Kendrick Meek has been the squeaky clean one so far in the Florida Senate race, even as Marco Rubio got his halo tarnished by the RPOF’s credit card scandal. That’s changed a bit with revelations over the weekend:
As U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek championed a proposed biopharmaceutical complex for Liberty City in 2003, his Miami chief of staff received $13,000 from the project’s developer to help the aide buy a house, newly released police records show.
The developer, Dennis Stackhouse, is now awaiting trial, accused of stealing nearly $1 million from the failed Poinciana Park project that was supposed to revitalize the blighted Liberty City community. Nothing was ever built.
The police records show that Stackhouse engaged in an elaborate campaign to curry favor with Meek as the builder sought the congressman’s help in obtaining federal funding for the project. In addition to helping the aide’s house purchase, Stackhouse hired Meek’s mother, former U.S. Rep. Carrie Meek, paying her $90,000 in consulting fees and paying for a Cadillac Escalade for her to drive.
Meek twice sought congressional earmarks to benefit the project but has insisted that was unrelated to his mother’s work for the developer.
Billionaire primary challenger Jeff Greene, who just got into the Democratic primary a few weeks ago, quickly seized on this in order to get some traction in the race, calling for a House Ethics investigation. The Meek camp quickly fired back, trying to turn the subject back to Greene’s pioneering (and disastrous) use of credit default swaps.
It’s unclear how big a deal this will wind up being for Meek, who’s been struggling to find his footing after Charlie Crist’s switch to an independent bid (as seen in the polls, today’s Rasmussen being a prime example). With Crist repositioned and sounding many Democratic-sounding notes now, a number of potential backers are sounding ambivalent… or outright gone, in the case of Democratic state Rep. Joseph Abruzzo, who’s made clear he’s backing Crist. The link also lists a number of other Dems on the Gold Coast who are publicly displaying their ambivalence or worse; a key example is former Rep. Robert Wexler CoS Eric Johnson, who’s now about to start working on Crist’s campaign. (Wexler himself has yet to endorse Meek, for that matter.)
Of course, not everything’s a bed of roses for Crist these days. Crist is still drawing a lot of heat for his decision not to refund campaign contributions to Republican donors, and was heckled loudly about it at the opening of his new Tampa campaign headquarters.
When Crist first became an independent, I thought his support would dry up once Democrats started drifting back to Meek. Now it’s clear that Crist is intentionally supplementing Meek as the Democratic candidate. What’s more, it looks like he’s succeeding.
At this point, I’m wondering if the only question is whether Meek is subtly pushed out of the race by at some point Democratic elders.
Whatever else you think about Crist, he’s a smart politician. If he does become the de facto Democratic candidate, I think it’s his race to lose, given his residual support among Indepedents and moderate Republicans.
This is muckier than than the muck on Alexi. Crist looks pretty good right now.
I think it’s safe to say this is the death knell of Meek’s campaign. He’s already been languishing well behind in the opinion polls. And what’s more, if this story is true, good riddance to Meek as a potentially viable candidate. If I were in Florida, I seriously doubt I’d vote for him if this story is true. And I believe I’m well to the left of most Democrats. In other words – again, IF this story is true – he may have lost most of the non-black liberal Democratic base, and some black voters, too.
it still possible to get someone else to run in the primary? Lawton Chiles is still thinking of running for Governor. Surely we can get someone better than Meek if this is true. If this is true Crist will likely be our de-facto nominee. As a political junkie this is going to be a fun race to watch .
I think I will really dislike the news tomorrow regarding the democratic primaries 🙁
All I can say is /Facepalm.
then i support crist
also, kendricks been on this site more than any other candidate…think he was trying to not get this story published? 😛
Former Miami Mayor, Maurice Ferre is by-far the most qualified candidate. Read more about his campaign and his solutions for Florida at http://ferre2010.com