The Satanic Temple logo.

A group of Florida-based Satanists will be holding a rally in support of the Sunshine State's Republican Governor Rick Scott on January 25. According to a press release for the event, the Satanic Temple, which organized the rally, will be showing "solidarity" with the governor for his "unwavering fortitude and progressive resolve in his defense of religious liberty," specifically his approval of a legislation that will allow students to vote on whether or not to include prayers in graduation ceremonies and other school assemblies.

"The Satanic Temple embraces the free expression of religion, and Satanists are happy to show their support of Rick Scott who--particularly with [Senate Bill] 98--has reaffirmed our American freedom to practice our faith openly, allowing our Satanic children the freedom to pray in school," the group said in a statement announcing the rally.

In its statement, the Satanic Temple also said they hope to "raise awareness of their compassion-based religion, which has traditionally been grossly misunderstood and maligned."

"God is supernatural and thus outside of the sphere of the physical. God’s perfection means that he cannot interact with the imperfect corporeal realm. Because God cannot intervene in the material world, He created Satan to preside over the universe as His proxy," the statement said. "Satan has the compassion and wisdom of an angel. Although Satan is subordinate to God, he is mankind’s only conduit to the dominion beyond the physical."

Politicker spoke with Satanic Temple spokesman Lucian Greaves about the event. He said he did not want to discuss how many members there are in the group, which was founded last year, or how many attendees are expected at the rally in advance of the event because he did not want to obscure its "message." Mr. Greaves said his group does not necessarily support Governor Scott's other policies, but is quite pleased with his approval of the prayer bill.

Mr. Greaves additionally said he is not concerned his group's support might be a political liability for the conservative governor because he believes there are more Satanists in America than most people realized and pointed to people who identify their religion as "other" in polls to back up this claim. According to the most recent statistics from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, approximately 1.2 percent of Americans are religious and do not identify as Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim or Hindu. The majority of this  group is identified as "Unitarians and other liberal faiths."

We reached out to Governor Scott's office to see whether he welcomes the Satanic Temple's support. As of this writing, we have not received a response. The temple plans to hold the rally on the steps of his office in Tallahassee.

Marco Rubio (Photo: Getty)

This month's issue of GQ features an interview with Florida Senator Marco Rubio in which he talks about his favorite rap songs. When the interview went live online last week, many people took note of Mr. Rubio's rap knowledge, but Politicker couldn't help but notice he appeared to mistakenly describe hip hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa as a member of the rap group Public Enemy. However, after reading the print version of the issue it is clear that the discrepancy was caused by an edit made by the magazine and not any rap errors made by Mr. Rubio.  

In the online version of the interview, writer Michael Hainey is quoted as simply asking Mr. Rubio, "Your autobiography also has to be the first time a politician has cited a love of Afrika Bambaataa. Did you have a favorite Afrika Bambaataa song?" Mr. Rubio is quoted as answering by discussing Public Enemy, a group that did not include Mr. Bambaataa.

"All the normal ones. People forget how dominant Public Enemy became in the mid 80s. No one talks about how transformative they were," Mr. Rubio said.

When the article appeared online last week, we reached out to Mr. Rubio's spokesman Alex Conant who said the apparent mistake was caused by the magazine's editing.

"Yeah, the transcript in print edition edits the conversation for space. In the Q portion in the full interview, there was actually a decent back and forth about rap before he asked the second question about a favorite album," said Mr. Conant.

Indeed, in the print version of the interview that is now available on newsstands, Mr. Hainey's full question includes the note that Mr. Bambaataa was sampled in Public Enemy's song "Fight The Power," which led to Mr. Rubio's response.

Mr. Rubio mentioned Mr. Bambaataa in his memoir when he described how he became enamored with "a new kind of music, rap" in his youth.

"My white friends liked hard rock acts--Van Halen, Osbourne and others," Mr. Rubio wrote. "I didn't care for that kind of music anymore, and they didn't care for my preferences, Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash."

Allen West (Photo: West.House.gov)

Though the presidential election passed without issue in the Sunshine State, Florida is once again at the center of a vote counting controversy.

After election night, Florida Democrat Patrick Murphy emerged with a slim lead over his opponent, congressman and Tea Party star Allen West. Since then, Mr. West's campaign has been pushing for a recount and in a letter sent to the St. Lucie County Supervisor of Elections Gertrude Walker and the county's Canvassing Board this morning they outlined one of their "serious concerns"--an alleged "malfunction" of the memory cards used to scan ballots in that county.

"If satisfactory answers are not forthcoming, we may need to direct our attorneys to take further legal actions to resolve these serious legal questions about the canvass of the election in St. Lucie County," wrote Mr. West's campaign manager Tim Edson.

With 100 percent of precincts counted in the race, the Associated Press reported Mr. Murphy was ahead of Mr. West by 2,456 votes, or 0.8 percent of the total cast. That's just shy of the 0.5 percent margin that would cause a mandatory recount. Though the Associated Press hasn't declared a winner in the race, other media outlets have and Mr. Murphy published a statement accepting the seat in the Sunshine State's 18th Congressional District and has declared his intention to attend Congress' freshman orientation next week.

For his part, Mr. West has had lawyers pushing for a recount and local Republican organizations have filed injunctions to have voting machines and ballots impounded in Palm Beach and St. Lucie counties. Mr. West has not taken action in the district's other county, Marin, where he won by 11,000 votes.

In his letter, Mr. Edson provided details about the issues the West campaign has with the vote count in St. Lucie. Mainly, Mr. Edson said they "understand" that the county "re-ran some 15,000 ballots that were cast on the first three days of early voting" after a "malfunction" in the memory cards used with the optical scanners that were used to count the votes.

"We have serious concerns that these ballots may have been wholly or in part counted twice, which in a race as close as ours makes a substantial difference both in whether there is going to be a state mandated automatic recount or in the overall outcome of the Congressional District 18 election," Mr. Edson wrote.

Mr. Edson, who demanded answer's to his questions about the ballot count by noon today, said his concern is based on the numbers the county provided for "cards cast" and "times counted" not adding up. He cited one precinct where he said the counts indicated 38 extra voters were counted and another where 54 too few votes were counted. Though these numbers are clearly quite small in a race where over 300,000 votes were cast, based on the Associated Press' numbers a difference of just about 800 votes would be enough to trigger the recount. Therefore, it's easy to see why Mr. West's campaign is making an issue over even these small potential discrepancies.

Politicker reached out to Ms. Walker's office for a response, but we were told she was not immediately available as she is "out canvassing."

View Mr. Edson's full letter here.

(Photo: Getty)

President Barack Obama, who had been campaigning in Florida as Hurricane Sandy began to batter states in the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast, has canceled further events in the Sunshine State in order to return to Washington, according to a dispatch sent out by the White House this morning.

"Due to deteriorating weather conditions in the Washington, DC area, the President will not attend today's campaign event in Orlando, Florida," Jay Carney, Mr. Obama's press secretary, announced. "The President will return to the White House to monitor the preparations for and early response to Hurricane Sandy."

Additionally, in a subsequent press release, Mr. Carney announced Mr. Obama's Tuesday plans have also been scuttled, stating, "The President will no longer travel to Green Bay, WI tomorrow for a campaign event, so that he can stay in Washington, DC on Tuesday and closely monitor the impact of and response to Hurricane Sandy."

The president's Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, also had to adjust his schedule to avoid campaigning in states where emergency resources are needed for storm response efforts. Mr. Obama's position, however, may be much more politically beneficial to him as he manages a crisis just seven days before voters head to the polls.

“If there is a serious disaster in the next few days anywhere on the Eastern seaboard, no one talks about Romney then," the Brookings Institution's John Hudak explained to the Fiscal Times. "Romney is no part of any story, except, of course, I’m sure he’ll hold a press conference to speak on the tragedy, as anyone would do as the challenger. But all eyes are on the president. It’s something money can’t buy.”

Update (10:19 a.m.): Mr. Obama's Tuesday cancellation was added.

Ann Coulter (Photo: Getty)

As is her custom, provocative conservative commentator Ann Coulter was decidedly politically incorrect in her assessment of the final presidential debate last night. Ms. Coulter took to Twitter where she used a derogatory term to describe President Barack Obama.

"I highly approve of Romney's decision to be kind and gentle to the retard," Ms. Coulter wrote.

Her comment comes less than two weeks after Dan Niblock, the father of a young boy with Down syndrome, published an essay on the website of NBC's Today taking Ms. Coulter to task for using the same term in another tweet. It's apparently a habit of Ms. Coulter's.

"I want Ann Coulter to apologize for using a form of hate speech that is particularly searing to people who have special needs. This isn’t the first time she has tweeted the word “retarded” to insult her rivals, and she needs to stop. Her behavior is not acceptable," Mr. Niblock wrote.

These complaints clearly haven't had much effect on Ms. Coulter, who has been unapologetic of her past politically incorrect remarks. Still, we reached out to Ms. Coulter to see if she had any regrets about her post-debate tweet. As of this writing, we have yet to receive a response. We won't hold our breath.

Update (3:00 a.m.): In an email to Politicker, Ms. Coulter doubled down and made it clear she's not worried about upsetting anyone with her choice of words.

"The only people who will be offended are too retarded to understand it," she wrote.

Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama on stage at Lynn University in Florida for tonight's debate. (Photo: Getty)

Tonight's presidential debate was ostensibly about foreign policy, but on stage in Boca Raton, the candidates spent quite a bit of time discussing the American economy. The discussion first turned homeward when moderator Bob Schieffer asked Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama, "What is America's role in the world?"

Mr. Romney began by saying America has the "responsibility and the privilege" to "defend freedom and promote the principles that...make the world more peaceful," including "human rights, human dignity, free enterprise, freedom of expression, elections."

"We recognize that there are places of conflict in the world. We want to end those conflicts to the extent humanly possible. But in order to be able to fulfill our role in the world, America must be strong. America must lead. And for that to happen, we have to strengthen our economy here at home," Mr. Romney said. "You can't have 23 million people struggling to get a job. You can't have an economy that over the last three years keeps slowing down its growth rate. You can't have kids coming out of college, half of them can't find a job today, or a job that's commensurate with their college degree. We have to get our economy going."

When it was President Obama's turn to take the question, he discussed his domestic economic plan in even more specific detail after saying one of his signature accomplishments, ending the war in Iraq, had improved America's position both globally and locally.

"Because we ended the war in Iraq, we were able to refocus our attention on not only the terrorist threat, but also beginning a transition process in Afghanistan. It also allowed us to refocus on alliances and relationships that had been neglected for a decade. And Governor Romney, our alliances have never been stronger," President Obama said. “But what we also have been able to do is position ourselves so we can start rebuilding America, and that's what my plan does."

President Obama went on to detail several elements of his economic plan.

"Making sure that we're bringing manufacturing back to our shores so that we're creating jobs here, as we've done with the auto industry, not rewarding companies that are shipping jobs overseas. Making sure that we've got the best education system in the world, including retraining our workers for the jobs of tomorrow," said President Obama. "Doing everything we can to control our own energy. We've cut our oil imports to the lowest level in two decades because we've developed oil and natural gas. But we also have to develop clean energy technologies that will allow us to cut our exports in half by 2020. That's the kind of leadership that we need to show."

The president continued by criticizing Mr. Romney's economic policies.

"Unfortunately, Governor Romney's plan doesn't do it. We've got to do it in a responsible way by cutting out spending we don't need, but also asking the wealthiest to pay a little bit more. That way we can invest in the research and technology that's always kept us at the cutting edge," said President Obama. "Now, Governor Romney has taken a different approach throughout this campaign. Both at home and abroad, he has proposed wrong and reckless policies. He's praised George Bush as a good economic steward and Dick Cheney as somebody who's -- who shows great wisdom and judgment. And taking us back to those kinds of strategies that got us into this mess are not the way that we are going to maintain leadership in the 21st century."

When Mr. Schieffer gave Mr. Romney a chance to rebut, he brought up the country's unemployment rate and promised to get America's economy going with his five point plan.

"The president said by now we'd be a 5.4 percent unemployment. We're 9 million jobs short of that. I will get America working again and see rising take-home pay again, and I'll do it with five simple steps," Mr. Romney said.

Mr. Romney described his economic plan as involving "North American energy independence," increased trade, particularly with Latin America, "training programs that work for our workers and schools," which put "the teachers and the kids first" and make teacher's unions "have to go behind." balance the budget and "champion small business."

The pair launched into discussions of their specific disagreements with each other's policies including their respective tax plans and President Obama's desire to "hire more teachers." Though the debate included substantial discussion of Libya, Syria, Israel, Iran, Afghanistan, Russia and China, this first exchange was hardly the only time the candidates kept their focus on the home front. Tonight's debate mainly stuck to the topic at hand, foreign policy, but it still underscored just how much domestic economic questions are central to this campaign.

Michelle Obama (Photo: Getty)

Michelle Obama is in Florida tonight for the final presidential debate and, this afternoon, she appeared at a campaign event Broward College where she had high praise for President Barack Obama's appearance. The first lady commented on her husband's looks when she was interrupted by someone in the audience as she started her speech.

"I’m pretty fired up and ready to go myself because today, like I’ve been doing for a couple of years now on this campaign trail, I get to do one of my favorite things, and that is to talk about the man that I have loved and admired since I first met him 23 years ago," Ms. Obama began.

"Cute!" someone in the crowd shouted.

"He’s cute! Yes!" said Ms. Obama. "And as some in other rallies--he’s downright fine."

Ms. Obama quickly pivoted and launched into her standard stump speech.

"Here’s the thing, although my husband is handsome and charming and incredibly smart--yes, indeed--that is not why I married him," Ms. Obama said. "Listen closely. What truly made me fall in love with Barack Obama was something that you all see every day--it is his character. It’s his decency and his honesty, the compassion and conviction that we have seen for four years in this man."

Despite her speeches, according to the pool report, Ms. Obama still had time for a pre-debate dinner of "steak and potatoes" with President Obama.

Allen West (Photo: Facebook)

Yesterday, a spokeswoman for Florida Congressman Allen West told us an article by Miami Herald gossip columnist Jose Lambiet claiming Mr. West, while serving in Iraq as an Army Lieutenant Colonel in 2003, sent his wife a letter asking her whether she was "committed to being my porn star" was a "garbage story."

"He hasn’t produced a letter, so, as of now, there’s no letter," Mr. West's spokeswoman Michele Hickford said of the lurid tale.

However, Mr. Lambiet, who wrote that he decided to "withhold publication" of the full letter "because of its nature" said he emailed Mr. West's campaign prior to publishing the story and received no response.

Mr. Lambiet declined to show the letter to Politicker, but he provided us with a screenshot of an email he said he sent to another West campaign spokesperson, Tim Edson last Thursday before the story was published. The email included a PDF file Mr. Lambiet identified as the letter in question.

"To me, this is exactly why some people are queasy about voting for Allen West. He's surrounded by people like Tim Edson, who is a bold-faced liar," Mr. Lambiet said. "I emailed the letter to them because I wanted comments and their campaign is based on these types of lies."

According to Mr. Lambiet, he decided to publish excerpts from the letter because they reveal details about the character of the congressman, who is currently embroiled in a heated re-election campaign against a Democratic challenger, Patrick Murphy.

"The letter reflects clearly that he's even forceful with his wife," said Mr. Lambiet. "Forceful, but also romantic at the same time."

Despite his obvious distaste for Mr. West's campaign staff, who he described as "poisonous," Mr. Lambiet said he doesn't have an entirely negative view of the congressman himself.

"The biggest problem with Allen West is not him, because he did go overseas. I'm European, my family was liberated by the military. The problems are the people that follow him, his entourage," Mr. Lambiet said. "His record in Congress, I don't think it's as bad as the rest of the press makes it out to be. He did fight with his own party when it came to the debt ceiling."

In addition to questioning his integrity, Mr. Lambiet accused Mr. West's campaign staff and supporters of attacking him online after he published his story.

"Question anything when it comes to Allen West, you're taking your int life into your own hands, because these people flood your stuff with things saying, 'You're gay, 'You're unpatriotic,'" said Mr. Lambiet. "This is just mind boggling that this entourage--it's practically a sect, a sect of people that move around with him."

As of this writing, Mr. West's campaign has not responded to multiple requests for comment on this story.

Allen West (Photo: West.House.gov)

On Thursday, Miami Herald columnist Jose Lambiet published a story on his blog "Gossip Extra" claiming he obtained a handwritten letter Florida Congressman Allen West sent to his wife, Angela, while he was serving in Iraq as an Army Lieutenant Colonel in 2003. According to Mr. Lambiet, in the missive, the Tea Party favorite asked his wife whether she was "committed to being my porn star." Politicker spoke to Michele Hickford, a spokeswoman for Mr. West's campaign today and she angrily declined to discuss the letter.

"We're not going to comment on this crap, it's just a garbage story," Ms. Hickford said. 

We asked whether she debated the veracity of the letter and, though she didn't directly deny its existence, she pointed to the fact Mr. Lambiet has not published a copy of the document.

"He hasn't produced a letter, so, as of now, there's no letter," she said.

Update (10/3/12 1:30 pm): Mr. Lambiet claims he sent the West campaign a copy of the letter and received no response. He provided us with a screenshot of the email. 

In his blog post about the alleged letter, Mr. Lambiet said he chose "to withhold publication of the letter because of its nature." However, that didn't stop Mr. Lambiet from printing several excerpts including a vow from Mr. West to try to be "a clean cut, healthy and affectionate man," a claim the congressman detailed several "intimate acts" he expected to engage in with his wife upon his return from the war that would be "the standard and it is non-negotiable" and a demand his wife commit to wearing "two-piece swim suits when on vacations."

The "porn star" quote came in the alleged letter's sign-off, which said:

"Angela, I need to know, are you committed to being my porn star?...I do not want to hear ‘no’ or ‘we’ll see about that.’ I want my fantasies to be with you. God has authorized you and you only as my partner for intimacy and that is what I want....Get ready!"

We reached out to Mr. Lambiet to see if he wanted to respond to Mr. West's campaign. As of this writing, we have not heard back from him.

Senator Marco Rubio (Getty)

One of the most prominent Latinos in the Republican Party, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, addressed remarks about Latinos Mitt Romney was caught on tape making at a fundraiser during a press conference call today. The video of Mr. Romney sparked a massive firestorm after it was published by the liberal magazine Mother Jones, Mr. Rubio said he wasn't bothered by the portion of the clip where the Republican presidential candidate said he would have a better chance of winning the election if he was Latino.

"Well, I think he meant it as a joke," Mr. Rubio said with a laugh. "I think that's how most reasonable people would take it."

Among other controversial comments, the fundraiser footage showed Mr. Romney discussing the fact his father was born in Mexico to parents who were descended from American Mormons who moved to that country to escape a crackdown on polygamy in the United States.

"My dad, as you probably know, was the governor of Michigan and was the head of a car company. But he was born in Mexico. And had he been born of Mexican parents, I'd have a better shot of winning this," said Mr. Romney. "But he was unfortunately born to Americans living in Mexico. He lived there a number of years, and I mean I say that jokingly, but it would be helpful to be Latino."

On today's press conference call, Mr. Rubio pointed out this wasn't the first time Mr. Romney has made that type of remark and said he was certain it was meant in jest.

"It's not the first time he said something like it. He said something like that publicly with Jorge Ramos in January in Florida. He made a comment about, you know, how his dad had been born in Mexico and he chuckled about that," Mr. Rubio said. "It's just a joke, I dont necessarily think he meant anything by it other than that."