Crist met privately Monday with a group of influential Palm Beach County Democratic clubs, who in turn formally called on Meek to quit the race. The request was suppose to come in a meeting with Palm Beach County Commissioner Burt Aaronson today, but Meek canceled after learning of the agenda.
"We waited this long to see what's happened with Kendrick Meek's fundraising and polling and so forth. I'm 99.8 percent certain it's hopeless for Meek," said Jay Weitz, chairman of the People's Choice PAC, which is made up largely of Democratic clubs representing thousands of voters.
When Kendrick Meek has to avoid members of his own party it means it is over. Meek has campaigned longer than Marco Rubio or Charlie Crist and still has less name-recognition and fundraising dollars. There have been student council races run with better professionalism and maturity. I have heard stories about Adam Sharon being hot-headed. We can see that the pressure of the campaign is getting to him. Sharon unleashed this hysterical and fact free temper tamtrum to political reporter Alex Leary.
"Charlie Crist can't win. He has no pathway. He wants to talk about coalition but this coalition never was and never will be," said Sharon, insisting that the Democratic nominee is the only one who can overwhelmingly win Democratic votes. "Charlie Crist lost to Marco Rubio once, and he wants to lose to him again, and that's the path we're on right now."
I'm going to do some Quinnell-style parsing of words and remind people that Crist announced his NPA candidacy before the Republican Senate primary. Crist did not run in the primary against Rubio or in any previous races. Therefore Sharon is factually incorrect in stating that Crist has lost to Rubio before. I also would like to know if Sharon called Crist to confirm if he wants to lose to Rubio.
SHARON: Charlie, the St. Petersburg Times is interviewing me. I need to know if you want to lose to Marco Rubio.
CRIST: Yes Adam. I wake up every morning and pray to God that I will lose to Marco. It has been a life long dream of mine.
SHARON: Great. I'll use that in the interview.
CRIST: Feel free to tell the media I want to lose to Marco.
SHARON: I will. Bye.
CRIST: Bye.
Sharon is also wrong about Crist not having a path to beat Rubio. A recent Public Policy Polling poll found Crist and Rubio would be tied at 46 perecent if Meek dropped out. Meek would be 7 points behind if Crist dropped out. The best chance to stop Rubio from entering the U.S. Senate is if Meek drops out. Meek is a zombie candidate who can not win. The Palm Beach County incident is another example that the party never was really that behind Meek.
When I parse words, it's for the sake of more clarity and accuracy, which isn't quite what you did here. While it may be technically true that Rubio didn't beat Crist, in reality he did beat him, since the fact that Rubio was winning is why Crist left the party and went indy.
ReplyDeleteAlso, your post says "Democrats Flee the Real Dem," despite the fact that Meek's numbers are about as high as they've been in the entire election cycle.
ReplyDeleteShould I say Meek flees Democrats in Palm Beach? I want to learn how to properly parse from the master.
ReplyDelete"Also, your post says "Democrats Flee the Real Dem," despite the fact that Meek's numbers are about as high as they've been in the entire election cycle."
ReplyDeleteUmmm... polling shows that Meek is getting around 40% of Dems. That is not "as high as they've been" since he did win the primary.
You're referring to his apallingly low overall vote numbers. Marco Rubio has to be quite pleased that Meek is staying in this race. I have as much change of winning the Senate seat as Kendrick Meek.
Jim, Quinnell reminds me of Kevin Bacon at the end of Animal House telling everyone to remain calm.
ReplyDelete