Sen. Mike Haridopolos is acting like he's got the votes lined up for the 2010-12 Senate presidency.
The Indialantic Republican claimed the mantle to lead that chamber following Sen. Jeff Atwater's term when J.D. Alexander and a cadre of other Republicans flipped to his side last week.
This weekend, he's spending his time doing what presidents-in-waiting have to: campaigning for Rep. Charlie Dean, the Republican vying for the open Senate District 3 seat.
Dean, a former sheriff and former Democrat, will also get help this weekend from Gov. Charlie Crist and Florida GOP chief Jim Greer.
Dean is facing Democrat Suzan Franks in Tuesday's special election.
As for Haridopolos, he said the future post is still a long way off.
"If there was an election today, we'd have the votes," he said. "What I need to do for the next two and a half years is be a good listener."

Notice a new tone in the Florida House?
Newly promoted House Majority Leader Adam Hasner of Delray Beach has wasted no time spicing up the press releases coming from the majority office.
After House Democratic Leader Dan Gelber and other Democrats attended property tax signing ceremonies around the state Thursday, Gelber's office released a statement commending Gov. Charlie Crist on the rollback but cautioning the Legislature shouldn't be trusted to protect education funding.
Hasner's office blew a gasket.
"It was amazing to see Democrats standing side by side with Governor Charlie Crist today as the Governor signed into law two Republican-sponsored pieces of legislation which will lead to this state's largest tax cut," read a statement he put out early this afternoon. "It was amazing because these same Democrats fought Republicans every step of the way as we delivered property tax relief for Floridians."
Gelber's own political shop felt obligated to respond a couple hours later.
Here's the letter from Gelber to Hasner:
"Adam:
"I got your note this afternoon. It looks like you are taking a new direction with your role of Majority Leader.
In case you did not get the memo in November, Floridians were clear they wanted to put an end to business as usual in Tallahassee . Governor Crist set a new tone of bipartisanship and challenged this Legislature to work together in putting the needs of everyday Floridians first. Governor Crist got the message and that is why he invited all legislators, including Democrats to stand with him as he signed a historic $15 billion tax cut in property taxes."
. . .
"Adam, you really do a disserve to your party and to Floridians with your constant political sniping. Instead of advancing an agenda of a party, let us work together to advance the people's agenda. I urge you to put an end to your smash-mouth partisan politics and take the Governor's cue and seek a higher ground where the interests of Floridians is more important than the interest of a political party or the ambitions of any individual. I hope you agree that this is the way to build a better and a stronger Florida .
This is the path to the high road. You are always welcome to join me here. "
Warm Regards,
Dan

House Democratic Leader Dan Gelber has always been something of a mad scientist quote machine, but the years of counting votes has also sharpened his math skills.
Here's the basic political calculus he says could doom the property tax amendment heading to voters Jan. 29. It's based on the pledge last week from GOP legislative leaders to ensure public education doesn't suffer if the amendment passes and reduces school district property tax bases.

Wildly popular Gov. Charlie Crist + equally hated Florida Legislature = < 60 percent of the vote now needed to amend Florida's Constitution.

"I think his 70 percent approval when balanced against the Legislature's 19 percent approval rating doesn't get to 60 percent," Gelber said Thursday. "It's a very simple issue: Do you trust the Legislature? I think I'm going to win this one."
The math may need some tweaking (Strategic Vision put Crist's approval rating today at 73 percent) but you get the gist.

The main draw in Florida's property tax fight is still seven months out, but interest groups that plan to spend money against the Jan. 29 constitutional amendment might have a shorter window than it seems to make a decision on campaigns.
The election on whether to start phasing out Save Our Homes for a more generous homestead exemption falls in a precarious spot on the calendar -- right on the heels of the Christmas holidays. TV ad time will be much more expensive, many politicos expect, even without the presidential hopefuls who may or may not be stumping across the state.
Florida Education Association spokesman Mark Pudlow says his teachers' union will probably decide within two weeks whether to mount a media campaign against the amendment. Besides consulting with local chapters, the 120,000-member union is talking to its national parent about an opposition campaign. Firefighters and police unions are facing a similar time frame.
"We're trying to take a look at the options out there and decide which way to go," Pudlow says. "We also understand there's a need for a quick decision on this."
Gov. Charlie Crist said Thursday it would be "irresponsible" for anyone to suggest public workers like teachers or firefighters could lose their jobs, the obvious focus on any such paid media campaigns.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist gets more kudos for his win last year in the latest Young Voter Mobilization Tactics report produced by George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management.
While voters aged 18-29 nationwide lean heavily Democratic, they proved the kings of swing in last fall's gubernatorial contest, with 50 percent of the nearly half-million who voted going for Crist and 49 percent for Democrat Jim Davis.
The report gives him credit for, among other tactics, winning the Facebook outreach, with eight such online networking forums touting him.
And despite the gray hair, Florida's electorate is trending younger, with young voter turnout growing by 8 points from 2000 to 2004, the report states.

With her legal options exhausted, Democrat Christine Jennings announced Wednesday she was ready for a vacation from the seven-month drama surrounding last year's quirky Sarasota County congressional race.
In a message to campaign supporters announcing she was stepping away with family, Jennings touted reforms to do away with paperless elections in Florida and a similiar push in Congress, and the fact that Sarasota broke with ES&S (the company that built their voting machines).
This month, Congress also launched its own investigation into why so many people who showed up at the polls in November failed to record votes in the District 13 contest.
But this week, Jennings also received a severe setback from a Florida appeals court in her lawsuit to get access to ES&S computer software.
"I believe I have accomplished much as an advocate for the voters and for fair and accurate elections," Jennings wrote. "Now, with the investigation underway and preliminary findings expected by July 27, I am going to spend some time away with family and friends and begin focusing on the future. I will announce my future political plans shortly."

Florida TaxWatch is going turkey hunting with Leon County's budget this summer.
The government watchdog group that annually targets state legislators' pet projects announced Wednesday it would delve into the county's budget to show it can easily absorb the statewide $15.6 billion tax rollback and cap passed by the Florida Legislature last week.
"We're going to ask questions like why would you want to cut public safety, why would you want to get rid of deputies or core infrastructure, things that you really need?" TaxWatch President Dominic Calabro said.
Calabro and a group of Tallahassee-area Realtors, lawyers and other professionals led by Stephen Hogge, a committee staff director in the Florida House, hope to demonstrate local governments have been squirreling away enough cash in reserves over the years to cover the hit they'll take this year.
But even Calabro said he doesn't doubt the constitutional amendment headed to voters Jan. 29 that would grow the size of Florida's homestead exemption would make significant cuts to core services.
"Its more challenging. When you start cutting into 20 to 30 percent of a government, it does effect core functions and it does effect people," he said. "Government spends most of its money on people."
Cities, counties, teachers and public safety unions are sure to wage an all-out war on the amendment, which critics argue will force widespread cuts in public services like fire, police, education and parks.
Gov. Charlie Crist has said repeatedly he doesn't think firefighters, police, EMS and other emergency workers will be laid off.
Crist has also laid some of the same groundwork as TaxWatch, claiming last week that local governments had as much as $9 billion in reserves they could use for property tax cuts. That figure now appears to be the product of incorrectly lumping many dedicated fund balances together and calling them all reserves, even though local governments can spend them only on specific services
Calabro agreed that the governor's figure was probably a little too high.
"It's far more inclusive then we would have used," he said. "I don't know where that number came from."

At the same time Gov. Charlie Crist was announcing his Open Government Reform Commission Tuesday, his office was readying two public records exemptions for his signature.
One, House Bill 7169, exempts a raft of records related to the state's Workers' Compensation Joint Underwriting Association from public inspection, including fraud complaints.
The second, HB 7201, preserves two already exempt areas of government activity: records on economic development projects the government tries to lure to Florida, and records from said companies that might reveal trade secrets, employee information, and the like. The exemption has drawn heat in the last couple years for blocking public access to information on projects like Scripps that have locked up sizeable commitments of taxpayer dollars.
While Crist was also announcing his new commission, the chairwoman, Barbara Petersen of the First Amendment Foundation, was also getting ready to name him the organization's annual "Friend of the First Amendment" for the second time in three years.
For certain, Crist is deserving. He has already taken two large steps toward reversing years of erosion in Florida's Government-in-the-Sunshine law.
Crist has created an open governnment office to help the public navigate the many barriers standing between the people and their state government. He's also now created a study group that will report back in 18 months.
Florida's much-praised public meetings and records law are the envy of many other states. But they also contain a phone book of exemptions that lawmakers add to every year.
Now Petersen's commission has two more public records exemptions to study.

Now that the Legislature's warp-speed property tax session is over, state lawyers, regulators and interest groups are bound to spend weeks sorting out exactly where the warts may materialize.
Already, one opinion from the Fort Lauderdale law firm Weiss, Serota, Helfman, Pastoriza, Cole & Boniske suggests lawmakers may have goofed with their statutory freeze, cut and cap imposed on cities, counties and special districts.
The bill, HB 1B, doesn't have to go to voters to take effect this fall and allows Gov. Charlie Crist and lawmakers to say they fulfilled their promise to drop taxes this year.
Homeowners would get a state average of $174 from the bill.
The problem: It would seem to force many local governments to lower their millage rates despite the provision of the Florida Constitution, Article VII, section 9, that says local governments "shall ... be authorized by law" to impose property tax rates of up to 10 mills.
The law firm that wrote it boasts a big public-sector client list including the cities of Miami, Orlando, Hollywood, Boca Raton and the Collier County School Board. It also happens to be hosting a June 26 "emergency briefing" at the Hilton Fort Lauderdale Airport to discuss the Legislature's handiwork along with "what remedies are available to municipalities and counties throughout Florida."
Its 5-page opinion is based on a 1994 state Supreme Court ruling that stated the freedom to impose tax rates of up to 10 mills was a core component of home rule.
The separate constitutional amendment the Legislature slated for a Jan. 29, 2008, election, seems to address this question by spelling out that state lawmakers can limit property taxes by general law.
But even if it passes, it wouldn't be on the books until long after the statutory cap takes effect.
"They're going ahead and doing it even before they have the constitutional authority to do it," says Jamie Alan Cole, an attorney with the firm.
Several lawmakers have seen the opinion, although none wanted to discuss it. All House Speaker Marco Rubio's office would offer was a blanket statement that "Speaker Rubio believes the actions were legal and constitutional."
Read it here: LegalAnalysisPropertyTaxReform.pdf