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Rasmussen: Meek must be sunk…

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  August 11th, 2010 at 09:00 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

…if the Democrats want to keep the R from the seat. If Meek gets the nomination, Marco Rubio wins; if Greene gets it, Crist picks up enough votes to make the race competitive. And, of course, if Crist wins he’ll then finish the project of becoming a Democrat. That was Arlen Specter’s mistake, you see: openly turning your coat will strike too many people as being too raw. Better by far to lie until after the election, and not give them the chance to complain for six years.

The latest numbers from Rasmussen support this:

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Florida shows Rubio with 38% of the vote and Crist at 33% if Congressman Kendrick Meek is the nominee. Meek earns 21%. Only one percent (1%) prefer some other candidate, and seven percent (7%) are undecided.

If billionaire Jeff Greene is the Democratic candidate, Crist gets 37% support to Rubio’s 36%, with Greene trailing at 20%. two percent (2%) like another candidate, and five percent (5%) are undecided.

Needless to say: with numbers like that African-American voters will simply have to accept that the needs of the party leadership trump any kind of nod towards diversity and inclusion in the United States Senate. Kendrick Meek is inconvenient, and his win would be less personally satisfying to the white men who run the Democratic party than would be a Crist conversion; after all, the Democratic party reflexively expects African-American voters to keep their place. But a convert… yes, yes, that tells the Democratic party leadership that they really do matter, and that they really are the wave of the future, and never mind what the national election results say.

Besides, African-American voters have Alvin Greene in South Carolina to get excited about, right? So what’s the problem? From the point of view of the Democratic party’s leadership cadre: Greene, Meek, what’s the difference?

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

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COMMENTS

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  • Coop

    … as of June 30th Greene had already spent about $6 MIL, with another $6 MIL in debt. A Mason-Dixon poll from last week showed Meek barely ahead of Greene, 33-29%.

    One thing not explicity covered in Moe’s article – how will Florida’s black community react if/when Meek is defeated in the primary while the Dem leadership looks the other way? I don’t expect they’ll run out to support Rubio, but they just might stay home.

  • rdelbov

    at the moment at least. The dream spinners in DC want Meek to go down but when dealing with billionaires with unlimited pockets. I don’t downplay what damage to Crist that Greene could do with 20 million in TV ads.

    I think Rubio gets to 45% in Rubio-one way or another so ultimately the Meek/Greene discussion becomes irrevelant

  • Coop

    …why would Greene attack Crist? I’m fairly certain the two Democrats (let’s call Crist what he is) would gang up on Rubio. As of June 30th Traitor Charliie had about twice the cash Marco did. And of course Mr. Crist refuses to refund money to Republicans who rightly feel betrayed. One more glaring example of his lack of character.

  • IJB

    I think Meek is a lot more likely to shore up Dem support by Nov. than Greene is, regardless of what current polls say.

    As to Coop’s point – Greene will run ads against Crist for one simple reason: he’s not a Dem partisan, but an egomaniac, and will do whatever he can to win that race. I think the odds of some “sinister conspiracy” with Crist and the DNC if Greene wins the nomination are vanishingly low.

  • rdelbov

    and I assume he wants to win. He cannot win by taking votes from Rubio. Greene has a whole variety of liberal positions on his website plus he will be a democrat. If Green can get 80% of the Obama vote from 2008 (democrats and liberal liberals) that gets him to 40%.

    Greene is going to have to get a huge vote from the democrats plus a % of the indie vote. I assume he spends his 30 million to win so he has to attack Crist. Can he get indie/democrats by attacking Rubio–sure. He can say Rubio is a conservative–that does not hurt Marco.

    Greene can hammer Crist-some on issues but mostly on charactor-intergrity-honesty-that sort of stuff. Call him a lying loser or cheating charlies or something like that. If I can write Greene’s ads I could. Okay use George Bush & Charlie Crist in an ad–that’s a good plan plus on AA radio have Crist attacking Obama. That’s a good plan.

  • ktsub

    You are right….Greene will be able to run ads against Crist (his only path to victory), Meek has much shoring up to do, before November.

    BUT, either way “long term”, it would appear, and it appears, that reflexive D voters are not going to vote for Crist. Yeah when pollster call with three names, the choices are clear…but in the long ballot like Florida has, and Crist down and in the middle, I do not think he gathers that much D vote (with either Meek or Greene).

    This Ras poll is awsome, Rubio just has to hang tight to his base, plus a good turnout of Republicans in the Governors race.

  • sarg01

    We want the Dem strong to keep the whackjob leftists from voting tactically for Crist. There aren’t enough Dems in Florida to even get close in a straight-up fight during a Republican wave.

    Meek or Greene neither have any chance at all. However, if Meek pulls all the hard libs he can get to 30% … close enough for the natural Dem polling bias to make it look like he’s got a chance. I don’t see how Greene ever gets past 25%, and in that situation I could easily see 5% switching from Greene to Crist to keep Republicans from controlling the Senate.

  • andysmith

    that I think eventually the DNC/DSCC will throw whoever wins the primary under the bus when they realize that the Democrat doesn’t really stand a chance in this race. I can see Crist making overtures to Obama or Tim Kaine and tell them that he’s the best hope of preventing the Republicans from making a bigger gash in the Democrat majority. I wouldn’t put that past Crist one bit.
    The last Gallup poll that ranks Obama’s approval by state has Florida giving him a 56.8% approval rating. I’ve always taken Gallup with a grain of salt, as Gallup also tries to say that we here in Nebraska give him a 50% approval rating, which I can tell you is NOT the case. But if Obama really doesn have a 56% approval rating in Florida, isn’t there a real danger of Obama helping Crist out by throwing the Democrat under the bus to maintain his majority in the Senate?

  • yuletide

    Dems are starting to line up for Crist. On the radio (am1290) , I heard that Penn who worked for the Clintons has joined Crist’s campaign staff. Also Democratic opreatives in South Florida have let it known that if Meek loses that they will join Crist’s campaign. Greene was a Republican out in California and ran for Congress as a Republican out there.

  • yuletide

    Rubio needs some of the indiependent vote because the Republican base alone willl not win this race. Both Crist and the Democrats nominee will try to paint Rubio as a fringe extreme canidate. He needs to run towards the middle.