In Defense of Kendrick Meek

At the start of the Senate campaign this cycle, I was among the many who had serious doubts about Kendrick Meek. Back then, it didn't matter much. Charlie Crist, then a Republican, seemed to be the slate-cleaning candidate who scared every serious Republican and Democratic challenger away. But over the past several months, it has become increasingly clear to me that Meek is no sacrificial lamb. At least he should not be. I believe he is the best shot we have at sending a truly progressive senator to Washington since the days of Claude Pepper.

That makes it all the more frustrating to see so many dismiss his candidacy. This kind of nay-saying is contagious, and has created a conventional wisdom that Meek has no shot at winning the race. The irony is that the reasons many use to justify such an opinion are exactly why he has as good a chance as he could ever hope. Meek is a black, southeast Florida liberal who, in a normal election year, would endure setbacks for all of his attributes. But thanks to a fractured right and election law that allows the Senate race to be won with a plurality, this election should be shaking down exactly as the Democrats could normally just dream.

Admittedly, he has challenges in a primary run from Jeff Greene. The self-financed vanity campaigns of Greene and Rick Scott has shaken up the races this year in ways Florida might never have endured before. But educated, activated Democrats are the ones who will vote in August. So long as informed liberals avoid the distraction of glossy mailers and sweaty television campaigns, we should have a strong candidate in Meek for the general election.

Come November, there is no reason Meek cannot beat Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio. This is where many of you will start jumping up and down and calling me naive. But please hear out my reasons.

The number one reason I hear from Democrats who plan to vote for Crist is that Rubio cannot be allowed in the Senate. But consider the visceral response to Rubio and ask yourself how broad an appeal he might have? Republicans benefit this year from an activated base, which I concede does help Rubio, but also because they offer an alternative to the party in power. In most major Senate races, they offer the only alternative. Not in Florida.

Those independent and moderate voters that tend to swing against the incumbent party in ugly times would normally vote Republican in a race like this. Don't like Harry Reid's track record? Hold your nose and vote Angle. Of course, Angle is so nutty many voters in Nevada can't stomach doing that. In Florida, they don't even need to try. Indy-Crist will get those votes, but he won't get the base. What would normally be a winning formula - crazy nuts+disenchanted moderates=Republican Senator - has been severely disrupted by Charlie's mad rush to the center.

Where does that leave us? With the highest number of registered Democrats in state history. Thanks to the Obama juggernaut in 2008, more young people are on the books as registered Dems. More blacks feel like they are a part of the political process as well. And here we are, with a baby-faced, distinguished African-American as our nominee for state office for the very first time. What about this sounds like a poor position?

Of course, in a two-man race, appeal to the left would not be enough, Meek would need to make huge concessions to the center and swear he won't be so pro-worker in the Senate. We've seen this with Betty Castor, whose issues with Sami al-Arian made her remiss to oppose the Patriot Act, and to very real degree with Bill Nelson, who won on a corporate-friendly platform that secured broad support but has left many liberals in Florida wanting more.

Meek only needs to win with 35-40 percent of the vote to have a landslide victory. It becomes more apparent each day Rubio cannot win because moderate Republicans won't support him. Crist is a pariah among conservative partisans, and his actions in recent months show how aware he is of the fact Democrats must play a role in any victory in November.

But while Crist polls well in the summertime, he will not be named in any robocalls funded by the Florida Democratic Party or the Republican Party of Florida. President Obama will not stump for Charlie Crist. Indeed, I doubt the president could avoid making some trips in support of Meek. The theory Obama will tacitly support Crist, perhaps pragmatically and perhaps out of spite for Meek backing Clinton in 2008, ignores the optics of the first black President turning his back on potentially the first black Senator from the fourth largest state in the union. No state as large as Florida has sent an African-American to the Senate. How could Obama spit on that possibility without angering many black leaders in this state?

So don't give up on Kendrick Meek. If you look purely at his positions, he offers the most to progressive voters of anyone on the ticket. And if you look at his odds of victory, and take a big picture look rather than glimpse at a mid-July poll, you see this may be the best shot we have a true liberal victory for a very long time.