"The state party wants to be prepared in case it succeeds in efforts to have delegates seated when the convention begins this August in Denver. The Democratic National Committee stripped the state of its delegates because it violated party rules by holding its primary before Feb. 5.

"We said from the beginning that we're going to move ahead with our plan because we were forced into this election date. We're trying to comply with the rules," said state party spokesman Mark Bubriski. "We remain confident that our delegates will be seated and we plan to appeal to the nominee or the credentials committee to seat our delegates."

Nobody realized it, but the storm began gathering in late March 2006. New Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, a Miami Republican, visited Washington-based Florida reporters and touted a plan to boost Florida's influence in picking presidential nominees by moving the primary earlier than March.

"With all due respect to New Hampshire and Iowa, nowhere are you going to be on a national stage like Florida," Rubio said at the time. "You're going to get questions about Israel, Latin America, immigration. It's the old South, it's Latin, it's Midwestern, it's rural and urban."

Rubio already had Democrats on board.

"Florida Democrats are all for it," Mark Bubriski, spokesman for the Florida Democratic Party, said at the time.