Santorum Florida leadership team includes personhood leader, Buchanan associate

GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum (Pic by Gage Skidmore, via Wikimedia Commons)

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum has unveiled his Florida leadership team, which includes some familiar names: the head of Personhood Florida and a former associate of Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Sarasota.

According to a Friday morning press release, Jesse Biter will serve as Florida chairman of the Rick Santorum for President campaign. Biter, the founder of HomeNet Automotive, has worked on campaigns for Mike Huckabee, Buchanan, and Gov. Rick Scott. Biter is well connected in Florida politics and, according to his Twitter account, hosted Buchanan, Marco Rubio, and Rudy Giuliani at his home in October 2010.

The Sarasota-based Biter is currently a business partner of Buchanan’s son, Matt Buchanan. Last year, the two launched a business called Dealers United, telling the Gulf Coast Business Review that they planned to spend at least $1 million in startup costs on the business.

Buchanan is currently the subject of several ongoing investigations into contributions made to his 2006 and 2008 congressional campaigns. According to a former business partner, Buchanan pressured employees of a car dealership he co-owned to donate to his campaigns, and then later reimbursed them with dealership funds.

Santorum has raised a hefty amount from Florida donors, a large chunk of which has come from the Sarasota-Bradenton region.

Pastor Bryan Longworth has also been named a leader of Santorum’s Florida campaign. Longworth, a vocal anti-abortion activist, heads up Personhood USA’s Florida affiliate and is currently involved in a campaign to create a “fetal personhood” bill for the state’s 2014 ballot.

Personhood Florida recently received an endorsement from the Family Research Council.