When Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan rally in Daytona Beach Friday night -- and somebody should tell them this right away -- they'll be worshipping at a temple of deficit spending, Keynesian economics and executive power unconstrained.

During the previous debate, our Dispatches from the Swing State team met an interesting character in a Key West pub -- a local server named Patti Wilde who is originally from Cincinnati and is something of a local celebrity.

Or, as she explains it, "I mean, I used to be. I've been here 30 years so they go, 'oh, Cincinnati Patti's here.' But now they don't do that anymore. They go, 'Larry!'"

"Larry" is Patti Wilde's cat -- a very large cat that sits calmly on the bar stool wherever she goes.

Boca Raton's Marc Leder, who is best known for hosting a dinner earlier this year in which presidential candidate Mitt Romney said 47 percent of people will vote for Obama because they are "dependent upon government," is going to hold yet another event this Friday at a country club in Boca Raton.

This fundraiser, however, will feature Romney's Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan.

Election Day is less than three weeks away, but half a million votes are already in in Florida.

The Miami Herald reports the heaviest voting is taking place in Miami Dade, Tampa Bay and along the I-4 corridor.

About 500,000 Floridians have already cast absentee ballots, and 1.8 million more have requested these ballots be mailed to them.

Heavy interest in the presidential race is believed to be behind the rush to vote so soon.

Every day, thousands of people use the Sunshine Skyway Bridge to cross Tampa Bay. Hundreds of people also use the bridge to end their lives.

Hanns Jones is one of the people who jumped off the bridge for that reason.

But Jones survived.

Fact checkers were up all night after Wednesday's Senate debate between Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson and his Republican challenger, U. S. Connie Mack. Facts and truth were relative things, many agreed, during the one and only chance Florida voters will have to see the candidates debate.

Mack is enjoying a bounceback after trailing in the polls for several weeks and the debate at Nova  Southeastern University was animated with a few excursions into testy.

Topics included Cuba, foreign policy, health care and the candidates' respective records. 

After the final vote is cast next month, the country may be in need of some healing and reconciliation.

That's the idea behind Election Day Communion.

Hundreds of churches across the country will be holding services election night and serving communion including one in South Florida.

Reverend Spencer Potter is the rector of St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Palmetto Bay.

He says the service will be a time for the whole congregation to unite.

State Rep. Barbara Watson will keep her 13-vote Democratic primary win over fellow Rep. John Patrick Julien. A Tallahassee judge ruled Wednesday that, despite some suspicious signatures on several absentee ballots cast for Watson, there wasn't enough evidence to overturn the result.

As Julien considers his options, Watson is preparing for the general election which she is likely to win. Heavily Democratic District 107 produced only a write-in candidate to oppose her.

As the debates and rhetoric continue this election season, more than half a million Floridians have already had their say through absentee voting.

You can hear that story and more in WLRN Miami Herald News.