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And why should he? He is the elected Democratic candidate for the state of Florida and to have someone with Bill Clinton’s caliber amongst the Democratic party begging Meek to drop out the race goes to show you that THE LIBERALS ARE GETTING VERY NERVOUS…..
Kendrick Meek reaffirms he’s in Senate race to stay, blasts Charlie Crist
Making the rounds on several television network news shows on Friday morning, Democrat Kendrick Meek lashed out at independent Charlie Crist for fueling what he called false rumors that former President Bill Clinton had asked him to drop out of the Senate race.
“[Clinton] didn’t ask me to drop out of the race,” Meek told Fox & Friends. He said that longtime political mentor had asked him last week about “rumors” that he might possibly withdraw from the race.
Meek said he told Clinton that he was not going to bow out of the race. “`That’s your decision,”’ Meek recalled Clinton telling him during a conversation backstage at a rally in Florida.
He then slammed Crist for playing a political trick to damage his bid for the Senate.
“I don’t operate like this, and the bottom line is, is that Charlie Crist does,” Meek said. “It’s mind boggling.”
Meek said that Crist himself had called him during the campaign to urge him to leave the race.
“I told him I’m not getting out of the race,” he said. “I don’t sell out on the people of Florida.”
Speaking on CNN’s American Morning show, Meek said he shot back at Crist that “he should consider getting out of the race.”
The controversy that erupted Thursday comes late in a Senate campaign in which polls show Meek running a distant third behind Crist and front-runner Marco Rubio.
A Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday showed Meek with only 15 percent of the vote and Gov. Charlie Crist just seven percentage points behind Rubio, with 42 percent.
The controversy erupted late Thursday when the website Politico.com reported that Clinton, while campaigning with Meek last week in Florida, had twice asked him Meek to withdraw.
Clinton spokesman Matt McKenna confirmed the story in an e-mail Thursday to the Herald/Times.
The Meek campaign then alerted the media that the Miami lawmaker would hold a news conference at 9:30 p.m. at his Miami Gardens campaign office to talk about the purported meetings with Clinton.
A defiant Meek, lit by television cameras and surrounded by campaign volunteers chanting his name and waving signs, quashed the Politico story and reaffirmed his committment to staying in the race.
“`I am looking forward to being the next U.S. senator from Florida,” said Meek. `President Clinton and I are good friends. . . He’s continuing to be a supporter of this campaign. I count on his support.”
After the news conference, Clinton told CNN’s Susan Candiotti that he and Meek talked about the race, but he didn’t go into details about their conversation.
“He’s trying to decide what to do, and I talked to him and I told him that — we went through everything, we talked about it a couple times — I said in the end you know you have to do what you thought was right,” Clinton said. “I think in terms of what I said to him and what he said to me, since he’s my friend and he’s the candidate and he wanted us to talk as we always have, I have to let him say what whatever he wants to say about our conversation. It would be wrong for me to discuss it.”
A White House official said the administration did not initiate talks between Meek and Clinton but was “aware” and “in the position to let it play out” out of concerns about Rubio winning.
Crist, a former Republican running as an independent, has been trying to squeeze Meek out of the race for weeks. He told Keith Olbermann of MSNBC Thursday night that he doesn’t expect Meek to quit. Asked how he knew about the conversation between Meek and Clinton, Crist said, “Because I had numerous phone calls with people very close to President Clinton. It’s true.”
In its initial story on the website, Politico reported that Meek and Clinton spoke in Jacksonville, but Meek campaign manager Abe Dyk said they were never together in that city last week. Clinton and Meek campaigned together Tuesday in St. Petersburg and Wednesday in Orlando. Politico later corrected its report to remove the Jacksonville reference.
“The article is not true,” Dyk said in a statement. “Kendrick Meek was never dropping out of this race, is never dropping out of this race, and will never drop out of this race. Kendrick Meek will always stand up for the middle class and will not leave Floridians a choice between two lifelong conservative Republicans who only stand with the special interests. Kendrick is the Democratic nominee so if anyone should drop out, it’s Charlie Crist.”
The Rubio campaign was also dismissive, pointing a finger at the Crist campaign.
“Charlie Crist truly will say and do anything to get elected and hold on to power,” said Rubio’s senior strategist, Todd Harris. “Secret deals to trade away principles for power is already the problem in Washington, its not the solution. This is simply politics as usual which is exactly what voters across the country are emphatically rejecting this election.”
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele also chimed, saying Republicans would have been attacked for trying to push a black candidate out of a high-profile Senate race.
“If we have learned anything this election cycle, it’s that voters demand the right to choose candidates for themselves, not by a political establishment seeking to make those decisions from on high. President Clinton’s actions to have Kendrick Meek withdraw from the campaign sends a chilling signal to all voters, but especially African Americans. One can only imagine the response if Republican leadership tried to force out of the race — in the 11th hour — a qualified black candidate like Kendrick Meek,” Steele said in a statement.
Clinton’s advice to his close pal showed just how far the Democratic political establishment is willing to go to try to keep the U.S. Senate in Democratic hands. Meek and Clinton bonded back in the 1992 presidential campaign, when Meek was a Florida state trooper providing security for the visiting governor from Arkansas. In 2008, the black congressman and son of a civil rights leader, former U.S. Rep. Carrie Meek, endorsed Clinton’s wife, Hillary Clinton, over Barack Obama.
Clinton headlined 11 fundraisers for Meek — an astounding number — three back-to-back rallies in South Florida before the primary, and two more events last week.
With Meek’s standing in the race so fragile, even a rumor about him potentially leaving the race amounts to a devastating blow.
“This may not have much of an impact on the race, but it makes Meek look bad,” said Jennifer Duffy, a senior analyst for the non-partisan Cook Political Report. “His own party doesn’t seem to have a lot of faith in him. He’s got to carry that around now and it will make it difficult if he wants to run for office again.”
Former Democratic state House Speaker Peter Wallace of St Petersburg, a Crist supporter, credited Meek with a strong campaign but said Clinton’s latest signals can’t be ignored.
“There’s no question at this point that based on the reports of President Clinton’s efforts and perhaps the efforts of the White House that it is a strong indication that Kendrick Meek’s campaign faces little hope of success,” he said.
The STR 