This week was already looking tough for Kendrick Meek, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate from Florida, who had fallen well behind Republican Marco Rubio and independent Charlie Crist. On Monday, a new Zogby poll showed Crist closing the gap with Rubio, with Meek rapidly fading into a distant and irrelevant third place.
Then today, a double dose of bad news. A new Quinnipiac poll confirmed the tightening race and put Meek at only 15%, a full 20% behind Crist. This was followed by a story from Politico.com’s Ben Smith revealing that former President Bill Clinton had openly lobbied Meek to drop-out of the race last week. And worse still — Meek had initially agreed to step aside, but later reversed his decision at the urging of his wife.
From Politico…
Bill Clinton sought to persuade Rep. Kendrick Meek to drop out of the race for Senate during a trip to Florida last week — and nearly succeeded.
Meek agreed — twice — to drop out and endorse Gov. Charlie Crist’s independent bid in a last-ditch effort to stop Marco Rubio, the Republican nominee who stands on the cusp of national stardom.
The fact that independent Governor Charlie Crist is now only 7% behind Marco Rubio will further compound pressure on Democratic leaders and voters. Meek insists that he’s in for the duration, but it will be interesting to see how he behaves if pressure continues to mount on him to abandon his doomed bid.
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