Ausley to bike to West Palm to promote CFO bid

Loranne Ausley, the Democratic candidate for chief financial officer, will put her campaign on two wheels this week as she bikes from Tallahassee to West Palm Beach. Ausley, a triathlete, plans stops in Gainesville, Apopka and Lakeland before ending up in West Palm, near the hometown of opponent Jeff Atwater.

Ausley will begin the ride tomorrow and finish up Friday. (UPDATE: The campaign had earlier planned a break during the trip, but Ausley decided to ride four days straight.)

Ausley, who has been down in recent polls and outgunned roughly 3 to 1 on TV, has relied largely on a message of cleaning up corruption in state government. Some might deride the bike ride as a campaign stunt, but it surely is a grueling stunt. (You'll remember that at the time, some criticized Lawton Chiles' legendary 1,000-mile walk across Florida as a stunt as well.)

Atwater ad ties Ausley to Pelosi

Jeff Atwater is out with a new TV commercial hitting CFO opponent Loranne Ausley. The ad tries to link Ausley with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and says Ausley is a "Tallahassee politician who wants total control of our money. Tough stuff from a campaign that has so far been pretty above board. The ad fails to mention, however, that Atwater's Senate pushed through (in a lean budget year) $2.2 billion in taxes and fees in 2009. Check out the ad (uploaded by the Ausley camp) below the jump.

Ausley TV spot hits on mess in Tallahassee

Here's CFO candidate Loranne Ausley's TV ad, heavy on the message of cleaning up the "pay to pay" culture in Tallahassee:

Jeff Atwater campaign spokesman Brian Hughes noted that his guy just pulled down five newspaper endorsements: "In the meantime, Ausley continues her campaign from the gutter. Ausley's commercial uses mops to claim that she'll clean things up. Well, it looks like Ausley needs those mops to clean up the trash and mud she's been slinging for months while hiding her liberal, tax-and-spend record."

Ausley urges Atwater to accept last-minute debate

CFO candidate Loranne Ausley today urged her opponent Jeff Atwater to accept a last-ditch debate -- on Oct. 28 in Miami for Univision. The Spanish-language station, which is sponsoring a debate today in the governor's race, has said that is the only date left that it can sponsor a debate.

"So I'm calling on Jeff Atwater to stop hiding, stop ignoring the issue of our state and his record, and have a debate," Ausley said. "No more excuses, no more stalling."

Earlier, a Florida Press Association/Leadership Florida debate for Cabinet races fell through after Atwater and AG candidate Pam Bondi didn't accept. Atwater's folks say they are considering the 28th: “We’re hoping to make it work,” said Atwater spokesman Brian Hughes. “But as you can expect, with 25 days left to go in a campaign, we can’t be everywhere all the time.” (Hughes points out they accepted the 21st, while Ausley's camp says it preferred both the 14th and 28th but would have taken the 21st if it were the only option.)

GOP operative slams Rubio, Atwater

Republican operative Chris Ingram is out with his ballot recommendations, and (surprise!) most of them are for Republicans or GOP-favored amendments. But a couple of races caught our eye: He endorses Libertarian Alex Snitker in the Senate race, Loranne Ausley in the CFO race and urges a no vote on the class size amendment.

In the Senate race, he calls Charlie Crist, Marco Rubio and Kendrick Meek all "crooked" and says Snitker "enthusiastic and sincere." Amendment 8, he says, would "erode public education."

But Ingram saves his strongest stuff for his endorsement of Ausley (really an endorsement against Jeff Atwater): Loranne Ausley is hardly a Tallahassee outsider, but running against State Senate President Jeff Atwater she looks like the Mother Teresa of Florida politics. Atwater is probably the most disingenuous and self-serving elected officials in the entire state – quite a feat in a state that is home to Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio. He rails against “big government” spending in Washington while balancing the state’s budget on the backs of the next generation in the form of Obama stimulus funds. Ausley probably would have done the same, but Republicans should expect and demand better. Send double-talking G.O.P. candidates a message by sending Atwater back to whatever rock he crawled out from.

RPOF hits Ausley on property tax votes

The Republican Party of Florida is out with another installment of its "Costly Ausley" website, this time hitting CFO candidate Loranne Ausley for her votes against Republican plans in 2007 and 2008 to provide property tax relief.

The legislation allowed homeowners to take their "Save Our Homes" property tax savings with them when they moved to a new house. (You know, back when home values were spiking and people were getting higher property tax bills instead of lower ones.) A second bill to cap property tax rates passed the House but died in the Senate.

"Even in the toughest of economic times, costly Loranne Ausley refuses to give Floridians tax relief," RPOF Executive Director Ronnie Whitaker said in a statement. "With 11.7% unemployment, Floridians simply can't afford Ausley's tax-and-spend policies in the CFO's office." (We should note that the votes didn't occur exactly in the toughest of economic times...)

Here's the response from Ausley's press guy Kevin Cate: “Jeff Atwater has once again retreated to the comfort of the disgraced Republican Party of Florida. Floridians deserve a CFO who will speak up and hold politicians like Jeff Atwater accountable, not hide behind political parties and hoard money. This is a JV political hit job by a JV, and soon to be out-of-work politician.”

Atwater: Ausley has a free lunch problem

Only a day after Loranne Ausley called for the Legislature to follow the law and audit lobbyist expendiature reports, Jeff Atwater's campaign is hitting Ausley for a bill she sponsored that they say would undermine the lobbyist gift ban. The bill in question would have allowed lobbyists to pay for up to $19 in meals for a lawmaker at a meeting where governmental issues or items in the public were being discussed.

“That reform (requiring the lobbyist audits) included a very matter-of-fact gift ban,” said Atwater spokesman Brian Hughes. “Just a few years after that, she sponsored this legislation which undermined the gift ban. That’s hypocrisy.”

Ausley spokesman Kevin Cate e-mailed over a response that did not address her bill: “It’s nice to welcome Jeff Atwater to the campaign, if only to defend his refusal to follow the law and audit lobbyists. Now if only he had a platform, or a defense of his $2 billion in tax hikes, or his votes for the $48 million Taj Mahal, or the $110 million private prison to nowhere, or his RPOF AmEx card. I’m sure this will all be explained in detail at the debate that he refuses to have with the real fiscal watchdog in the campaign, Loranne Ausley. ”

Ausley: Follow the law and audit lobbyist reports

CFO candidate Loranne Ausley is once again hitting opponent Jeff Atwater for decisions by the Legislature on his watch. This time, it's the Legislature's failure to audit annual lobbyist disclosure reports -- as required by law. Passed in 2005 (and supported by both Ausley and Atwater), the law requires lobbyists to say how much they are getting paid, and by whom. The law also requires audits, but as the Sarasota Herald-Tribune noted, none have been performed.

“There is absolutely no excuse for not following the law,” Ausley said. “Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent in this building influencing legislators and legislation in Tallahassee, and Floridians have a right to know the whole story.”

Senate staffers have said there aren't enough Florida auditing firms without ties to lobbyists and that the audits could cost between $750,000 and $1 million. Atwater campaign spokesman Brian Hughes noted that lawmakers submitted a request for proposals calling for 10 auditing firms to compete for the job -- one firm replied.

Hughes also hit on the cost in a statement: "Where does Ausley want money for this new bureaucracy to come from? Is she ready to cut $1 million from our schools or services for our most vulnerable kids or seniors?"

Poll: GOP up in Cabinet races, Amend 8 DOA, Hometown Dem might pass

The Republican candidates in the three races for Florida Cabinet are gaining traction with independent voters and slightly leading their Democratic rivals, according to a new poll that suggests 2010 is shaping up to be a good year for conservatives.

But it’s not a cakewalk.

The leads of Pam Bondi for attorney general, Adam Putnam for agriculture commissioner and Jeff Atwater for chief financial officer are well within the 4-percentage point error-margin of the Mason-Dixon Research & Associates survey of likely Florida voters.

The poll shows far clearer results when it comes to the Legislature’s plan to scale back a constitutional limit on classroom sizes. It appears headed for certain defeat at the Nov. 2 polls. Another proposed Constitutional Amendment, which would give citizens a vote in growth management plans, has a fair chance of passing.

While the Cabinet races are far tougher to predict, the poll indicates Republicans are enjoyed the support of voters with no party affiliation – the crucial swing vote in Florida.

“It’s a subtle sign that this is looking like a Republican year,’’ said Brad Coker, Mason-Dixon pollster. “I don’t think there’s a Democratic pollster out there who isn’t seeing this and who isn’t worried about it.”

Ausley wants Atwater to look into DLP issue

Democratic CFO candidate Loranne Ausley called on her Republican opponent, state Senate President Jeff Atwater, to investigate the connection between Senate Majority Leader Alex Diaz de la Portilla and a disgruntled contractor with the Department of Corrections.

Standing outside Diaz de la Portilla's office minutes before a torrential downpour in Miami Thursday, Ausley also called on Atwater to produce any records of any meetings he or his staffers may have had with representatives of the Miami Beach-based Orion Medical Enterprises, a kidney dialysis company.

"The most important and critical challenge facing this office and the entire state of Florida is putting an end to the pay-to-play culture of corruption that is crippling our state and our economy," Ausley said, citing the Diaz de la Portilla letter as "what looks to me like a classic example of pay-to-play politics."

Last week, Atwater's spokesman said he could not find any records of the company meeting with anyone on the Senate president's office, and added that Atwater did not know about Diaz de la Portilla's letter on behalf of the company to DOC. Diaz de la Portilla sent the letter a week after his brother Miguel received a $15,000 campaign contribution from the contractor.

Alex Diaz de la Portilla and the company have denied any link between the campaign cash and the letter.