Run, Kendrick, Run

by: Tally

Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 00:00:00 AM EST

I've been making the case for Meek running against Jeb ever since Prince Nasty (aka Mr. Lehman Bros., aka the "Smart" Bush) e-mailed those four words heard round the World of Political Junkies: "I am considering it" (i.e., running for Mel Martinez' US Senate seat from Florida).

If former Gov. Jeb Bush decides to run for U.S. Senate, he could find himself facing an old foe.

U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek has been traveling the state meeting with Democratic strategists about the idea of running for the seat Republican Sen. Mel Martinez is giving up in 2010. Bush is also considering a run, and would likely grab the Republican nomination if he does.

A potential Meek-versus-Bush matchup would come packed with history: As a state senator, Meek staged a sit-in protest in Bush's office complex after the governor stripped affirmative action protections from state contracting and university admissions.

Meek also led the effort to place class size limits in the state constitution - a campaign Bush vigorously fought as he sought re-election in 2002 and later tried, but failed, to repeal.

Plainly put: Bush and Meek aren't too fond of each other, a fact that would ratchet up the intensity of a Senate matchup.

This is what I've been trying to bring everyone up to speed on - Meek's spent the last decade being a thorn in Jeb's side. He's already proven that he's not afraid of him and, better yet, that he can beat Jeb, like he did with the class-size amendment in 2002. That's the personality we want.

And I love the reason Meek gives for opposing Bush. Very slick:

Meek noted that in a recent interview, Bush said Republicans need to set up a shadow government in Washington to challenge Democrats and rebuild the GOP's message. Meek said that's not what a senator should be doing.

"I don't think Floridians are looking for that. They're looking for a U.S. senator to help them with their everyday lives," Meek said. "I wouldn't run to be the flag bearer, running with the flag of the Democratic Party. I would be running for Floridians."

I know that a lot of people are favoring CFO Alex Sink to be the Democratic US Senate candidate against Jeb, and I can see why. She's a natural candidate; very articulate, but also very personable. She's a great campaigner. But, this is not the office for her. Meek is already a legislator living in Washington. This move up is a natural for him. In contrast, Sink fits right in to the quiet hospitality of Tallahassee and will make a great governor in 2014 after Crist retires.

As this old campaign video shows, her background is managerial, perfect training to run the state.

More importantly, against Sink, Jeb would be dismissive, after all, he trounced her husband in his gubernatorial re-election race and would welcome the opportunity to trounce her. But against Meek, Jeb would become defensive and rattled. It's bad enough to have his idiot brother win the White House that was rightfully his. The idea that this pipsqueak, no-nothing upstart might actually beat him (again!) would cause Jeb to blow a fuse. Wouldn't that be fun to watch!

But, I have a big caveat here. Meek can't beat Jeb alone in a senate race because of one key issue.

Jeb speaks fluent Spanish, is married to a Mexican-American, is a practicing Catholic, and has a progressive immigration policy. Part of the Obama strategy was to court Hispanics, which he was able to successfully do. If Meek is going to use the same template in a race against Jeb he needs to recruit someone to run for one of the other five Florida statewide races in 2010 (US Senate, Governor, Chief Financial Officer, Attorney General, Agriculture Commissioner) to offset this disadvantage. And the perfect politician to do this would be Joe Garcia, who ran a spirited but unsuccessful congressional campaign against Mario Diaz-Balart.

You can read Kos' take on Joe in his 2007 post called FL-25: Draft Joe Garcia or his 2008 piece titled Joe Garcia takes on the South Florida Cuban mafia.

If Kendrick makes a point of campaigning with Garcia he will be able to offset some of Jeb's advantage among Hispanics. And if they both show up at a campaign event with Alex Sink running for re-election, the three of them will make a real-life counterpoint to Jeb's complaint that Republicans can't afford to be the "Old White Guy Party."

This is the real meat of Kendrick's complaint about how Jeb would function in Washington. The only thing Jeb could do as Senator is TALK about change. Kendrick would be joining with President Obama to MAKE change.

Don't you love it?

Joe still has his campaign website up, but if you just type in JoeGarcia08.com you get a lovely thank you message from the candidate (mentioning that the fight's not over!). You need to go to JoeGarcia08.com/home to see the rest of it if you're interested in learning more about him. He lists his contact as joe@joegarcia08.com, but I don't know if anyone is still answering it. It probably wouldn't hurt to send him a quick note and encourage him to think about statewide office in 2010.

Kendrick has an official Meek for Congress website which gives his contact as info@kendrickmeek.com. Why not send him a note encouraging a run for the US Senate? And maybe you can let him know that he needs to connect with Joe Garcia to make it happen.

Run, Kendrick, Run!

Here's a video of Meek on election night.