Difference in number of voters who turned out for Florida’s Republican presidential primary in 2008 — 1,949,498 — and this year’s turn out of 1,661,824. If there was a nearly 300,000 dip in voter turnout in a Democratic primary, the corporate media would be tut-tutting about depressed voter enthusiasm, but since it is a Republican primary, Beltway pundits view the dip as a blip that is not worth mentioning.

A new liberal super-PAC called Credo has announced its first six targets of the 2012 campaign: GOP Reps. Joe Walsh (Ill.), Steve King (Iowa), Allen West (Fla.)*, Sean Duffy (Wis.), Chip Cravaack (Minn.) and Frank Guinta (N.H.).

All six are vulnerable: Walsh and West face uphill battles for reelection, while Duffy, Cravack, King and Guinta are all top Democratic targets.

A group spokesperson said it will release the names of its donors, and that it already had more than 13,000 individuals backing it. The group plans to eventually get involved in 10 House races and spend at least $3 million, with campaign offices open in each member’s district.

Matthew Arnold, the group’s spokesperson, said that the organization will focus on the members their liberal supporters personally dislike the most.

“We’re picking 10 of the most odious members of Congress, the guys who make us look bad by virtue of being there,” he said. “The freshmen in Congress have all taken extremely hard-line positions, things far outside the mainstream… so if you’re going to pick based on vote criteria you’d have to include all of them. These are people we”ve chosen because they’re personally odious.”

One target Credo members are likely to suggest is House Tea Party Caucus Chair Rep. Michele Bachmann, whose failed campaign has left her with low approval ratings in her home state of Minnesota.

* Update: Florida’s Allen West, who is best known as a war criminal who was forced to retire as a lieutenant colonel in the Army after pleading guilty to assaulting a prisoner in Iraq, announced yesterday that he has decided to run in a newly created, Republican-friendly district in order to avoid an aggressive campaign being mounted against him by Democrats, including Fort Lauderdale businessman Patrick Murphy and former West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel.

Granted, pickings were slim for Florida’s “true” conservatives. In a field of four, two of the candidates — Romney and Gingrich — have big government records. In the past, Romney has supported women’s reproductive rights and gay rights and imposed restrictions on guns. He also implemented the right-wing Heritage Foundation’s individual mandate as a big-government solution to health-insurance reform when he was governor of Massachusetts. Gingrich, who took millions in lobbying fees from federal housing agencies after he was forced out of Congress, has supported climate science in the past and advocated for NASA, the government-run space agency, while campaigning in Florida last week.

All four candidates — including the purportedly libertarian Texas Rep. Ron Paul — advocate criminalizing abortion, as do nearly all conservatives, despite the fact that it would require a vast new government-run law-enforcement bureaucracy to monitor the medical records of the 4 million women in the United States who become pregnant each year in order to ensure all those pregnancies are brought to term. The fourth candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, is known among regular voters as an anti-gay activist.

Among the four, Romney won in a rout, with 46.4 percent to Gingrich’s 31.9 percent. Santorum received 13.4 percent and Paul received 7.0 percent.

Exit polls found that 66 percent of Florida Republicans self-described as tea party supporters. Of those 41 percent voted for the erstwhile liberal Romney and 38 percent voted for Gingrich, who is the only House speaker ever convicted of ethics violations and who was forced to resign in 1997 while he was leading the impeachment of Pres. Clinton, at least in part because his colleagues learned Gingrich was engaged in a long-term extramarital affair.

A Washington Post-ABC News nationwide poll released last month found that the favorability ratings of both GOP presidential frontrunners are under water. Romney’s favorability/unfavorability is 31/49 and Gingrich’s is 29/51. Among independent voters, who will decide the election if it is close, Romney’s unfavorability rating is 51 percent; Gingrich’s is 53 percent.

The New York Times reports that a key factor in Romney’s victory in Florida was donations $100,000 or more to Romney’s super PAC by about 60 corporations and wealthy individuals. The super Pac spent millions on negative advertising in Florida that focused on Gingrich’s personal baggage and big-government record.

In December, Florida’s Rick Scott was ranked as the least popular governor by Public Policy Polling. PPP found that Scott’s approval rating among Florida voters was 26 percent, while 58 percent disapproved. In January, a Quinnipiac poll found that Scott’s approval/disapproval was still upside down, but had improved to 38-50.

Of course, Romney tried to distance himself from Reagan several flipflops ago:

Number of registered Republican voters in Florida who say they are still making up their minds who to vote for in less than a week. Their candidates have one more “debate,” as the press conference/Greek chorus/American Idol/Survivor T.V. contests are called, before the Florida primary. Another 64% of Florida Republicans said they have made their choice and will stick with it.

Florida’s very own Marion Hammer, inducted into the Florida Woman’s Hall of Fame by former Gov. Jeb Bush, and longtime National Rifle Association (NRA) head and lobbyist, led the way on expanding the rights of guns to go wherever they wanted, no questions asked (under penalty of prison). The Republicans in the Florida House and Senate just could not seem to do enough of her bidding.

And now they have to live with it. In a story surely destined for the Department of Ironies, the Florida legislature is finding out firsthand what it means to bring guns into everyone’s personal space. And many of them don’t like it.

…two months after a new law made it easier to bring concealed guns into the Capitol, the Senate security force has installed special alert buttons on the phone of every senator and staffer…

“Instead of reversing what we did, we’re resorting to panic buttons,” said Senate Democratic Leader Nan Rich of Weston, who opposed the new gun law. “It’s unnerving. My staff is very nervous.”

The new lobbyiest-written rules are a big change from the sanity of the past.

For years, Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents asked concealed weapons permit holders entering the Capitol to surrender their weapons and store them in a police lock box. If they refused, FDLE agents would notify the sergeant’s office, which would assign a guard to follow the person through the building.

But a law that took effect Oct. 1 pre-empts city and county governments from regulating guns except where the state expressly allows it. That includes the state Capitol, where guns are prohibited only in the House and Senate chambers and committee rooms.

I’ve been to the Capitol during session, and it’s a mad house. Every day, representatives from groups from all walks of life, every profession, and each of Florida’s 67 counties set up tables, hold marches, serve food, dress alike, carry signs, wear buttons, and generally jostle elbow to shoulder into the hallways, elevators, and offices of their elected representatives.

What the hey, let’s really spice it up and let people tuck guns into their waistbands, you know, just in case.

The Capitol building is naturally a place where emotions run high as the state’s most controversial political issues are debated often with large crowds in attendance. Every year brings a handful of incidents where an irate citizen or two is escorted from a committee room, an office or the public gallery in the House or Senate…

“I’m not worried about it,” said Sen. Greg Evers, a Panhandle Republican who has such a license.

Indeed, why worry? It’s not like anyone could fly under the radar, what with such stringent requirements for carrying a concealed weapon. I mean, people have to be at least 21 with no felony or controlled substance convictions and pass a gun safety course. What could go wrong?

Oh yeah, Arizona, Gabby Giffords, and all those dead people. O.K., but besides that?

Mack and Mary Bono, aka his Gingrich Problem

We’re not the only ones to notice that Connie Mack IV, nee Cornelius Harvey McGillicuddy IV, is one of the lightest weight lightweights ever to run on the Republican ticket for the Senate from Florida, and that’s saying something.

After all, this is the state that sent George LeMieux, whose claim to fame might be only that his last name contains more vowels than consonants, to fill the spot vacated by Mel Martinez, who quit partway through his term to pursue closer family relations.

That tendency seems to be largely Republican in nature, but at least Martinez wasn’t trying to spend more time with Sarah Palin’s family.

I digress.

The point is, someone else is taking a look at Mack IV (R), now running for the seat held by Sen. Bill Nelson (D), and coming up underwhelmed.

Palm Beach Post columnist Frank Cerabino sent a memo to Mack from his fictitious image consulting firm. In it, he presented Mack with answers he might use to address issues uncovered by opposition research.

Issue No. 1: Work experience.

Problem: Before trading on the name of your father (a U.S. senator) to begin your current career as a full-time servant of the people in 2001, the most meaningful employment you had was as a “special events coordinator” for a bunch of Hooters restaurants. Boiled down to its essence: You were the go-to guy for folks who wanted to have scantily clad waitresses appear at their events.

Solution: You will be effective in a Democratic-controlled Senate, because you already know what it’s like being surrounded by a bunch of boobs.

We thought Connie Macks II and III pretty well traded on Mack IV’s greatgrandfather’s name, and that no Mack has done much since the original earned his way into the Baseball Hall of Fame. In any case, all could agree that the genes are breaking down over time.

Issue No. 2: Education.

Problem: Despite being a legislator with a stated passion for education, you needed 6½ years to get an undergraduate degree in advertising, which you accomplished three months shy of your 26th birthday.

Solution: You’re not one of those educational “elites.” This will give you significant inroads with the tea party voters, who believe Ivy League educations and law-review honors are flaws.

If Mack takes that tack, it will give his platform some consistency, which cannot be said for this next part. We were not surprised that Republicans are deeply hypocritical and would both try to limit our right to sue — say, if a careless doctor prescribes a medicine that kills us — and run to a lawyer if their own neighbor’s dog barks. We knew that. No, we were surprised that Mack IV has been before judges so often.

Issue No. 3: Lawsuit trouble.

Problem: You once sued Ron Gant, an outfielder for the Atlanta Braves, for beating you up in a barroom fight.

Solution: It was not a frivolous lawsuit. The jury awarded you monetary damages.

Issue No. 4: Lawsuit trouble, part 2.

Problem: Yes, but the monetary damages totaled $1.

Solution: But that was 1992 dollars. The dollar was worth much more back then.

Issue No. 5: Speaking of public fights

Problem: You had at least four physical confrontations in public between 1987 and 1992, including one that ended with you being arrested for fighting with an off-duty cop who was working as a bouncer at a Jacksonville nightclub, and another when you got into a fistfight with another driver while you were waiting for a drawbridge to go down in West Palm Beach.

Solution: That was just part of your youthful-­indiscretion period.

Speaking of time in court, Mack’s 2006 divorce from first wife Ann was a goldmine for opposition researchers, and leads Cerabino to one of Mack IV’s biggest hiccups. Let’s call it his Gingrich Problem.

Issue No. 7: Not-so-youthful indiscretions.

Problem: Soon after getting to Washington, you ditched your Florida wife, the mother of your two young children, to marry celebrity U.S. Rep. Mary Bono, the former wife of Sonny Bono.*

Solution: Sidetrack the questioner with a distraction. Can you call up those Hooters girls again?

One can’t help but wonder if Mack’s past had something to do with his initial decision, announced just last March, not to run for the Senate.

U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV, son of the former senator with the same name, announced Friday that he’ll seek re-election rather than run for U.S. Senate.

“I’ve got two small children, and it’s hard enough to get to spend a lot of good quality time now. I have a wife. They are all very important to me, and at the end of the day family has to be No. 1,” Mack told the St. Petersburg Times.

Seeing the field of contenders lining up to run against Nelson, which roughly parallels the national selection running against Obama, Mack must have realized he had a shot.

And if it doesn’t work out, he can always fall back on his original plan to spend more time with family — maybe even Mel Martinez’s family, or Sarah Palin’s.

*Cerabino refers to Bono as Sonny’s “former wife” but it’s worth noting she is, in fact, his widow.

Number of non-competitive state legislative contests, out of 84, won in Florida by the candidate who spent less money in 2010. Non-competitive on a monetary scale means that one side raised more than twice as much as the closest opponent. That comes out to 97.7% of those with a funding advantage winning. Only 16 of 143 races were competitive, or 11%. California had even fewer competitive races, at 4%.

The results of a Quinnipiac poll on the Florida Senate race. Rep. Connie Mack (R-Ft Myers) garnered 40% support while incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) got 42%. Name recognition was cited as the main factor in Mack’s popularity, since he is the fourth person to be named Connie Mack, starting with his Baseball Hall of Famer greatgrandfather. Mack IV is also the husband of Rep. Mary Bono (who gained her seat upon the death of husband Sonny Bono) but has done little of note in Congress, where he is Chair of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere within the Foreign Affairs Committee.

So last year.

When you think of the Florida tea party, the names Gov. Rick Scott and Sen. Marco Rubio come to mind but neither man came to their state’s tea party convention this weekend.* A new trend of ignoring the once ascendant Koch-funded effort seems to be under way.

It’s hard not to think there’s a connection between the decline in the popularity of the tea party and the generally more favorable ratings for the Occupy movement. Nowhere was the so-last-year quality of support for tea partiers more evident than at their own Florida convention.

Of the major presidential candidates, only Rick Santorum confirmed to the Tampa Tribune this week that he’s attending. Ron Paul’s campaign couldn’t be reached for comment; the event isn’t on his campaign web site schedule, although event organizers said he’ll be there. Spokesmen for Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney all said they won’t make it…

“It’s like they’re throwing a party and the guests of honor aren’t going to show up,” said retired University of South Florida political scientist Darryl Paulson, a Republican.

By contrast, at the Republicans’ “Presidency 5″ meeting in September, not only did every major candidate on the party’s primary ticket appear, but attendees selected Herman Cain their straw poll winner, launching him to front-runner status, where he has remained to this day.

And at the Democrats’ recent Florida convention, Vice President Joe Biden headlined, along with Sen. Bill Nelson, the lieutenant governor and senator of Puerto Rico, and former Gov. and Sen. Bob Graham.

It’s not just lack of enthusiasm keeping the big names away. The combative group is its own worst enemy when it comes to working together to produce more than red-faced shouting.

But some campaign aides, asking not to be quoted by name, said the planning for the event has been disorganized…

Establishment Republicans, although they want tea party support, are wary of close ties to the movement, some experts said.

“For all the good the tea party has brought to the debate, they also carry quite a lot of liabilities,” said Republican political consultant Chris Ingram of Tampa. “Association with them is viewed as a negative.”

Paulson noted recent polling that shows the movement’s image has grown more negative. The approach of Republicans seems to be, “Be friends with the tea party but don’t get too close,” he said.

*Rubio did supply a video to be shown during the event.