Independent U.S. Senate candidate Charlie Crist used his position as governor to get people close to former President Bill Clinton and White House officials to call him so he could encourage them to get his Democratic opponent Kendrick Meek to drop out of the race, U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings said today.

“He knew Bill Clinton and Kendrick Meek were friends,” Hastings said. And, he knew he could get a call back from the White House.

“He’s the governor. People return his calls,” said Hastings, D-Miramar. “He didn’t call me because I would have cursed his ass to hell.”

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ORLANDO — U.S. Democratic Senate candidate Kendrick Meek told reporters this morning that independent Gov. Charlie Crist asked him to consider dropping out of the race during an AIPAC campaign event in Hollywood this week.

“(Crist) said, ‘If you would consider it, I’d really appreciate it because I have a better chance,’ Meek said after speaking to hundreds of educators at the Florida Education Association’s annual convention. “And I said, ‘I’m sorry Governor, I can’t do that’.”

Meek also said former President Bill Clinton never tried to persuade him to abandon the race and endorse Crist.

“There was no deal on the table, and I never promoted one,” Meek told reporters after his speech. “It was a discussion about winning the race, but I guess that’s not newsworthy.”

A teary-eyed Meek told a statewide teachers union that despite these last-minute rumors, he’s a man of his word and would continue campaigning until Election Day.

“I have just as good a chance as everyone else in this race,” Meek said.

The Meek campaign has blamed Crist for spreading rumors  over the last couple weeks that Meek would quit.

Crist has denied he crafted a deal to oust Meek, but acknowledged this morning that his staff had talked to President Clinton about the possibility of Meek withdrawing.

“Those who want to sit around and play pundit, let them do it. I’m going to live in the world that Floridians are living in,” Meek added. “I may not be the best known candidate in this race, but I will not turn my back on something I have already committed to.”

Meek, who is trailing Crist and Republican Marco Rubio in the polls, has a series of campaign events scheduled until Tuesday, including a 24-hour statewide tour and several Get Out the Vote rallies.

PALM BEACH GARDENS – Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio weighed in this morning  on reports that former President Bill Clinton tried to broker a deal to get Democratic candidate Kendrick Meek out of the race to boost independent candidate Charlie Crist’s chances of winning.

“If you ever needed a reminder of what’s wrong with American politics today this story is a great reminder of back door deals,” he told reporters, including Palm Beach Post political writer George Bennett, at a campaign stop.

“That’s what got us some of this bad public policy that’s putting America on the wrong track. That’s what got us Obamacare,”  Rubio said. “That’s in part what I’m running against … people in Washington that are willing to compromise principles to acquire power.”

During a speech to about 100 supporters at the Original Pancake House, he didn’t specifically mention the growing controversy.

But, he alluded to it at one point:  “Here’s the deal,” he began. Then, he paused, “Well, maybe  that’s the wrong word to use today.”

Gov. Charlie Crist said he doesn’t remember if he contacted the White House about getting Kendrick Meek to drop out of the U.S. Senate race and said it doesn’t matter.

“They were just interested in staying up with what was going on. I’m not going to get into the back and forth about it. I think it’s been well-reported. The story that’s out this morning it’s true and accurate,” the independent candidate told reporters at a campaign stop in Panama City this morning.

Crist denied reports that he would caucus with the Democrats if Meek dropped out of the race and said he can’t remember who initiated talks with President Obama’s administration.

“I really can’t remember and it really doesn’t matter. What matters is what the people of Florida want…This is a Florida decision for Floridians to decide what they want -if they want an extremist like Marco Rubio or if they want a common-sense candidate like Charlie Crist. That’s really what it comes down to,” the former Republican said.

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Independent U.S. Senate candidate said this morning he didn’t try to craft a deal to get his Democratic opponent Kendrick Meek out of the race.

“I wasn’t trying to get a deal done,” he said this morning on CNBC Squawk Box while in Panama City where he is beginning a three-day bus tour of the state.

He acknowledged his staff had talked to President Clinton about the possibility of Meek withdrawing.

“Conversations between President Clinton’s people and us began Tuesday or Wednesday of  last week and I think they made a valiant attempt to do what was right for the country,” he said.

He said he didn’t talk directly to Clinton, “but I spoke to people close to him.”

He also said he had conversation with unnamed people in the White House.
“We didn’t ask them for anything and they didn’t volunteer anything. Just wanted to keep up about what was going on in the Florida race.”

Democratic Senate nominee Kendrick Meek, making the morning TV news rounds today, says he and former President Clinton discussed Meek dropping out of the race — but only in the context of addressing rumors that Meek says were spread by independent rival Charlie Crist.

Meek denied that Clinton asked him to get out of the Senate race or that he agreed to do so.

“President Clinton and I talked about it. Yes we did. But he didn’t say, ‘Hey, this is my recommendation to you.’ Because that’s not his place. The bottom line is, he asked me about the reports of last week and the week before,” Meek told CNN.

“I’m not playing politics. I’m not doing backroom deals,” Meek said.

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Internal tracking by Republican Marco Rubio’s campaign shows Democrat Kendrick Meek and independent Charlie Crist “in a statistical dead heat,” Rubio consultant Todd Harris said tonight in trying to knock down speculation that Crist can beat Rubio if Meek drops out.

Among those who have already voted, Harris said, the Rubio campaign’s in-house polling shows Meek with a 28-to-24 percent lead over Crist. (That suggests Rubio is drawing about 48 percent from early and absentee voters.)

Reacting to a Politico.com report that former President Clinton tried to get Meek to drop out and endorse Crist to defeat Rubio, Harris said: “Charlie Crist truly will say and do anything to get elected and hold on to power. Secret deals to trade away principles for power is already the problem in Washington, it’s not the solution. This is simply politics as usual which is exactly what voters across the country are emphatically rejecting this election.”

Former congresswoman Carrie Meek has kept a low profile throughout much of her son’s campaign for the U.S. Senate, but today she told voters in a massive e-mail blast that Kendrick Meek needs their support during the final stretch of the campaign.

“I can’t thank you enough for all you have done to help my son. But we are not done yet,” wrote the elder Meek. “Kendrick is about to head into the final weekend of campaigning – his last opportunity to reach voters and make sure they turn out for him and Democrats up and down the ticket.”

In her letter, Carrie Meek also hinted at Kendrick Meek’s third-place position in the race, adding that numbers are not her son’s top priority.

“The only opinions we care about belong to the voters,” she wrote. (more…)

A heckler interrupted Rick Scott’s stump speech in Melbourne this morning for the first time since the GOP gubernatorial candidate kicked off a week-long sweep of the state leading up to Tuesday’s election.

Joseph Concannon didn’t have far to go to voice his dissatisfaction with Scott. Concannon works at Buz’s Automotive repair shop next door to That Little Restaurant where Scott’s caravan made a brief stop.

Scott ignored the interruption as he introduced one of his two daughters to a small gathering of supporters.

“Does she know you’re a crook? We do,” Concannon yelled.

Concannon said he was referring to the $1.7 billion fine Columbia/HCA paid to the federal government for Medicare and Medicaid fraud shortly after Scott was forced out as CEO of the hospital chain he founded.

Concannon was on a cell phone talking to his wife, Stephanie Hosala, a member of the local Democratic Executive Committee. He said she didn’t ask him to come to Scott’s event but he went over to voice his opinion when he saw Scott’s bus arrive.

Concannon conferred with his wife when asked who he backs in the U.S. Senate race.

“Charlie Crist,” he answered.

When asked why he wasn’t voting for U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, the Democrat vying with independent Crist for his party’s votes, Concannon repeated the answer his spouse apparently gave him.

“Meek is so far behind he doesn’t have a chance,” the Palm Bay resident said.

A South Florida basketball superstar wrote a fundraising letter for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Kendrick Meek today, asking for 37 online donors to contribute whatever they can afford to help the Miami congressman during the last stretch of the campaign.

Miami Heat player Dwyane Wade’s letter appeared on kendrickmeek.com this afternoon.

“Kendrick needs all of us in the game to swish the buzzer beater,” Wade wrote.

Meek continues to trail Republican Marco Rubio and independent Gov. Charlie Crist in the polls.

Here’s what Wade wrote: (more…)

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Kendrick Meek will be out and about this Halloween, campaigning for 24 hours straight just a couple days before Election Day.

His camp will kick-off the tour at 9 p.m. Sunday with college Democrats at the University of South Florida Marshall Student Center in Tampa, followed by a visit to Mema’s Alaskan Tacos in Tampa.

Meek will then head east to Orlando, and then visit Jacksonville and Gainesville. The tour will also stop in Volusia, St. Johns, Lake, Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, according to a campaign press release.

The Miami congressman is also scheduled to attend several Get Out the Vote rallies on Monday, including an event at the West Palm Beach Library on Clematis Street.

Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), Rep. Mack Bernard (D-West Palm Beach) and Rep. Mark Pafford (D-West Palm Beach) are expected to attend.

Meek will also visit rallies in Pompano Beach and Miami.

Yet another conservative media outlet is reporting that Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Kendrick Meek could be pondering an early exit from the race against no-party Gov. Charlie Crist and Republican Marco Rubio, just two weeks after a Wall Street Journal story sparked similar talk in the campaign trail.

The Meek campaign denies that the Miami congressman is dropping out, and is once again blaming the Crist camp for spreading “an ugly lie … that has very deep consequences for voters who are trying to figure out what is going on.”

The most recent report by The Daily Caller, a political blog founded by conservative political correspondent and Fox News Channel contributor Tucker Carlson and Neil Patel, adviser to former Vice President Dick Cheney, published today that a tipster claimed Meek and Crist had a “private talk” at an event in Hollywood on Monday to possibly join forces against Rubio, who leads both men in the polls.

Earlier this month, a Wall Street Journal writer quoted two anonymous Republican sources saying Meek would drop out and support Crist because the governor had a better chance of beating Rubio.

“This is a two-week old lie. It was a lie then. It’s a lie now,” said Meek’s communication director, Adam Sharon. (more…)

The latest Zogby poll released today brings good news for Republican Marco Rubio, whose voter support in the U.S. Senate race grew slightly from 39.2 percent in September to 39.6 percent.

Poll numbers have even better news for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink, who now has a nearly 5-point lead over her Republican opponent, Rick Scott, according to the poll conducted Oct. 18-21.

In the U.S. Senate race, no-party governor Charlie Crist still trails Rubio by 6.3 percent; he had 33 percent voter support in Zobgy’s September poll. Miami’s Democratic congressman Kendrick Meek remains in third place with 18.1, a slight increase from 17.6 percent in September. (more…)

TAMPA — Democrat Kendrick Meek promised a “lights-out cage match” in Sunday’s Senate debate. But as has often been the case in this year’s three-way race, Meek was overshadowed by clashes between independent Charlie Crist and Republican nominee Marco Rubio, who called Crist a “heckler” after the governor repeatedly tried to talk over him to accuse Rubio of using his past position as a state House speaker to benefit himself.

Sunday’s debate was the fifth Senate candidate mash-up. A sixth and final Senate debate is Tuesday in Orlando.

Click here for coverage of Sunday’s debate.

After the jump, a handy click-’n'-read guide to the previous four Senate debates….

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TAMPA — Candidates usually try to lower expectations before a debate. Not Kendrick Meek. The Democratic U.S. Senate nominee, running third in polls, told Palm Beach County Democrats Saturday night to expect a “lights-out cage match” in this morning’s 9 a.m. debate on CNN.

Earlier Saturday, Meek was using football rather than wrestling as his choice of violent sports imagery. He told The Lakeland Ledger to expect a “verbally eventful” debate in which he goes after Republican frontrunner Marco Rubio like a linebacker going after a quarterback.

Palm Beach County wouldn’t seem to be Kendrick Meek’s favorite place.

It gave him Jeff Greene, a Palm Beacher who became his primary opponent in the U.S. Senate race.  And then, after Meek in August handily dispatched the multimillionaire, it gave him a group of Democrats who asked him to get out of the race and/or endorsed one of his opponents, independent candidate Charlie Crist.

But, Meek said tonight, there are no hard feelings.

A little more than 12 hours before he is to face Crist and GOP candidate Marco Rubio in a 9 a.m debate in Tampa, Meek showed up at the Palm Beach County Democratic Party’s annual party at the convention center in West Palm Beach.

“You’ve been the battleground of my entire candidacy for the United States Senate,” he told a cheering crowd of roughly 350 who gathered for the black tie event. “And we know that there are a number of folks amongst our ranks in this general election who decided to do something else, that they figured out that they had the right kind of math even though the person who they are looking to support is not a person who upholds the principles of our party or what we believe in.”

His not-so-veiled references to endorsements Crist received from leading county Democrats, including Palm Beach County Commissioners Burt Aaronson and Shelley Vana, former U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler and state Senator-elect Maria Sachs spurred boos from the audience.

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Yet another high-profile Democrat will be visiting Florida during the next couple days to help struggling candidates in what is considered a battleground election state.

Democratic National Committee chair Tim Kaine will make a couple campaign stops in Broward and Miami-Dade counties with Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Kendrick Meek today and Saturday.

The tour begins today with a 2:30 p.m. visit to the Lauderhill Mall to promote early voting. Meek and Kaine will then join Congressional candidate Joe Garcia at a Moving American Forward rally at 6:45 p.m. at the Miami-Dade College Homestead Campus. Kaine is also expected to visit a phone bank on Saturday.

Earlier this week, former President Bill Clinton visited Tampa and Orlando, where he encouraged students to spread the word about Meek through Facebook and YouTube. Clinton was also campaigning for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink on Thursday in Miami.

ORLANDO — Last-minute efforts to convince Democrats in Florida’s decisive I-4 corridor to remain faithful to their party on Election Day and vote for Kendrick Meek for U.S. Senate were boosted today by yet another visit from former President Bill Clinton.

Clinton, in his second day touring Central Florida with Meek, encouraged Democrats gathered at The Venue at University of Central Florida Arena to not only vote for Meek, but to support Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink and others in the Democratic ticket as the only option to “get America out of the hole.”

“You gave (Republicans) eight years to dig this hole. Give our crowd two more years to dig us out,” said Clinton, as he spoke about Meek’s efforts to create more green jobs and his support of recent student loan reform legislation.

“I am bent out of shape about the nature of how this election is happening. People on the far right, they are talking about a country and describing issues and making claims that I don’t recognize,” Clinton said.

Similar to his speech Tuesday at the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg, Clinton urged students to use social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube to tell others about Meek’s record.

ORLANDO — Former President Bill Clinton will stump for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Kendrick Meek this afternoon at the University of Central Florida, just a day after Clinton stood by the Miami congressman in nearby St. Petersburg to encourage voters to support Meek and vote early.

Meek is banking on Clinton’s support during his two-day visit through the I-4 corridor, an important geographical area in statewide elections, considering he is trailing behind former Republican House Speaker Marco Rubio and no-party Gov. Charlie Crist in the election. (more…)

DAVIE — Although Charlie Crist is a former Republican, the most striking aspect of his independent Senate candidacy so far has been his appeal to Democrats. He’s won the endorsement of “fire-breathing liberal” Robert Wexler and Palm Beach County Democratic “Godfather” Burt Aaronson and other Dems while the actual Democrat in the race, Kendrick Meek, has fended off questions about whether he should drop out to give Crist a better shot at Republican frontrunner Marco Rubio.

Crist famously embraced President Obama at a February 2009 stimulus rally in Fort Myers and strolled Pensacola Beach with the president in June to show concern about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

So it was noteworthy in Tuesday night’s debate when Crist said Obama hadn’t delivered on his promise to work with Republicans and then heightened his criticism of the new health care law by calling it “Obamacare” — a term favored by its critics on the right.

“I’m just shocked to hear, now, the new lingo from the governor talking about Obamacare,” said an incredulous Meek. “I wonder if he said that to the president when he was walking with him on the beach.”

Read about Tuesday night’s debate here.