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If one legislative leader has his way Florida will be the gatekeeper on the road to the White House in 2012. Senate President Mike Haridopolos is inviting presidential candidates to visit Tallahassee during the next three months. There’s only an unofficial field of possible candidates to challenge President Obama at this point and most of them are at the CPAC conference today, but apparently Haridopolos knows who’s in and who’s out because he’s already talked to them.

“You will see a number of these presidential candidates, they’ve reached out to me, I’ve reached out to them. I think it will be beneficial to Florida to find out some of their ideas because we face a multitude of problems in the state and if a person is seeking the presidency I think they should come to Florida and let us know what they think,” said Haridopolos.

Haridopolos says there’s an open invitation to President Barack Obama, but the Senate leader doesn’t think the president will bite.