Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos announced this morning he's dropping out of the race to take on U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson in 2012.
Haridopolos was competing in an overly crowded field of GOP candidates to take on Nelson, and despite leading fundraising out of the Republican Senate hopefuls, political reports have been warning about the impending "Haridopocalypse" for a while now.
He was just recently trounced in a Space Coast Tea Party straw poll, and he started losing staffers with Newt Gingrich-like speed.
In his announcement video, Haridopolos says he's "re-dedicating myself to finishing the job you sent me to do here in Florida," which we hope means selling that book Brevard Community College paid him $152,000 to write.
There were also several other things keeping Haridopolos from comfortably running a Senate campaign, which, thanks to Progress Florida, are chronicled on DirtyHari.org.
Gov. Rick Scott is unsurprisingly out of state on vacation, but his office issued a statement to let us all know he's sad about the news.
Anytime a statewide race loses a principled conservative like Mike Haridopolos in a race of this importance, it is a sad day for our state. He was a great help to me during the legislative session as we put steps in place to turn Florida's economy around and get Floridians back to work. I look forward to his continued leadership during the upcoming legislative session.
Check out the video of Haridopolos' announcement below:
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