* “This might be the most expensive 72 hours in Canadian history.”–Mark Holland of Canada’s Liberal Party on the cost (estimated at nearly $900 million) of providing security for the back-to-back G-8 and G-20 summits.
* “It’s a real tough choice to find someone to sit titularly over Petraeus.”–Retired Marine Corps Major Gen. Gene Deegan on the challenge of Gen. David Petraeus technically answering to his successor as the head of U.S. Central Command.
* “The oil spill has been a godsend for Charlie Crist. It’s kept him on TV and on the front page of every newspaper, with furrowed brow and open collar.”–Veteran Republican strategist J.M. “Mac” Stipanovich.
* “Money can only be successful if the major party candidates have a weakness that can be exploited.”–USF political scientist Darryl Paulson on the impact of self-funding candidates Jeff Greene, running in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary, and Rick Scott, running in the Republican gubernatorial primary.
* “You are a special interest.”–U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek’s Senate-debate retort to Jeff Green’s assertion that he vows not to take special-interest money.
* “The double-speak is rather tiresome…And I can only hope that this disaster will motivate us to reassess our priorities and implement a clean energy policy for this country.”–U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa in a recent Congressional-hearing exchange with BP CEO Tony Hayward.
* “We have a use agreement with the Rays. Despite what you may have heard about the possibility of them breaking that agreement, they have not done so yet. It’s really too bad the Rays have set the stage for pitting St. Petersburg against Tampa.”–St. Petersburg City Attorney John Wolfe.
* “The city wanted to buy out ConAgra years ago and ConAgra wanted a lot of money. They may have to call the stadium ConAgra Field.”–Tampa developer Ken Stoltenberg on the presence of the ConAgra flour mill on the north end of the Channel District, an area some see as viable for a baseball stadium.