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National GOP chief calls for action

The chairman of the national Republican party, Michael Steele, made his first official visit to Florida on Monday to try to staunch the party's backsliding in voter registration in the nation's largest battleground state.

Florida Democrats have been building on their 650,000-plus edge in voter registration since the November election, netting about 33,000 additional voters. That gives the Democratic party a 42 to 36 percent advantage over the GOP.

''That's partly why I'm here -- to let the base know it's time to get busy, it's time to get to work,'' Steele said in an interview at the Renaissance at the Gables.

Gov. Charlie Crist backpedals on stimulus

Facing a potentially bruising Republican primary for the U.S. Senate, Gov. Charlie Crist continues to run from any assertion that he is linked to President Barack Obama.

Last week Crist told reporters he didn't know Obama was traveling in Florida. On Wednesday, Crist told a national television audience he didn't endorse the $787 billion federal stimulus bill pushed by Obama and passed by Congress in February.

``I didn't endorse it,'' Crist told CNN host Wolf Blitzer. ``I - you know, I didn't even have a vote on the darned thing. But I understood that it was going to pass and I wanted to be able to utilize it for the benefit of my fellow Floridians.''

Republicans are trying to find a voice and a direction

Comparing ideals to stars, a top Republican leader in Tallahassee presented lawmakers Tuesday with an old navigational instrument used by seafarers in uncharted waters. The sextants, said Senate President Jeff Atwater, would remind the legislators not to lose their way in a rough economy.

But hours later, Gov. Charlie Crist did, in fact, urge many of his party's elected leaders to change course. The Republican governor called for propping up Florida's budget with $12.2 billion in federal stimulus money, casting it as a moral duty even though the massive spending plan veers from his party's core belief in limited government.

The ideological tension within the controlling party in Tallahassee reflects the GOP's broader struggle as it tries to find a compelling voice on the outskirts of power in Washington.

Jeb Bush to help party rebuild

When national Republican leaders brainstormed about repairing their party's image after the setbacks of the last two elections, it was only natural that they would turn to Jeb Bush.

The popular two-term governor who led the fourth largest state to Republican dominance. A bilingual, telegenic and powerful near-celebrity. A policy wonk who heads his own education think tank.

Who better to travel the country, mingle with voters and articulate the Republican Party's agenda through the newly formed National Council for a New America? Bush is slated to join former presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Republican congressional leaders at the group's first town hall meeting Saturday in northern Virginia.

Voters' love affair with Gov. Charlie Crist cools off

The bottom is falling out from under Florida's once hugely popular governor.

A new Miami Herald/St. Petersburg Times/Bay News 9 poll finds only 42 percent of likely Florida voters think Charlie Crist is doing a good or excellent job as governor, by far the worst approval rating of Crist's 34 months in office.

As Crist seeks a promotion to the U.S. Senate, the race to succeed him is shaping up to be one of the closest the state has seen in decades. Democrat Alex Sink is statistically tied with Republican Bill McCollum, 38 to 37 percent.