About that Florida Senate race and how we can deal with it here on DU.

[Stinky The Clown]

The situation is actually kind of simple.

The mainstream Republican role is now being played by a far right, fringe lunatic. Speaking of fringe, the fringe on his hat is tea bags.

The mainstream Democratic candidate is a little known, reasonably nice guy who has very little chance of winning.

And then we have the Independent guy. He's the incumbent. He seems reasonably popular and reasonably competent. He's a lifelong Republican who screwed up this time by not being willing to go over to the far, far right lunatic territory. The result of his rationality was that he was shunned by his party's "base". So now he's rumored to be ready to caucus with the Democrats if he wins. He would probably have switched if that Arlen Specter thing had turned out better and/or if the filing deadlines in Florida had favored that.

So how do we discuss this? In the pragmatic world, might we be better off with a sure thing independent who caucuses with us, or do we do the hard slog only have our weak candidate lose to a far right nutjob?

Not a lot of good choices down there.

[flyarm]

1. I won't discuss it here anymore..I know what i have to do to save my state.eom

[monmouth]

2. Meek did exceedingly well in the debate today with Jeff Greene and

was determined to be the winner. This should boost his polling numbers. For more info go to: www.pbpost.com

[sandnsea]

3. I'd be supporting Meek were I in Florida

At least until October 1. At that point, one can take a hard look at voting against the teabagger but it's not necessary to make that decision now. Most certainly not for DU.

[zipplewrath]

4. Do you even know Crist?

Competent and Crist are rarely used in the same sentence. Opportunist, yes. And he has a great tan. But competent? Crist? He's great at sticking his finger in the air and checking the wind.

[Stinky The Clown]

6. In my OP, specifically in regards to Crist, I used the term "seems".

To answer your question directly, no, I only know Crist from the nation press he gets. Which is why I am hoping I can discuss him here.

Not back him.

Discuss him.

[Zephie]

5. I've always thought that

Crist is not a man to be trusted, and certainly not a man to rely on to know what he's doing. I'll be backing Meek.

[KamaAina]

7. Crist is not the incumbent.

He's currently governor of Fla. The Senate seat is open.

[Stinky The Clown]

8. OOOOPS. You're right.

Proving that, indeed, I have little knowledge of the race.

[totodeinhere]

9. It's too far away from the election day to be writing Meek off yet.

I would much rather back a bona fide Democrat any day than someone like Christ who twists with the wind to try to get the best political outcome. I don't trust him and who knows if he might not move to the right again if it suits him. On the other hand, Meek is a lifelong Democrat.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

10. Depends how the polls go into the last week of the campaign.

If it's a horse race between Crist and Rubio but Meek is lagging far behind, I'm going with Crist because in no way do I want to see Jeb Jr. (i.e Rubio) elected.

But if Meek is running competitively between Crist, Rubio, or both, of course I'm voting for Meek.

I don't know if I could stomach Jeff Greene as a Democratic nominee and in the rare chance he does win the nom, I might go with Crist regardless. Everything about Greene stinks to high heavens that he is a Republican in Democratic clothing.