Every three weeks, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mel Martinez makes a point to meet with key fundraisers and strategists through an invitation-only conference call.
But at least one participant in Wednesday's call, led by Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist, wasn't expected.
"How are you going to handle my wife?" Vero Beach millionaire Jeffrey Saull piped up halfway through, referring to Karen Saull, who entered the race just last month but who so far has yet to make any public appearances or grant interviews.
Martinez, listeners said, didn't miss a beat. He told Saull that he hoped after the primary, the Saulls would support him in the general election.
REPUBLICAN TEST DRIVE: Volunteers will be manning phone banks and knocking on doors as a practice session for getting out the vote in November. Dubbed the 4W Test Drive, the 11-day effort to identify and mobilize Bush supporters begins Monday for Tampa Bay area party activists. Volunteers are expected to make at least 15,000 phone calls and knock on 1,000 doors in both Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.
BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND? In a cost-cutting move, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission last year stopped publishing its 56-year-old nature magazine, Florida Wildlife. In a letter to the magazine's 18,000 subscribers, commission executive director Ken Haddad blamed "a general trend toward privatization of certain government functions and a relatively low subscription rate."
The subscribers cried foul, and many of them wrote to state lawmakers demanding they do something. So they did.
A bill passed by the Legislature this spring commands that the commission revive the magazine no later than next year. There is little chance Gov. Jeb Bush will veto the magazine's revival: Savvy lawmakers incorporated it into a bill sought by the commission to revamp and streamline the structure of the wildlife agency.
ANNIVERSARY GIFT: John Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, celebrated their ninth wedding anniversary recently. So what does a ketchup heires s worth an estimated $500-million want for a gift?
"She said, "I want 27 electoral votes from Florida,' " Kerry told the crowd gathered last week to greet him at St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport. He assured her he would oblige.
"She said,"It's a promise I'm going to hold you to.' "
ANOTHER VOICE IN THE SENATE RACE: The Democratic Nationa l Committee weeks ago positioned a communications staffer in Florida to help spread the Democratic message for Kerry. Now the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is doing the same.
Alan Stonecipher, a top adviser in Bill McBride's 2002 gubernatorial campaign and former executive director of the Florida Democratic Party, will "craft communications message and strategy for Democratic efforts to win the U.S. Senate seat in Florida."
Word is that a key part of Stonecipher's job will be to go after former U.S. Housing Secretary Mel Martinez, the candidate Democrats are most worried about.
CASTOR MIA: Miami-Dade mayor and Democratic senate candidate Alex Penelas was right by John Kerry's side when the presidential candidate last campaigned in Miami-Dade. Likewise, U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch joined Kerry onstage in Palm Beach County last week. But the front-runner in the Democratic senate race, Betty Castor, was nowhere near Kerry as he spent two days in Pinellas and Hillsborough last week.
It's enough to make political wags wonder if Castor wants to distance herself.
Not at all, her campaign insisted, noting that she did once join several hundred people at a fundraiser for Kerry in Tampa. "Betty just had a scheduling conflict," said spokesman Matt Burgess. She was busy campaigning in Tampa and Dunedin.
- Times reporter Joni James, Anita Kumar, Craig Pittman and Adam C. Smith contributed to this report.
