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Rep. Kendrick Meek Announces Campaign For Senator From Florida
Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-FL) has officially announced his bid for the Senate, the first declared candidate from either party for the seat of retiring one-term GOP Sen. Mel Martinez.
Meek has a potentially attractive profile for a Senate candidate. He played football for Florida A&M, then became a policeman and later was elected to the state legislature in the 1990s. In 2002 he was elected to Congress after the retirement of his mother, Rep. Carrie Meek. If elected, he would be the first black senator from the South since Reconstruction.
Other Democrats are said to be looking at the race, and the Republican field is still sorting itself out after Jeb Bush announced that he won't be running.
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This is actually a pretty big deal for a very simple reason: State CFO Alex Sink was expected to have an uncontested primary if she decided to jump in the race, and other Democrats were said to be waiting for her decision.
Meek has shuffled those expectations, guarantees that Sink would face opposition in the primary (which could potentially keep her away) and it also raises the possibility of Democrats not having a clear candidate until September '10 since Florida primaries are famously late.
(I wrote a full analysis of Meek's entry on Campaign Diaries).
January 13, 2009 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hmmm...Kendrick Meek could be an interesting candidate. We know he's a FOB, so he could have POTUS 42 stumping for him.
Some questions I have, though I'm not all that plugged into Sunshine State politics...
(1) Will this keep Alex Sink away?
(2) Will either Debbie Wasserman-Schultz or Robert Wexler decide to take a stab at this seat?
(3) Will any bigger Republican name than Marco Rubio try for the seat (perhaps Charlie Crist, though I imagine he's eyeing bigger game)?
January 13, 2009 12:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I love me some Kendrick Meeks!
If you have watched enough CSPAN you have seen Kendrick Meeks deliver on the house floor. You know what I mean.
January 13, 2009 12:50 PM | Reply | Permalink