Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Kendrick Meek is struggling to keep Democratic voters from supporting Gov. Charlie Crist in their three-way race for the U.S. Senate with former House Speaker Marco Rubio.
But state and national Democratic party leaders have continued to strongly support Meek, with some saying he needs to remain viable to boost turnout for other Democratic candidates, particularly Alex Sink.
Meek “is at the top of the ticket and people always say that the top of the ticket helps down the ballot” said state Rep. Joe Gibbons, D-Hallandale Beach, a former chairman of the state Conference of Black State Legislators.
University of South Florida political scientists Susan MacManus said there’s a calculated effort to keep Meek in the game not just for this year’s Democrats, but for another Democrat who will be on the ballot in two years.
“Obviously the black vote is very critical to Democratic success in statewide elections in Florida,” said MacManus. “And obviously the reason the (Congressional Black Caucus) is keeping the heat on is because if people are seen as abandoning Kendrick Meek, what about President Obama in 2012?”
With Crist actively courting Democratic voters, there’s a concern in the party that the two will split the Democratic vote, giving neither a chance to beat Rubio. In fact, a recent Quinnipiac University poll showed a lot of rank-and-file Democrats may already have abandoned Meek, with 46 percent of Democrats saying they’ll vote for Crist. That left Rubion in the lead with 46 percent, Crist with 33 percent and Meek at 18 percent in the Sept. 30 survey.
The Quinnipiac Poll did not measure support for the candidates by race, but MacManus said one of Meek’s problems is that voters do not seem to see electing him to the U.S. Senate in the same history-making light they saw electing Obama. “It seems that Democrats aren’t as swayed about the path-breaking nature of Meek as they were about Obama,” she said.
State Sen. Tony Hill, D-Jacksonville, is working to change that. Hill, who is close to Meek, created Florida African American Caribbean Empowerment (F.A.C.E.), a coalition of black lawmakers and civic groups, to increase black turnout.
“In ’08, we voted to change the guard, now it’s our job – those of us who are progressive – to protect the guard we changed,” said Hill, who was with Meek when he staged a sit-in over affirmative action in former Gov. Jeb Bush’s office.
“We’ve got to keep people engaged,” he said. “This election is like the mid-term. Remember in college you had to pass the mid-term? We have to have to pass the midterm to graduate.”
Crist just might caucus with Democrats if elected, and could help prevent Republicans from getting the 60 votes they’d need to block President Obama’s agenda. But the White House has remained behind Meek, with Vice President Joe Biden recently stumping and raising money for Meek in Florida – even though Crist, a former Republican, was one of the few GOP governors to support Obama’s stimulus package.
Some of that support could also owe to the White House’s relationship with the Congressional Black Caucus. With Obama’s negatives on the rise, and some Democrats blaming him for their plight, the administration has enough problems without angering black members of Congress.
Supporting Crist would do just that.
Black U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings said in a recent newspaper interview that support for Meek is a pre-requisite for support from the caucus.
“I told (black officials) not to buy into the illusion that Kendrick can’t win,” Hastings recently told the St. Petersburg Times. “I told them about the historic significance of having an African-American candidate win in the South and setting the stage for President Obama’s re-election in 2012. I told them to tell any candidate that comes through their area that they can’t support them unless they are visibly supporting Meek.”
Gibbons downplayed the idea that the White House is afraid of angering the Black Caucus, but he agreed Meek could boost the black vote for other Democrats running statewide.
“The involvement of Washington is being done to motivate people to help the entire ticket, not just Kendrick Meek,” Gibbons said. He added that regardless of the reason, the attention from national Democrats is good for the issues black voters care about.
“Charlie Crist is getting a lot of Democratic voters right now, and that of course includes some of the black vote,” he said. “I think that is recognized by the party, which is a good thing for black people because we always say we don’t want to be taken advantage of by the Democratic Party.”
Meek is one of two African-Americans running statewide this year. The other is Jennifer Carroll, who is on the Republican ticket as the lieutenant governor candidate with Rick Scott.
Carroll had been the lone Republican member of the Conference of Black State Legislators.
By Keith Laing
The News Service of Florida
