BOCA RATON — Republican Senate candidate Marco Rubio, who spoke to a chamber of commerce group here this morning, said fixing Social Security needs to be part of any long-term deficit-reduction plan.
Rubio favors no changes in the system for people who are now 55 or older, but says “proposals that have to be talked about” include eventually raising the retirement age and changing the formula for determining yearly benefit increases. He accused Gov. Charlie Crist and both leading Democratic Senate candidates of refusing to confront the issue and predicted they’ll try to misrepresent his stance.
“I guarantee you right now that in this campaign, one or both of my opponents will run a commercial that says Marco Rubio wants to take away your Social Security,” Rubio told the group of about 25 Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce trustees.
A new Rasmussen poll of Florida’s Senate race shows Republican Marco Rubio ahead in a three-way contest if Kendrick Meek wins the Aug. 24 Democratic primary. Rubio gets 38 percent, independent Charlie Crist gets 33 percent and Meek gets 21 percent in the poll.
If Jeff Greene wins the Democratic primary, the poll shows Crist barely edges Rubio by picking up some Democratic support. That scenario shows Crist with a 37-to-36 percent lead over Rubio and Greene at 20 percent.
The poll of 750 likely voters has a 4 percent margin of error.
Either way, the Democrat finishes a distant third in the new poll. Both Crist and Rubio probably enjoyed Tuesday’s Orlando Democratic debate, in which both Meek and Greene highlighted each other’s negatives.
Democratic Senate hopeful Jeff Greene’s campaign released new documents today to bolster Greene’s contention that his 2007 visit to Cuba wasn’t an embargo-defying party layover but an unscheduled stop to fix mechanical problems.
The documents — an attorney’s letter, the written recollections of the chief engineer of the 145-foot Summerwind and a repair bill from the Bahamas — probably won’t make the Cuba controversy go away. There’s still the matter of Greene’s conflicting initial accounts of why he visited the communist island.
But the new documents do provide some interesting glimpses into yachting life.
The yacht’s chief engineer, Andy Valero, says in his letter he was vacationing in the Philippines when he was called by Greene “to return to the boat immediately to help with repairs.” He says he flew to Havana, but there were not adequate materials to fix the craft so he made temporary repairs to get the boat to the Bahamas, where Greene incurred $3,126 for repairs and dockage. The biggest item was $1,179.25 for four steel hydraulic lines.
Valero offers what may be an alternative vomit theory, saying there had been rough seas and that when he arrived in Havana, “all the guests were very sick” but “there were no parties on the vessel.”
Forbes reports today that Democratic Senate hopeful Jeff Greene paid $115,000 in 2007 to settle a libel suit filed in California by an employee of a property management firm that was used by real estate mogul Greene.
The Forbes article says documents from the suit paint an “unflattering” picture of Greene, whose business practices have been criticized by primary rival Kendrick Meek.
There was no comment from Greene’s campaign late this afternoon. The article quotes a Greene attorney saying Greene and the plaintiff have agreed not to comment and the settlement isn’t an admission by Greene of any of the plaintiff’s claims.
Greene and Meek are in a tight Aug. 24 Democratic primary in which the candidates have similar stands on most issues but have attacked each other’s character and background.
Democratic Senate candidate Jeff Greene today challenged his Senate primary rival, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, to join him in calling for the resignation of U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, the New York Democrat who faces 13 House ethics charges.
“He’s protecting the culture of corruption and bribery in Washington. I think he needs to stand up to Rangel and ask for him to resign as other members of Congress have done,” Greene said in an interview.
Meek, asked last week if Rangel should resign, told reporters he favors letting the House Ethics Committee process play out.
“I think that the whole ethics legislation that we passed in Congress is working. It’s working because there is a process in Congress to police members when there is a misstep,” Meek said Wednesday on his campaign bus. “And he’s going through that process just like anyone else would go through that process and that’s up to Mr. Rangel on what he does, and up to the people in his district.”
Former President Bill Clinton will campaign in Delray Beach for Democratic Senate hopeful Kendrick Meek on Aug. 16, bolstering Meek’s status as the Democratic Party establishment favorite in the Aug. 24 primary against billionaire Palm Beach outsider Jeff Greene.
Meek and Clinton go back to the early 1990s, when Meek was a Florida Highway Patrol trooper assigned to pick up then-Arkansas Gov. Clinton at the airport in Tallahassee while Clinton was running for president. Meek was an early backer of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential bid. Bill Clinton has already helped Meek with several events in the Senate race.
Clinton and Meek are scheduled to appear together at three South Florida events on Aug. 16. Doors open for the event at the Delray Community Center at 4:30 p.m. that day. The pair will then campaign in Davie and Miami.
On Aug. 18, Meek is scheduled to be “joining” President Obama at an event in Miami. Details of that event remain unclear.
The event is slated for the Delray Community Center at 50 N.W. 1st Avenue in Delray Beach. Doors open at 4:30 p.m.
Is billionaire Jeff Greene’s spectacular success investing in credit-default swaps causing concern among Democratic Senate primary voters? After weeks of attacks against rival Kendrick Meek, Greene’s new 60-second TV spot seems a tad defensive, emphasizing Greene’s humble roots, student loans and hard work before he vaulted from multimillionaire to billionaire by figuring out a way to make money when the housing market collapsed.
A week after a Quinnipiac University poll showed outsiders Rick Scott and Jeff Greene with double-digit leads in their respective primaries for governor and U.S. Senate, a Mason-Dixon poll today suggests both races are tighter.
The poll, commissioned by Leadership Florida and the Florida Press Association, shows Naples businessman Scott with a 37-to-31 percent lead over Attorney General Bill McCollum in the Republican primary for governor.
In the Democratic Senate primary, the Mason-Dixon poll shows U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek ahead of Palm Beach billionaire Greene by a 33-to-29 percent margin.
Meek’s campaign, meanwhile, says it’s latest internal gives Meek a 1-point lead over Greene.
The Mason-Dixon poll was conducted Monday through Wednesday and has a 4 percent margin for error.
ORLANDO — U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek told union supporters he’s underdog stone-slinger David facing a wealthy Goliath in his Democratic Senate primary campaign against Jeff Greene.
With firebrand Democratic U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson and about 150 supporters on hand at a union hall, Meek kicked off a 10-day bus tour that he says will emphasize his grass-roots support against Greene, the Palm Beach billionaire who has used a costly TV ad campaign to surge ahead of Meek in the polls.
“We’re going to be the David in this race, David vs. Goliath,” Meek said. “It’s not about running television commercials, it’s about getting out and touching Floridians and understanding their needs. I look forward to continuing to engage everyday people.”
Meek has stops in Sanford, Daytona Beach and Jacksonville later today.
ORLANDO — Democratic Senate candidate Kendrick Meek, the party establishment favorite who finds himself trailing billionaire Palm Beach outsider Jeff Greene’s TV-fueled campaign in primary polls, begins a 10-day bus tour this morning that will take him to Jacksonville, Pensacola, Miami and multiple points in between.
His bus is called “The Real Dem Express” — its name meant to be a rolling criticism of Greene, who ran for Congress in California in 1982 and, after years of being registered with no party, didn’t register as a Democrat until he moved to Florida in 2008.
The tour begins at a union hall shortly before noon, then is scheduled to stop in Sanford, Daytona Beach and Jacksonville later today.
ORLANDO — Democratic Senate candidate Jeff Greene told reporters today that his 2007 stop in Cuba was an unplanned one brought on my mechanical problems on his 145-foot yacht. The hydraulic troubles, he said, gave him the opportunity to go on an impromptu fact-finding mission about conditions in the Jewish community under the Castro regime.
The Cuba visit first became a topic of discussion when a Sunday St. Petersburg Times profile of Greene included a quote from a former deckhand who said: “Mr. Greene’s yacht is known to be a party yacht. When it went to Cuba, everybody talked about the vomit caked all over the sides from all the partying going on.”
Cuba
Many readers undoubtedly focused on the alleged vomit-caked debauchery. Others, including Greene’s Democratic primary rival Kendrick Meek, raised eyebrows because most visits to Cuba are illegal under the U.S. embargo against the communist nation.
U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, says he’s “a bit put out by the mixed signals that are coming out from the White House” in Florida’s Senate race. If President Obama doesn’t do more to help Kendrick Meek in the Democratic primary this month, Hastings says, Obama could face an enthusiasm gap when he seeks Florida votes in 2012.
After going from nowhere to a double-digit primary lead in a mere three months, Democratic Senate candidate Jeff Greene is reshuffling his campaign team.
Palm Beach billionaire Greene’s campaign announced today it has ended its ties to high-profile consultants Joe Trippi and Paul Blank and brought in another set of Democratic big guns — Tad Devine and Julian Mulvey — as media consultants.
Vincent Rongione is also coming aboard as campaign manager. Greene’s first campaign manager, Josh Morrow, left in mid-July.
Greene’s other big-name hire, pollster Douglas Schoen, is remaining.
Blank this afternoon said there was no drama behind the changes.
“We’re leaving on very good terms. I have a lot of affection for Jeff. He’s in a very good position to win and I wish him well,” Blank said.
“Save-the-date” notices for the event list Obama and Democratic governor candidate Alex Sink as “special guests” but don’t mention Meek.
“Congressman Meek will be joining the President at the August event,” a White House spokeswoman told The Palm Beach Post late today. There was no immediate word on what the “joining” will entail, but details of presidential visits are usually kept under wraps until the last minute.
Obama has endorsed Meek, but U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings and other Meek backers have been pressing the president to publicly show support for Meek, the party establishment favorite who’s in danger of losing the Aug. 24 Dem primary to late-arriving, big-spending Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene.
Presidential appearances on behalf of a candidate in a contested primary are rare but not unprecedented. Obama appeared with Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter in May before the Keystone State’s Democratic primary, but it was no magic bullet for the party-switching incumbent. Specter lost to Joe Sestak.
UPDATE: The event has been canceled so Crist can attend the funeral of LeRoy Collins Jr. on Monday. Republican-turned-independent Gov. Charlie Crist, the onetime “consistent conservative” GOP candidate who’s now drawing strong Democratic support in his bid for U.S. Senate, plans a campaign stop Monday morning at Democrat-heavy Century Village of Pembroke Pines in Broward County.
Word of Crist’s foray into Broward County’s Democratic heartland comes from consultant Eric Johnson, the Democratic operative and former Robert Wexler chief of staff who was hired by Crist to help make inroads with South Florida Dems.
In case anyone doubted that Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene is driving the discussion in the Democratic Senate primary with his saturation TV campaign and blizzard of mailings, check out rival Kendrick Meek’s latest ad.
As with Meek’s debut ad Monday, the customary feel-good phase in which a candidate introduces himself to voters has been reduced to three seconds consisting of a nice shot of Meek and his family walking in sunlight. The rest of the ad responds to Greene attacks and throws a few counter-punches.
“All of these news organizations reported Kendrick Meek is not part of a fraud case. And to say he’s against children’s health care is ridiculous,” a narrator says before swinging into an attack on Greene for making a fortune by betting on massive subprime mortgage defaults.
Republican-turned-independent Gov. Charlie Crist leads the general election race for U.S. Senate with 37 percent to 32 percent for Republican Marco Rubio and 17 percent for leading Democrat Jeff Greene, a new Quinnipiac University poll finds.
If U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek is the Democratic nominee, he gets only 13 percent of the vote, with Crist at 39 percent and Rubio at 33 percent, the poll says. Crist was also the leader in an early-June Quinnipiac poll.
Quinnipiac finds a tight November governor’s race. In a poll that has a 3.2 percent margin of error, GOP frontrunner Rick Scott would get 29 percent to Democrat Alex Sink’s 27 percent, with independent Bud Chiles pulling 14 percent.
If Attorney General Bill McCollum is the Republican nominee, he tops Sink by a 27-to-26 percent margin, with Chiles at 14 percent.
Quinnipiac released polls Thursday showing wealthy self-financed outsiders Greene and Scott holding double-digit leads in their respective primaries.
After spending millions of dollars of their own money on TV ads and mailers over the last three months, wealthy outsiders Jeff Greene and Rick Scott lead their respective primaries for the Democratic Senate nomination and Republican gubernatorial nomination, a new Quinnipiac University poll of Florida voters says.
In the Democratic Senate race, Palm Beach billionaire Greene has surged ahead of of U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek and holds a 33-to-23 percent lead, the poll says. The race was a virtual tie in June, with Meek up by a 29-to-27 percent margin.
Former health care executive Scott leads Attorney General Bill McCollum by a 43-to-32 percent margin in the GOP governor’s primary. Scott had a 44-to-31 percent edge in Quinnipiac’s June poll.
The primaries are Aug. 24, with early voting beginning Aug. 9.
Scott’s lead appears more solid than Greene’s, other numbers in the poll suggest.
Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene said at this month’s Florida Democratic Party dinner that he’d support U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek in the general election if Meek wins the Aug. 24 Senate primary.
On a conference call today, Meek was asked if there is “any way” he could support Greene if Greene wins the primary.
Read Meek’s answer, and the Greene campaign’s response, after the jump…..
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