Winners of the week (tie): Vern Buchanan. The Justice Department dropped its criminal investigation into the Sarasota congressman's smelly campaign finance activities. Voters on Rick Scott's purge list. After a legal settlement between Gov. Rick Scott and voter rights groups, the governor's office will tell more than 2,000 Floridians identified as potentially ineligible, non-citizen voters that they have no need to worry about being purged from the voter lists.

Losers of the week (tie):Connie Mack IV. Three Florida polls released in recent days showed Mack losing to Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson by anywhere from 7 to 16 percentage points. Pinellas County Commission candidate Janet Long. Janet, if you're going to tear into firefighters, perhaps — just perhaps — you should refrain from doing it on the eve of Sept. 11.