Dockery noted that he husband was not interested in moving to Tallahassee and she saw herself serving the administration in other ways if Scott is elected.

Speculation brewed that Dockery would make the short-list because she was one of a handful of Republican legislators to buck the party leadership and publicly endorse Scott over establishment-favorite Bill McCollum.

"I will have a pivotal role in his administration, but not as lieutenant governor," she said of Scott.

Another legislator that stepped up for Scott was Jacksonville's own Mike Weinstein, who has also stated he is not interested in the number-two spot.

"I can do more to help what he wants to do in the legislature," Weinstein told the media. "It should not be a payback. There should be a broader concern."

Scott must choose a running mate by Friday.

Making matters worse, the McCollum campaign has dropped all updates of their website at BillMcCollum.com.

No thank you message for supporters.

No "unity" language of any sort.

And no attempt to mask or remove the hard hitting, negative attacks on Scott's character and financial dealings.

If Alex Sink wants to score some votes right now, she should be driving people to BillMcCollum.com and letting that do the dirty work for her.

Now a three-time loser in statewide races, McCollum's failure to step aside with dignity signals the end of his political career.

It's been a full week, Mr. Attorney General.  Take down the website, thank your supporters and focus on your last few months in office.

Moore, who waged an under-funded and low-key campaign for the state’s highest office, captured the votes of about one fourth of Democrats.

According to unofficial returns, Sink — a heavy favorite in the race — carried all of the state’s 67 counties, but defeated Moore by only five votes in rural Holmes County.  Moore topped 40% in a number of other counties and carried a scattering of precincts throughout the state, including a handful in populous Miami-Dade County.

Hoping to repeat the success of muckraking author and novelist Upton Sinclair — a lifelong Socialist who captured the Democratic nomination for governor of California during the Great Depression in a spectacularly brilliant campaign one biographer described as “the campaign of the century” — the 67-year-old Moore spent less than $8,200 in his improbable bid.  Much of that came in the form of a personal loan that he made to his campaign.

Sink, who only recently began airing television commercials and remains largely unknown to a wide swath of Florida voters, raised cash contributions of more than $7.5 million, but saved much of her massive war chest for the autumn election where she will face a deep-pocketed GOP opponent.

In congratulating Sink on hervictory, Moore thanked his supporters and promised to continue fighting for the progressive issues, including the establishment of a state-owned bank, that he raised during his short-lived primary campaign.

He has not yet indicated if he will endorse Sink in the general election or not.  In his congratulatory remarks, the former Socialist candidate for president said that he hoped the Democratic nominee would provide “a more specific and more liberal agenda than she has demonstrated during the primary campaign.”

The major-party nominees will face opposition from Bud Chiles, the son of the late Gov. Lawton Chiles, Iranian-born economist Farid A. Khavari of Miami, and several others running without party affiliation.

It seems that might have changed on Tuesday evening. McCollum doesn't seem too pleased with the decision of voters on Tuesday to nominate Rick Scott for governor. At first he refused to concede defeat, despite the fact that the Associated Press and several other major news outlets had called the race for Scott. After Scott declared victory, and the margin between the two failed to shrink, McCollum eventually (and reluctantly) released a statement in which he takes a shot at Scott as having a "questionable past" and fails to congratulate him on his victory or make attempt to encourage party unity moving forward.

“The votes today have been tallied and I accept the voters’ decision,” says McCollum. “This race was one for the ages. No one could have anticipated the entrance of a multi-millionaire with a questionable past who shattered campaign spending records and spent more in four months than has ever been spent in a primary race here in Florida."

“While I was disappointed with the negative tone of the race, I couldn’t be more proud of our campaign and our supporters for fighting back against false and misleading advertising when we were down by double-digits," he continues. “First, I want to thank my wife, Ingrid, and our entire family. I could not have made it this far without Ingrid’s unwavering love and support. I also want to thank the many Republican leaders who stood by our campaign and helped build our organization, especially Governor Jeb Bush, Commissioner Charlie Bronson, House Speaker Larry Cretul, Senate President Designate Mike Haridopolos, House Speaker Designate Dean Cannon and House Majority Leader Adam Hasner."

“As I’ve said time and time again, this race was never about me, it’s about Floridians," he says. "My campaign was about our kids and grandkids, and making Florida a better place for them."

It ends: “My campaign for Governor may be over, but I remain committed to serving our state and serving out the rest of my term as Florida’s Attorney General. We will continue our fight against Obamacare, continue to support states’ rights and their authority to crack down on illegal immigration and fight for all Floridians. I love Florida, and I believe in the extraordinary people who have made it the greatest state in the country. There is nothing beyond our reach when we put trust in individuals and in free enterprise, not in government or bureaucracy. I will always remain committed to fighting for these core conservative principles.”

Planned "unity events" around the state have been postponed as the party's establishment reels from Scott's largely unexpected victory.

If Panama City resident Leon Delikat is any indication, Attorney General Bill McCollum’s focus on Scott’s history with Columbia Healthcare/HCA in their contentious primary for the Republican gubernatorial nomination will not carry McCollum to victory Tuesday.

McCollum had opened a double-digit lead over Scott is most recent statewide polls, but Public Policy Polling released a survey yesterday that actually showed Scott leading McCollum 47-40. Quinnipiac's final poll showed McCollum's 9 point lead had dropped to only 4 points, within the survey's margin of error.

Delikat, who attended a Scott campaign rally in downtown Panama City Saturday, said there have been so many charges in the harsh GOP primary that it is hard to determine which ones to believe.

“In today’s climate, you don’t know what’s true and what’s not,” he told the News Service of Florida after listening to a roughly 10 minute speech Scott gave to about 150 people Saturday.

McCollum has focused in television commercials and on the stump on Scott’s tenure as CEO of Columbia Healthcare/HCA, which was investigated for Medicare and Medicaid fraud and paid more than $1.7 billion to settle civil suits and in fines. As Scott spoke Saturday, two McCollum supporters – one dressed in medical scrubs, another in prison stripes – walked through the crowd holding signs referencing a Scott deposition in a lawsuit filed by a former employee of another of his companies, Solantic.

Scott has said he takes responsibility for mistakes that were made at Columbia and he said he will not release the deposition, calling it a “private matter.” McCollum has accused him of hiding the truth.

The attacks have not swayed Delikat.

“The government has got all the regulations of all these hospitals, so you can (not) be aware of things that are going on with your paperwork and all that stuff and you could end having to pay fines like a lot of other people in every industry,” he said.

McCollum’s ads may not have turned Delikat against Scott, but a recent Scott ad criticizing McCollum seemed to work with another Panama City resident who came to hear the Naples businessman speak Saturday. Explaining why he was supporting Scott, Sam Slay echoed a tough ad Scott released tying McCollum to former Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer, who was arrested after being accused of funneling party money to himself by hiring his own company as a fundraising consultant for the party.

In the ad, which features footage of Greer introducing McCollum at an early campaign event, Scott says McCollum wanted to hide GOP financial records. Slay repeated the charges almost verbatim.

“He said I don’t know that his records need to be public,” he said. “I don’t know the details of that but the second statement was open government is not what we need, you can make more deals in secrecy. I don’t know if that’s a Freudian slip, (but) we do need open government. If you’re doing the right thing, why do you care?”

Slay said he was also bothered by McCollum’s inconsistency on whether Florida should have an Arizona-style illegal immigration law. McCollum initially said that he supported the law, but did not think requiring police to check immigrants' IDs is much different from what they're already allowed to do. He later released legislation similar to the Arizona law with Rep. William Synder, R-Stuart, after Scott criticized him for being soft on the issue.

“He said he was against the immigration law for Arizona, then he comes out (and says) ‘oh no I’m for that,’ when he clearly said he was against it, and it was his voice, it wasn’t somebody saying it in bad press,” Slay said.

Slay said he did not think Rick Scott was the perfect candidate for governor. He just thinks Scott is better for the job than McCollum, he said.

“I think probably one of the things we need is probably something different in Tallahassee,” he said. “The incumbents are not doing what they should be doing. It’s time to take a chance. Sometimes you look at candidates and say ‘how many of them would you walk through fire for?’ That’s not really the issue. The issue is who do you think is going to do you the most good.”

Slay said he liked Scott’s promise forgo the $133,000 a year salary paid to the governor if he were elected. The multi-millionaire doesn't really need the money, he said.

“He’s not going there for the money,” he said. “He’ll get in there and do something that he wants to do and then he’ll get out and move on. That’s one of the reasons I like him.”

In his speech, which Slay said Scott kept “short, sweet and to the point,” the first-time candidate did not address any of the issues Slay and Delikat - or McCollum - were talking about. He talked about jobs he held as a child and in the Navy, but said very little about either of the companies McCollum has tried to make into liabilities in the governor’s race.

“I started working at a young age. I had a TV Guide franchise by the time I was (in the) second grade, I delivered newspapers, I had a yard route,” he told the crowd. “I’ve built a variety of businesses. I’ve always been in business from a hospital company to the first health care cable channel to manufacturing companies. Everything I’ve done is figure out how to build companies and take care of customers and build private sector jobs. That’s what we need.”

After the speech, Scott said that he was not worried the election would be decided by the controversies that McCollum has raised repeatedly in the campaign.

“In the end, this election is going to be over who does the voter believe is going to help them get a job or keep their job and it’s an easy choice,” he said. “My opponent’s never created a private sector job, that’s all I’ve done all my life.”

A sign the attorney general likely disagrees, McCollum’s campaign was distributing a Scott deposition in a separate case involving Nevada Communications Corp. during his own Panhandle campaign swing Saturday.

Moore, 67, is waging an uphill battle against Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink in Tuesday’s primary.

“Chiles’ presence on the ticket would enormously enhance the party’s prospects in November,” said Moore. “I would be honored to have him on my ticket,” he continued, adding that “the Chiles family has long fought for ordinary Floridians — the struggling, forgotten families that now find themselves, largely through no fault of their own, victims of the current economic crisis caused by the avarice and greed of the bankers on Wall Street.”

Chiles, the son of the late ’Walkin’ Lawton’ Chiles, Florida’s immensely popular Democratic governor from 1991 until his death in December 1998, slipped on his 9 ½ walking shoes earlier this year and began canvassing the state as an independent candidate for governor, offering voters a choice outside the two major parties — a role in which Moore, a perennial independent and third-party candidate himself, is hardly unfamiliar.

Like Moore, Chiles realizes that Florida is a state in distress. “I'm running for governor to speak for a million Floridians who are out of work right now,” he told the Palm Beach Post shortly after embarking on his independent odyssey.

Chiles, who has refused to accept contributions larger than $250, had raised $97,336 as of August 19, the latest reporting period, and has been polling an astonishing 16-20 percent in recent polls — a showing that could wreak havoc on Democratic hopes of winning the governorship for the first time since 1994.

Moore, a political gadfly who once sought the presidency as the nominee of the Socialist Party of Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas, said that he plans to wait for the results on Tuesday night before formally asking Chiles to join him on the ticket.

“We have plenty of time" to approach him, asserted Moore, noting that a number of Democrats throughout the state have privately complained to him that Alex Sink might have acted a bit presumptuously in tapping conservative former state Sen. Rod Smith of Gainesville, a former prosecutor, as her running mate earlier this week before a majority of the voters have even gone to the polls.

“This is still a democracy — at least the last I heard — and the long-suffering voters in this recession-ravaged state have yet to have their say,” said Moore, who’s been waging an uncharacteristically low-key bid for the state‘s highest elective office.

“It might be wise to wait for their verdict,” he said.

Moore said he was baffled by Sink‘s “rush to judgment” in selecting a running mate earlier this week. “Despite her much-touted banking background, perhaps she thought Smith would change his mind once he realizes that she really doesn’t have a clue about ending the state’s twin fiscal and financial crises,” he quipped.

“Counting paperclips just isn’t going to cut it,” said Moore, a reference to one of Sink’s sillier cost-cutting measures. Moore has also been highly critical of his opponent’s role as a trustee of the State Board of Administration, the agency that manages hundreds of billions of dollars in public investments for hundreds of local governments and a million current and future state retirees.

The 62-year-old Sink, who’s spent little of her bulging $7.5 million war chest against her outspoken but little-known primary opponent, is the former president of Bank of America’s Florida operations.

“Florida has some very serious problems,” contends Moore. “A commercial banker is the last person we need to put in charge. I mean, weren’t the bankers the ones who got us into this catastrophic mess in the first place?”

Moore is pushing the idea of a state-owned bank, similar to the one proposed by Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero, who waged a spectacular come-from-behind victory to capture the Democratic nomination for governor of Michigan earlier this month.

A publicly-owned bank, said Moore, could get credit flowing again to the state’s financially-strapped small and medium-sized businesses while creating thousands of new jobs for the more than 1.3 million Floridians currently out of work. “The large commercial banks just aren’t up to the task,” he said.

“The banking industry — the very place Alex Sink spent most of her career — is unable or unwilling to make the necessary loans to get Florida's economy moving again,” charged Moore.

The idea of a state-owned bank in Florida has long been championed by Farid A. Khavari of Miami, a University of Bremen-educated economist and author who spent most of the past year seeking the Democratic nomination for governor before deciding to run as an independent candidate shortly before the qualifying period.

Khavari, who’s quietly supporting Moore for the Democratic nomination, is one of seven independent and third-party candidates for governor, including Chiles, who will appear on the November ballot.

The concept of state-owned banks has also been vigorously promoted nationally by attorney Ellen H. Brown of Los Angeles, the best-selling author of the book Web of Debt, published in 2007.

Despite the long odds against him, Moore believes he can prevail on August 24. “I can win this thing”, he told Uncovered Politics. "This isn't some sort of symbolic protest candidacy as in the past. Floridians are hurting and they're hurting badly. They're looking for somebody who will fight for them for a change.”

If he manages to pull off an unexpected victory on Tuesday night, Moore said that he would contact Mr. Chiles first thing Wednesday morning. “But it probably won’t be until after I’ve had my coffee,” he joked.

Where will the candidates be?

BILL MCCOLLUM: Republican Bill McCollum has several campaign stops on his penultimate day of campaigning before the primary...

- 7:45 a.m., Breakfast with Broward County campaign leaders, Floridian Restaurant, 1410 E. Las Olas, Fort Lauderdale.
- 12 p.m., Lunch with Hillsborough supporters, Five Guys Burgers and Fries, 3841 W. Kennedy Blvd., Tampa.
- 3:45 p.m., Visit with West Palm volunteers, McCollum campaign West Palm office, 1555 Palm Beach Lakes Blvd., #650, West Palm Beach.
- 7:35 p.m., Visit with Winter Park volunteers, 611 N. Wymore Blvd., Suite 222. Winter Park.

RICK SCOTT: Republican Rick Scott will barnstorm the state on the last day of campaigning before Primary Day. He'll leave from Naples and land for events in Miami, Orlando, Tampa and Jacksonville.The campaign hasn’t released full details.

JEFF GREENE: Democrat Jeff Greene is in Tallahassee today, where he’ll discuss veterans’ issues at the Black Dog Café. (2:15 p.m., Black Dog Café, 229 Lake Ella Dr., Tallahassee.)

 Greene also has stops in Tampa and Orlando today...

- 11 a.m., Alessi’s Bakery, 2909 W. Cypress St., Tampa.
- 12:30. p.m., Brian’s Restaurant, 1409 N. Orange Ave., Orlando.

KENDRICK MEEK: Democrat Kendrick Meek is also in crazy homestretch mode, with events all over the state...

- 7:30 a.m., Arcos Iris Coffee Shop, 4001 N. Habana Ave., Tampa.
- 9:50 a.m., West Tampa Sandwich Shop, 3904 N. Armenia Ave., Tampa.
- 12 p.m., Sign waving, Colonial and Bumby, Orlando.
- 5 p.m., Get Out the Vote rally, West Palm Beach Library, 411 Clematis Street, West Palm Beach.
- 7:15 p.m., Get Out the Vote rally, African Heritage Arts Center, 6161 NW 22nd Avenue, Miami.

The agreement, announced by FPL Friday, would lock rates until the end of 2012, as well as holding the company’s return on equity, or profit margin, at 10 percent. It would give FPL the power to ask the Public Service Commission to raise rates if the company’s ROE dips below nine percent, while the consumer groups can initiate a rate proceeding if return on equity rises above 11 percent.

As part of the deal, FPL, which serves South Florida and much of the Atlantic Coast, will drop its requests that the PSC reconsider parts of its rejection of the company’s request for a $1.25 billion rate increase earlier this year and won’t appeal the overall decision.

FPL had asked the PSC to adjust the amount of working capital it said would be left after a fuel recovery refund. The company also requested adjustments to projected revenue related to the rejection of a late payment charge and asked for a review of the company's executive incentive compensation package.

Instead, the PSC will now have to approve the agreement at its Aug. 31 meeting. FPL president Armando Olivera said Friday that it was a fair deal.

“We think this agreement is in the best interest of all of the parties involved, especially our customers,” Olivera said in a statement. “Our typical residential customer bill is already the lowest of all 55 utilities in the state of Florida, and with this agreement, base rates will remain flat until 2013. We appreciate the willingness of those who represent Florida’s electric consumers to work with us on an agreement that will help provide financial stability for customers and the company alike.”

“Today’s agreement is a reasonable compromise that will still enable us to maintain high-quality service for our customers,” Olivera concluded.

While base rates will be frozen, bills still could fluctuate as the power company, the state’s largest, passes on changes in fuel and other costs.

Rick McAllister, president of the Florida Retail Federation, which was one of the customer representatives with whom FPL reached the settlement, also said it was a good deal.

The groups, he said, “have come to an agreement that we believe is good for customers. It forestalls rate increases for a couple years and there’s no rate increase immediately. We’re hoping that the (PSC) will listen to the settlement agreement and act accordingly.”

However, McAllister said he would like to see more agreements between consumer groups and the utility companies, and for longer.

“We need a better process for understanding the real utility needs in Florida and for consumers to get involved,” he said. “It’d be much better if the consumer groups worked with power companies to figure out what our utility needs are and how we can get there considering what the consumer can afford.”

Among the possibilities, McAllister said, is sharing the cost of infrastructure among power companies in the interest of improving the state’s power grid. Friday’s deal is good, but still a long way off from that, McAllister said.

“This is a negotiated settlement for the immediate future, not 10 years from now or 20 years from now,” he said. “That’s how we need to be thinking, with a good combination of renewable, nuclear and fossil fuels.”

Another intervener, Attorney General Bill McCollum’s office, said Friday that the agreement would forestall customers from paying for a new unit at FPL’s facility in Palm Beach County.

“The agreement stipulates that the cost of construction for FP&L’s West County Unit 3 will be offset by the decrease in fuel costs associated with the plant so FP&L customers will not see any increase in their bills for construction costs of the plant during this time,” McCollum said in a statement.

Other parties to the settlement agreement were the Office of Public Counsel, the Florida Industrial Power Users Group, the South Florida Hospital and Healthcare Association, the Federal Executive Agencies and Associated Industries of Florida.