Kos is Dead Wrong on This!

The mothership for progressive blogs in Daily Kos, and the site is indeed a big reason why I have a blog at all. But the front page post today by Markos is one I cannot simply ignore. The site is too influential, and the conclusion it has drawn is just too wrong.

Kos suggests that Kendrick Meek ought to drop out of the Senate race and let Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio battle head-to-head. He figures Rubio would be the likely victor anyway, but would rather see Indy Crist go down instead of Meek. I totally disagree.

Here is the nut of Kos' argument:

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It's clear that in a three-way race, this is a done deal. Democrat Kendrick Meek and Independent Gov. Charlie Crist have almost exclusively targeted each other, nuking each other while Rubio heads virtually unscathed into the Senate. So given those dynamics, this is about the only thing that might shake up the race.

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I don't want to be naive about things right now. Rubio is the clear front-runner at the moment. And it is clear the only way Rubio loses is for the roughly 60 percent of likely voters who don't want him as Senator to band around one candidate.

But think about that. Six out of every 10 Floridians are telling pollsters they will vote for someone besides Rubio, and yet he is winning. This guy is so far from a mainstream candidate he can't approach 50 percent. Crist and Meek for months have been staking out the left. And as a result, they are between the two of them holding a strong majority of support in the polls.

So who just progressives rally around? The guy with no values who a few months ago was touting his conservative credentials? Or the long-time progressive with every hope of being the first true liberal Florida has sent to Washington since Claude Pepper?

The choice is obvious to me. We have a winning strategy going with a genuine progressive.

Kos ought to calling for a deal that gets Crist out of the race. If he had any political principles at all, he would have left this race when it was clear he would lose the primary. Then he could watch Rubio go down in flames against Meek, and come back in a few years promising to bring the big tent philosophy back to the GOP after the inevitable teabagger burnout just over the horizon.

Instead, the most important and influential progressive blog online is suggesting Meek tuck tail and hide. Disgraceful. I hope Florida progressives know better than that.