Well, maybe not forever. I mean, those are groups that often help energize the Democratic vote in Florida, and there aren't very many of us.
But I can't really blame Kendrick Meek for his angry rebuke today of the greenies who tried to split their endorsement and go all purple. Like the Florida Education Association before them, the Sierra Club tried to split the difference and endorse both Kendrick Meek and Charlie Crist.
From Meek:
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"This election is about taking a stand and fighting for principles you believe in. Today's Sierra Club co-endorsement is an insult to Florida's environmental community. The Sierra Club has chosen to stand with a governor who stood on stage applauding as Sarah Palin chanted, 'Drill, Baby, Drill,' a governor who signed a law making it easier for big developers to drain the Everglades, a governor who endorsed a bill that would have allowed drilling just three miles away from Florida beaches, and a governor who used polluter talking points to attack climate change legislation."
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I do tend to agree. For a group which exists purely on principles, the split-the-baby approach is entirely unbecoming.
But perhaps more important in this late stage of the game, doing a co-endorsement does more damage than good to both of these candidates. For anyone who hasn't noticed, Marco Rubio is winning this race right now, and he is doing it with six of every 10 Floridians voting against him. Does anyone think having the Sierra Club take an anyone-but-Marco stance right now will chip into those numbers? Rubio is winning the base, and only the base. These 'baggers probably don't believe there is an Everglades.
By essentially telling voters there is no marked difference between Meek and Crist on environmental policy, the Sierra Club is telling voters they don't care if the left splits its votes between a pro-development lifelong GOP darling and a member of the House progressive caucus. But having that vote split right now is exactly why Rubio is winning in the polls.
This is the same problem with the FEA, and they has just as shaky ground splitting the nod, if not shakier. That came on the heels of Crist vetoing a terrible education bill tying teacher pay to student performance, a move which would leave faculty stabbing one another to get the Honors classes and running like heck from the special ed classes, even though the lower performing students are the ones who need a good educator the most. Obviously, it is good Crist vetoed this bill, but he did not after supporting the measure the entire time it was moving through the Legislature.
That doesn't even get into the fact that Crist as a state senator wrote the bill which made Charter Schools possible in Florida, a system the FEA has fought against hard from the start. It also forgets that Crist as Education Commissioner supported such right-wing lunacy as private school vouchers and helped escalate the importance of the teacher-frustrating FCAT.
The Sierra Club doesn't mind that Charlie supported oil drilling off the coast of Florida purely so that he could be considered as a VP candidate for John McCain, and wouldn't reverse his stance until an oil rig literally exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. The FEA doesn't care that Charlie opposed measures like classroom size restrictions, or for that matter that Meek was the one carrying the union's water on that one. It's awful.
But even if these groups want to take such an unprincipled stance and back Crist, it is politically stupid to co-endorse. The position is obviously that both Crist and Meek would be better for the respective causes than Marco Rubio. Ironically, this dumb statement may be what gets Rubio a seat in the United States Senate.
Morons.
You are surprised that left-wing groups can be as unprincipled as right-wing groups ???
ReplyDeleteWhy ? Both the left and right (and us few in the center) are simply people, neither better nor worse than those elsewhere on the political spectrum.
A lack of principles is to be expected in politics, I'm afraid. But when combined with a lack of sense, it becomes unforgivable. This is a case of the ends completely undermining the means.
ReplyDeleteAs a teacher I feel I must respond that the union did the honorable thing by endorsing the two candidates who have made a difference for us. The reality in Florida is that there are far more people in the middle than at the progressive end. Meeks has the progressives, but that is simply not enough. There are far more middle ground independents and the more conservative of them would never vote for a progressive. They would end up going to Rubio even though he is further right. Think of a full spectrum and those just right of 50 would probably head his way, giving him the 51% he needs. Christ is more palatable to that center. Part of the problem is that Meeks is still an unknown to most of the state. With a little more than 2 weeks left, he simply does not have the time for the voters to get to know and be comfortable with him. Christ is a known entity and we recognize that he is a politician's politician....but Meeks is a politician too, and so is Rubio. So when choosing amongst the three politicians, most voters will look at the platforms and decide who has the best chance to handle Florida's interests. Christ has the political savvy and the visiblity to do this better than the unknown Meeks. Perhaps if Meeks can build a statewide presence, he could build support for a future run, but for this election it is too late.
ReplyDeleteSplitting an endorsement in a race like this doesn't make sense, and the FEA should be savvy enough to realize that. Certainly, at this stage of the game, the Sierra Club should see it. You describe conservative teachers who may go for Crist but would never back Meek. Will those voters be swayed significantly by this endorsement then? Why not throw the full weight of the organization behind a candidate with a long track record of being on the right side of the issues for the FEA. Truth is no part of Meek's resume is stronger than his education cred, and there may be no politician holding office in Florida now who has so successfully promoted the FEA's agenda.
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