Florida round-up: RPOF spent $33K with gov’s daughter’s firm, Grayson returns, keeping up with the Kochs
Guess who's back?
Now that Alan Grayson is running for Congress again, what else is happening in the Sunshine State? Read more
From Politico: the story behind the Clinton-Meek intervention
Politico’s Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Allen dig deeper into the delicate operation that they say began as early as this spring, in which the White House, fresh from trying to intervene to head off challenges to Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania and Michael Bennett in Colorado, tried to do the same in Florida. Read more
(Audio) The Crist-Meek voicemail
I’m still not sure why Kendrick Meek released this voicemail message. Can’t for the life of me figure out how that advances his cause. Besides that, the actual audio of the call detonates the Meekworld characterization of Charlie the Stalker — Crist sounds quite reasonable on the call, not at all desperate, and not for nothing, but he appears to be returning Meek’s call … Read more
The Florida Senate race goes from bizarre to ridiculous
Is Charlie Crist going all Ginny Thomas on Kendrick Meek?
So… Kendrick Meek has gone from saying he never ever had a conversation with anybody, especially former President Clinton, to admitting that he and Clinton kinda-sorta talked about the metaphysical concept of someone much like him theoretically dropping out of a race on the ethereal plane of unreality, to playing voicemails of Charlie Crist asking to meet with him about dropping out of the Senate race? Can we just call off the election now and all go home?
Related: Oh for Crist’s sake … Adviser says Charlie would definitely caucus with Dems…
Back to the ridiculousness… Read more
Timeline: the Clinton-Meek-Crist ‘Dropout’ caper **UPDATE**
Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Fla. and former President Bill Clinton
The Florida Senate race finally got interesting for reasons other than the media’s fetish for Marco Rubio Thursday night, though it also got mighty convoluted. So here’s what we know so far…
UPDATE: Meek will be on pretty much every morning show on television tomorrow (GMA, CNN, etc etc…)
5:50 p.m. – Politico publishes a story by Ben Smith in which he states that Bill Clinton’s spokesman, Matt McKenna, confirmed on the record that Clinton aider Doug Band had served as a go-between between the former president and the Congressman to discuss his dropping out of the race to prevent Marco Rubio from winning. The story quoted three sources: two unnamed “Democratic sources” — and McKenna. It was very specific, and said Meek actually agreed to the deal twice, but backed out.
6:49 – Charlie Crist campaign issues a statement confirming the story as “accurate.” They don’t say how they know this… Read more
UPDATE 2: Meek campaign UN-confirms Clinton convo
You just heard it from Keith Olbermann, and I just heard it from a source close to the Meek campaign. Kendrick Meek is categorically denying he had a conversation with former President Bill Clinton in which Clinton urged him to drop out of the Senate race. Team Meek is now distancing themselves from their own spokesman’s remarks to the Orlando Sentinel, saying Dave Hoffman was “mischaracterized” (per Keith) — although I’m not sure how you mischaracterize
…”that was discussed, yeah,” but Hoffman denied that Meek had ever agreed to drop out.
Hoffman said he could not characterize what Clinton said, but then said, “I think ‘suggest’ is probably the best ? not ‘suggest’ ? but that (getting out) was discussed yeah.
My sources are blaming this incident on Team Crist, and saying they put this out there as an “October surprise” to try and wipe Meek out. Crist saying he had “discussions with members of the Clinton team” on “Countdown” doesn’t argue against that possibility. Read more
UPDATE: Meek campaign confirms Clinton asked Meek to drop out, Meek to face media at 9:30
H/T to Peter Schorsch:
A spokesman for Democratic Congressman Kendrick Meek has confirmed that President Bill Clinton raised the possibility of Meek getting out of Florida’s race for U.S. Senate.
Dave Hoffman said “that was discussed, yeah,” but Hoffman denied that Meek had ever agreed to drop out. Read more
The Kamikaze candidacy? Bombshell report says Meek agreed to drop out **UPDATE**
If this is true, then this might be the leak that opens the door for Democrats to vote for Charlie Crist, and the Florida race for U.S. Senate just got real interesting again.
Major hat tip to Peter Schorsch, who alerted me to the story. I’ve been offline editing a video project, and totally missed it. But here’s the bottom line: according to Politico’s Ben Smith, who got former President Bill Clinton’s spokesman Matt McKenna on the record confirming the conversations took place … the former president confronted Meek during that big campaign swing through Florida last week with the fact that he isn’t going to win the U.S. Senate race. So Clinton, via his top aide Doug Band, began the careful process of brokering a deal for Meek to withdraw from the race. Read more
It starts: Crist within 7, Meek down to 15 in Quinnipiac poll
Florida 2010 Senate candidates, Crist, Rubio and Meek.
I’ve been saying for weeks that at some point, Democrats would begin to pick a side, and that Kendrick Meek is the most vulnerable to seeing his support (mostly among white Democrats) begin to slide, as “Anybody But Rubio” voters begin to freak out in the shadow of Election Day. The latest Quinnipiac poll shows that may be starting to occur. Read more
Obama, Meek, Sink make joint appeal to black FL voters
Kendrick Meek and Alex Sink were joined by President Barack Obama on a conference call with African-American clergy, political and community leaders Wednesday, the first time Sink, Kendrick Meek and President Barack Obama have appeared together since August (though at that event at Miami’s Fontainbleau Hotel, Sink didn’t stick around for a photo op with the prez.) Read more
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WTF Has Barack Obama Done So Far?
