1. Like the Tampa Bay Lightning, I'm at my best in the fourth quarter of the ninth inning of a football game where the shot clock is winding down.

2. My wife Peggy says women find a guy sexy who can recite Medicaid reimbursement rates.

3. Instead of policy debates about the future of our state, I'll beat my opponents in Fear Factor and XBox.

4. My wardrobe of 23 blue shirts, 17 pairs of of khakis and 10 blue blazers were personally selected by the guys from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

5. I am not afraid to lose my tan - if I ever get one.

6. I'm as good a singer as Bob Graham.

7. While Gov. Jeb Bush is still using e-mail, I'll make sure all 17-million Floridians know my IM screen name.

8. Unlike this current administration, I'll take the for sale sign off the state Capitol.

A Tallahassee Democrat analysis of voter turnout for the 2004 presidential election found that, statewide, blacks were 9 percent less likely to go to the polls than the voting population as a whole once they registered to vote. In fact, voter turnout for blacks was lower in all 65 counties that collected that data except one, Osceola.

Black-voter turnout ranged from 48.8 percent for Highlands County, one of the lowest, to 79.1 percent for Jefferson County, the highest.

In comparison, turnout for all voters ranged from 57.3 percent for Hendry County, the lowest, to 81.9 percent for Flagler County, the highest.

"African-American voting participation is generally 5 percent to 10 percent below the majority population, and that's why nobody [to wit: the State of Florida] wants to keep this data," [Leon SOE Ion] Sancho said. ...

Jenny Nash, spokeswoman for the Secretary of State's office, which includes the Division of Elections, was on vacation this week. Despite repeated phone calls to the department and a request to speak with Secretary of State Glenda Hood, the Democrat was told repeatedly over the course of a week that no one but Nash could respond to Sancho's comments.

"If you are looking for a candidate for governor who's going to spend the next year tearing down the Bushes, I am not your candidate," he told a largely friendly Suncoast Tiger Bay Club crowd in St. Petersburg. ...

The Tampa congressman painted Tallahassee as controlled by special interests. He said he would remove the "for sale" sign on the Capitol, promote open debate, and "make sure the people's voice is heard again in Tallahassee."

House Speaker Allan Bense won't challenge U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, saying Wednesday he believes a campaign would take away from his commitment to the House.

The White House, Gov. Jeb Bush and the National Republican Senatorial Committee all encouraged Bense to get in the race to see who will challenge Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson.

Now the question is whether another candidate will be recruited for the Republican primary.

"We've been talking to different people and Allan Bense was one of them," said Brian Nick, a spokesman for the NRSC, the group that recruits Republican Senate candidates and raises money for them. "The fact that people are expressing interest leads me to believe they are truly weighing the race. It wouldn't be out of the question to see somebody else get in."

U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, who was a Senate candidate for the 2004 election before withdrawing when his father was diagnosed with cancer, might be one of them.

With 15 months on the calendar to convince voters she is not a polarizing vestige of the 2000 election, U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris officially opens her campaign for the U.S. Senate in Sarasota on Tuesday.

Harris campaign manager Jim Dornan said ... "Moderates at the end of the day will see that what Katherine Harris did in 2000 is exactly what the law called for."

As state Republican leaders search for a successor to Gov. Bush, it is unclear whether the party will moderate or grow even more conservative.

After taking a friendly jab at Howard Dean, his audience's inspiration, U.S. Rep. Jim Davis fielded some pointed questions Wednesday night on everything from gay marriage to the Patriot Act.

Davis, a Democrat from Tampa, was campaigning for governor at Latam restaurant at the Centro Asturiano as a guest of Democracy for America, an offshoot of the political organization founded by Howard Dean.

Davis joked that he didn't agree with most of what Dean says, but the audience gave him a pass and clapped at many of the points he made during his speech.

However, one person released a mild "boo" when Davis said he personally thinks marriage should be between a man and a woman.

But he said he opposed a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, given that Florida law already reserves marriage for people of the opposite sex. He said he thought a similar ban in Ohio was being used for other purposes, like blocking the enforcement of domestic violence laws.

and Senate President Tom Lee met Monday to discuss a possible special legislative session on the issue in October or November.

The two leaders did not reach a consensus in an afternoon meeting.

"You are heroes to all of us, and your defense of the judiciary and what is right is beyond admirable," Crist told the [Schiavo] judges, who were being honored by the Florida chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates, a group that champions judicial independence.

Later, Crist told The St. Petersburg Times that he wasn't talking about any specific case..

Come on, Charlie. The judges were being honored for their work in a politically and morally difficult case, one that led to the death of a woman in a permanent vegetative state. What you said may have been overstated, but you were right. Don't back away from it to appease those voters who would have moved heaven and earth to keep Schiavo alive.

While Republican candidates are raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in the crowded primary for attorney general, Democrats still have nobody running. That should change on Sept. 1.

"You will have an announcement on Sept. 1 that I'm getting into it unless something major changes," said state Sen. Walter "Skip" Campbell of Tamarac, a wealthy trial lawyer from Democrat-dominated Broward County.

Former Attorney General Bob Butterworth had been talking to people about running. Campbell said Butterworth won't run, though he might be recruited to run for lieutenant governor. Another potential Democratic candidate is former Miami-Dade Commissioner Jimmy Morales, but Campbell hopes to avoid a primary fight that he said would sap donations from all candidates.

That subject presumably came up at a private dinner last week at the home of state Sen. Steve Geller of Hallandale Beach. Among the attendees were Campbell, Morales, state Democratic Party chairman Karen Thurman, Sen. Bill Nelson's chief of staff, Pete Mitchell; and state Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach.

"I try to find people who share my beliefs ... " said Bush, announcing Marstiller's new duties. He said he sought someone with a thick skin, "willing to stand against criticism, to do the right thing."

Add another line to the list of jobs Gov. Jeb Bush isn't interested in in 2006: the Senate seat held by Democrat Bill Nelson.

Some Republican loyalists, worried that Katherine Harris can't beat the incumbent, were spreading the word last week that the governor, who has already ruled out a presidential run, might be eyeing a Senate race.

Bush was blunt. "I'm not going to run for the U.S. Senate," he told reporters.

Florida's builders and developers have launched a behind-the-scenes campaign to make it easier to wipe out wetlands, using their political clout to get help from state legislators and members of Congress.

Maybe it's a case of collective amnesia but for nearly a week none of the current or former members of Gov. Jeb Bush's administration, and many of President Bush's former legal team, could remember the exact role U.S. Supreme Court nominee John Roberts played in the 2000 presidential recount.

Even the governor, whose steel-trap memory can recite specifics on such things as a negative campaign ad Tom Gallagher ran against him in 1994, couldn't recall much.

Some questioned by The Herald openly admitted they wouldn't talk about Roberts and the recount at the request of the White House.

John Choon Yoo, the University of California law professor who allegedly accompanied Roberts at a meeting with the governor in November 2000 promised to respond to Herald questions. Then, a day later, he sent this answer: "Unfortunately, I have to say no comment to these questions."

When state lawmakers profess commitment to clean water for residents around Lake Okeechobee, they really mean that they're committed to the idea. That's the easy part. As County Commission Chairman Tony Masilotti told The Post recently: "When do you decide quality drinking water isn't the priority? I don't think that ever happens." A financial commitment is the one that matters.

By not setting aside enough money to help pay for the now-$50 million Lake Region Water Treatment Plant, the state has demonstrated that safe drinking water for the 30,000 residents of Belle Glade, South Bay, Pahokee and surrounding unincorporated areas is not a priority. County commissioners plan to spend $5 million on the plant in the budget year starting Oct. 1. They sought $2.5 million from the state but got only $200,000.