiles, and the intelligence of its readers.

On Monday’s Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert came up with a solution for saving the billions of jobs that John McCain says we’re losing over regulation, legalizing “dwarf tossing.”

Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann appeared on CNN’s State of the Union today, and Candy Crowley suggested that the congresswoman’s campaign may be “imploding” because of her poor showing in recent polls following her victory in the Iowa straw poll only several weeks ago. Bachmann countered that Crowley’s assertion was “completely inaccurate.”

Several Republican candidates are planning on boycotting Univisión’s proposed January 29th debate in Miami after a report surfaced that the network allegedly tried to blackmail Florida Senator Marco Rubio into an exclusive interview. Governors Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman, and Rep. Michele Bachmann have announced they will boycott.

In a replay of a scenario that played out on the Democratic side in 2008, four early Republican primary states are threatening to move their primary dates in response to Florida’s Wednesday announcement that they’ll hold their primary on January 31. The prestige of the early primary, and the attendant relevance, are strong enticements, but before any more states decide to get in on the action, they ought to remember how things turned out for the Democrats of Florida and Michigan in 2008.

Fans of the prison reality television program Lockup got some sad news this week, as Florida governor Rick Scott canceled a contract with the series arguing that the prison officials signing it did not have the authority to do so. Somewhere along the line, rumors began to circulate that Scott did so in retaliation for MSNBC, and specifically Rachel Maddow, who has often criticized his government. Donning a prison uniform, Maddow tossed to the Friday night airing of Lockup with a special edition of “Debunktion Junction,” disproving any claim that the issue was related to her.

If you’re in the prison documentary game, you know that you’re going to be spending plenty of time in Florida. For some reason, that’s where the bizarre crimes happen, and hence, the prisons are stuffed with some real choice inmates. So it’s no surprise the producers of MSNBC’s long-running Lockup signed a reported $100,000 contract that would allow the series to shoot inside the Santa Rosa Correctional Institution in Milton, FL. The Lockup team had done about a week’s work when Florida Governor Rick Scott stepped in, and pulled the plug. As Dara Kam writes in The Palm Beach Post, the Governor says his Department of Corrections secretary, Ed Buss, didn’t have the authority to sign the contract “because it did not deal with the day-to-day operations of the state prison system.”

Rep. Allen West has made a bold statement in the defense of LGBT rights, sort of. The Tea Party-backed Republican Congressman known for some controversial views explained local paper South Florida Sun-Sentinel that he believed that “everyone has the same basic rights,” but “people can change their sexual behavior” like any other behavior, not that he wanted them to do that.

Maybe Florida Governor Rick Scott should’ve been better prepared for a debt ceiling discussion with two morning news anchors–who both happen to be business correspondents. But on CNN’s American Morning Wednesday, Scott deflected a series of pointed questions from Christine Romans, and when co-host Ali Velshi jumped in, tag-team style, Scott stuck to his talking points. It was a refreshingly tense and entertaining interview, even if the anchors couldn’t get any of their direct questions answered.

Those looking for fodder with which to label Florida Republican Rep. Allen West sexist, the most recent of which being his email rant to DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz calling her “vile” and “not a lady” (though his misunderstanding of the lives of Spartan women is definitely up there). In her weekend commentary today, however, Fox News contributor Liz Trotta avoided the usual gripes, instead bringing up the unusual complaint that being a “big biker” have led some to call him “anti-women.”

If you were trying to think of a name that would look really, really bad on a resume almost anywhere in the country today, “Casey Anthony” would be a good choice. Just ask Casey Anthony. No, not the one from Florida who gets out of jail this week. We’re talking about the Casey Anthony of Philadelphia–the guy who named both his kids Casey Anthony and now has a bit of a problem with strangers calling to tell him what a horrible person he is. “[They were] making comments about the verdict; who am I to take a child’s life,” Anthony said. “And then I’m sitting back like, excuse me? I’m not the Casey Anthony you think.”

As Anthony told the NBC station in Philly, angry folks started calling immediately after the jury in Orlando found that other Casey Anthony not guilty on all felony counts involving the death of her daughter Caylee:

Remember former Congressman Alan Grayson? Grayson quickly become one of the most well-known freshman representatives for his brash style and unabashedly liberal politics, but couldn’t survive his first reelection bid last November. He now occasionally pops up on television– like this latest appearance this week on Follow the Money, where Grayson did everything he could to act dismissive and annoyed at host Eric Bolling for challenging his politics.