ST. PETERSBURG — The crowd is growing quickly inside University of South Florida’s Campus Activities Center, where former President Clinton is expected to arrive shortly and campaign for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Kendrick Meek.
After waiting in line for a couple hours outside, hundreds of Meek supporters are preparing for a rally that they hope will boost Meek’s position in the race. Recent polls show Meek is in third place, with former House speaker Rep. Marco Rubio in the lead and no-party Gov. Charlie Crist in second place.
Several local and state candidates, including Sen. Bill Nelson, State Rep. Rick Kriseman, D-St. Petersburg, and Tampa-area state Sen. Arthenia L. Joyner geared up the crowd before Clinton and Meek arrived. They stressed the need for Democrats to support Democratic candidates, particularly during the early voting period.
Over the last several days, the Meek campaign has been trying to fight off rumors that Meek could consider dropping out of the race to support Crist. Meek has said he will stick to the race until the end.
“When Democrats vote, Democrats win,” Joyner said. “Kendrick is the person that you need to vote for.”
Kriseman told Meek followers about his years of service with Rubio.
“I spent two years watching him up close, fighting his 100 bad ideas. Marco Rubio is all wrong for Florida,” Kriseman said.
“We need to spend the next 13 days spreading the word, telling our friends and family that in order to move forward, we need to elect someone that is forward thinking, and in this election it’s Kendrick Meek,” Kriseman added.
The Florida Democratic Party late Monday released the above footage of a Sept. 26 incident in which Republican congressional challenger Allen West asked supporters to “escort” a Democratic opposition-research videographer from a public park in unincorporated Delray Beach where the West campaign had rented a pavilion for a “Vets For West” event.
The videographer — called a “stalker” by West — was surrounded by West supporters and pressured to get into his car. The Florida Democratic Party said that at one point the West supporters “physically knocked his camera away.”
A separate video below shows West’s remarks, with his comments about the videographer beginning around the 2:25 mark.
“I don’t want him here, please escort him away because this is a place of honor and the organization that you represent has no honor, so please leave,” West says. After a few seconds, West adds, “Please escort him away. Do not touch him. Just escort him away, please. Thank you…”
Read more after the jump, including the West campaign’s response…
We Love USA PAC has spent $80,501 so far, primarily on billboards slamming U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton
Court rulings this year have paved the way for “Super PACs” that can raise and spend unlimited amounts on congressional races so long as they don’t coordinate their activities with candidates. One such group, the newly formed We Love USA PAC, is focused on the hotly contested race between U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, and Republican challenger Allen West.
Democrats are taking aim at Republican congressional challenger Allen West’s ties to South Florida’s motorcycle community, accusing West of associating with a club that’s been linked to crime and of contributing to a biker magazine that denigrates women.
West, who’s challenging Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Klein in a nationally watched race, says he’s a victim of a false attack from “people on the left reaching for anything they can to try to discredit someone’s character, especially two weeks before an election.”
American Crossroads, a PAC founded with the help of former George W. Bush White House adviser Karl Rove, is launching a one-week, $227,00 TV ad buy today slamming Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Klein for his vote for the health care bill — or, as the ad describes it, “Pelosi’s trillion-dollar, big-government takeover of our health care.”
Even without outside groups getting involved, Klein faces a well-financed challenge from Republican Allen West, who isn’t mentioned in the American Crossroads ad. West has raised more than $5 million, making him one of the top money-raising House candidates in the nation.
The chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party today accused local Democrats of racism for abandoning their party’s candidate in favor of independent candidate Charlie Crist.
“This is racial politics at its ugliest,” GOP chairman Sid Dinerstein said. “The white Democrats, the ones who supported Hillary not Obama are teaming up with Charlie to throw Kendrick under the bus so they can say more nasty things about an Hispanic American.”
Democratic leaders, who gathered to support Commissioner Burt Aaronson’s decision to endorse Crist, vehemently objected to Dinerstein’s characterization.
Marvin Manning, president of the Century Village of Boca Raton Democratic Club, said 70 percent of voters in Century Village supported Obama in the 2008 general election. “I totally reject any issue of racism,” he said.
“Mr. Dinerstein should be ashamed of himself for invoking the racial issue,” said Stanley Siegel, a member of a PAC that voted Monday to ask Meek to get out of the race.
Andre Fladell, a south county political activist, agreed.
“It’s a reckless comment which was made to create a very unhealthy result,” he said. Democrats who are endorsing Crist over Meek simply believe the governor can beat GOP candidate Marco Rubio. “It’s about viability. Period,” he said.
After weeks of playing it coy, Palm Beach County Commissioner Burt Aaronson today officially announced he would endorse independent candidate Charlie Crist in the U.S. Senate race.
While the announcement was expected, Aaronson’s Democratic counterpart on the commission, former State Rep. Shelley Vana, took it a step further. Not only did she endorse Crist, she urged Democratic candidate Kendrick Meek to get out of the race.
“I respectfully ask Congressman Meek — whom I love — to take one for the team,” she said. “While we love Kendrick at some point Kendrick has to know there’s a greater good here.”
Department of Management Services Secretary Linda South should quit her job because she signed off on runaway spending on an appellate courthouse dubbed the “Taj Mahal,” Senate President-designate and government penny-pincher Mike Haridopolos is demanding.
South approved a no-bid contract for the $48 million 1st District Court of Appeal courthouse in Tallahassee even though the rent from the building won’t be enough to pay its debt service, an audit by Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink found this week.
“Because of your irresponsible oversight, which has clearly wasted millions of taxpayer dollars, I call on you to submit your immediate resignation as Secretary of the Department of Management Services. You have failed to provide proper leadership and the abdication of your responsibilities has further weakened the public’s trust that their elected and appointed leaders will use their money wisely,” Haridopolos, R-Melbourne, wrote to South in a letter today.
Democratic state Rep. and soon-to-be state Sen. Maria Sachs has been banned by another Democratic club because she bucked her party and endorsed Gov. Charlie Crist’s independent bid for U.S. Senate.
U.S. Rep. and civil rights icon John Lewis, D-Ga., will join U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, in campaigning for U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, in West Palm Beach on Friday.
Hundreds of angry veterans have complained to the Veterans of Foreign War about this year’s House and Senate endorsements by the VFW PAC.
The PAC’s endorsement of Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Klein over Republican challenger and Iraq war vet Allen West has generated some of the most complaints, the Associated Press reports. The other hot button has been the PAC’s endorsement of Democratic California Sen. Barbara Boxer over Carly Fiorina.
The PAC is standing by its endorsements of House and Senate members who have taken the VFW’s position on military and veterans issues.
The League of Women Voters and PBS canceled debates between the U.S. Senate and gubernatorial candidates because GOP candidates Marco Rubio and Rick Scott refused to participate.
The League’s president Deidre MacNab said the debate, scheduled for Oct. 14, would have been the only one to reach all television viewers throughout the state.
The League could not get Gov. Charlie Crist, the independent U.S. Senate candidate, to confirm to appear either, MacNab said, meaning only U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, the Democrat in the three-way U.S. Senate race, had agreed to show up.
“It’s an underhanded political tactic. He is a third-party weak candidate and the only chance he has is to spread rumors about me. We’re in the race til Nov. 2. Our surveys show this is going to be a very close race and we have an excellent chance to win.”
Carroll: decries dropout rumors
The above quote is not from Democratic Senate nominee Kendrick Meek accusing indie Charlie Crist of trying to undermine his campaign. It comes instead from Republican Palm Beach County commission nominee John Carroll, who says he’s had to bat down rumors he might drop his challenge of Democratic incumbent Jess Santamaria.
Carroll says the rumors are false, and he accuses no-party candidate Andrew “Andy” Schaller of spreading them.
DEERFIELD BEACH — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. broke with his Democratic heritage this morning and endorsed indie Charlie Crist for Senate, arguing that Democratic nominee Kendrick Meek can’t defeat Republican frontrunner Marco Rubio.
The liberal scion apparently doesn’t think much of Rubio — or his supporters.
“Mr. Rubio has a radical vision, a narrow vision, an I-can-be-as-stupid-as-I-want vision of this country. It has appeal when people are angry, but it’s not a good long-term plan,” Kennedy said, according to our Jane Musgrave, who was on the scene at Shelby’s restaurant.
Democratic candidate for chief financial officer Loranne Ausley introduced a new television ad Tuesday that rips her opponent, Republican Jeff Atwater, for what it calls “pay to play contracts” issued under his watch as Senate president.
The ad depicts an actor playing Atwater in the office of the Senate president welcoming a series of visitors who each hand him an envelope and shake hands enthusiastically. A voice over enumerates instances of what the Ausley campaign considers questionable spending decisions in which Atwater participated.
Those instances include $48 million spent on a new 1st District Court of Appeals courthouse in Tallahassee, which has been attacked for its luxurious details and is derisively called “the Taj Mahal.”
U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, voted for Big Labor’s top priority in 2007 — a “card check” bill that would allow unions to bypass secret-ballot elections if a majority of employees in a bargaining unit sign cards requesting a union. That bill passed the House but stalled in the Senate.
The bill was reintroduced in 2009 and Klein — after some hesitation – signed on as one of 231 cosponsors.
During a debate Tuesday with Republican challenger Allen West, Klein said he supports secret ballots and signed on as a cosponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act so he could have “a seat at the table” to influence the legislation as it is hashed out.
Crist, a lifelong Republican who turned independent to avoid running against Marco Rubio in the GOP primary, will appear with Kennedy in Deerfield Beach this morning to make the endorsement announcement.
Crist first hooked up with fellow environmentalist Kennedy at Crist’s climate change summit three years ago.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will visit Florida to voice support for Amendments 5 and 6 to the Florida Constitution, which are on the Nov. 2 ballot.
Bloomberg will join former Miami mayor Manny Diaz, who is also chairman of FairDistrictsFlorida.org, at a news conference Fridayin Miami.
Bloomberg has been a vocal advocate of redistricting reform in New York and California.
Amendments 5 and 6 would add new rules for politicians to follow in redistricting and are meant to end the practice of political parties designing electoral districts to ensure their candidates being elected in those districts.
The news conference will be at the Hotel Intercontinental at 11 a.m..
Republican Marco Rubio continues to hold a big lead in Florida’s three-way Senate race, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll that shows Rubio with 44 percent, independent Charlie Crist with 30 percent and Democrat Kendrick Meek with 22 percent.
While Crist and Meek fight for Democratic votes and squabble over whether the Crist camp is planting Meek-should-withdraw talk, “Rubio has tried to make this election between himself and President Obama’s policies, not between himself and Crist or Meek,” says Quinnipiac’s Peter Brown. “Given the attitudes of likely voters, that has proven to be a smart strategy that appears likely to bear fruit on Election Day.”
Obama is viewed favorably by 43 percent of Florida voters and unfavorably by 54 percent. Voters prefer a candidate who opposes rather than supports Obama’s policies, the poll finds, and by a 46-to-37 percent want the GOP to take control of the Senate from Democrats.
The Oct. 6-10 poll of 1,055 likely voters has a 3 percent margin of error.
Bill Clinton will guest star at a $5,000-a-head fundraiserfundraiser for the Florida Democratic Party after next week’s gubernatorial debate.
According to a recent poll, the former president is the most popular politician in the country, and he’s been touring the country as a “surrogate” to pump up Democrat voters and prop up Democrat candidates, including U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, who’s trailing in the three-way U.S. Senate race against Republican Marco Rubio and independent Gov. Charlie Crist. Clinton’s made several trips to the Sunshine State for Meek already and will stump for him as well as Sink next week.
Clinton will headline Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink’s Miami Beach after-party next Wednesday after she and her GOP opponent Rick Scott debate in Davie.
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