Meek's Senate drive is low profile

Gov. Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio can't seem to avoid headlines, but U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek can't buy one.

Crist and Rubio are battling for the Republican nomination for one of Florida's U.S. Senate seats - and one of them probably will face Meek, a Miami Democrat.

Meek faces a low-intensity primary, against former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre.

Meanwhile, state Democrats are obsessed with their candidate for governor, Alex Sink, and closely watching their hard-fought attorney general primary - state Rep. Dan Gelber of Miami Beach versus state Sen. Dave Aronberg of Greenacres.

Those circumstances have combined to keep Meek out of the spotlight, even though he could become the first black U.S. senator from the South since Reconstruction.

Meek says sooner or later the issues - mainly jobs and the economy - will get him attention.

"I'm 6-3, about 250 pounds, it's hard for people not to notice me," the former Florida A&M University football player joked when asked whether the Crist-Rubio race is depriving his campaign of oxygen. "In the final analysis they will know that there's a Kendrick Meek running and that he's the best candidate."

Meek fights back

Meanwhile, he's fighting back - even if under the radar.

•He's seeking to qualify by petition - something his campaign says no Florida statewide candidate has ever done - to spread his name and build a Barack Obama-style supporter list. He needs 112,476 verified voter signatures.

•He can't raise nearly as much money as Crist, but is spending it faster, mainly on field offices - Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Miami and Tallahassee - with staff to recruit volunteer petition gatherers. He hopes to build a small-donor fundraising base and voter turnout machine.

•In response to news stories suggesting his own party isn't enthusiastic about his candidacy, he has engineered endorsements from the state's top Democratic leaders, including Sink, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham.

Having avoided a primary challenge from a potentially tough, liberal competitor - U.S. Rep. Corinne Brown from Jacksonville - he's taking stands that look like a move to the center.

That could be an antidote to the "South Florida black liberal" label some think could doom his campaign, but he denies moving to the center.

'Record speaks for itself'

"My record speaks for itself," he said. "I've been a public servant and one who was middle of the road. I look forward to talking about that record."

Meek said he'll eventually garner attention as a candidate who is talking about issues that will help Florida, while Crist and Rubio aren't. Examples he cites seem aimed at Crist.

"I've been consistent on the stimulus," he said, noting that it has prevented layoffs of teachers and state workers and has stemmed drastic state budget cuts.

Crist initially backed the president's stimulus package for similar reasons, but has backpedaled in the face of conservative criticism. Rubio has bashed Crist for supporting the stimulus plan, but also said he would have accepted at least some of the money.

Meek emphasizes his work ethic in this campaign and in Congress.

"We know about the governor's past as it relates to his schedule and his one-meeting days," he said. "I'm going to work every day. I'm going to be one of the hardest-working senators. ... I have one of the highest voting records, 98 percent."

Crist has been criticized by Rubio and Democrats for a heavy schedule of campaign fundraisers, which, they say, distract from his duties as governor.

State and national Democrats, possibly perceiving Crist as the tougher general election candidate, have exulted in the criticism of the governor. But Meek refuses to pick a candidate he would rather run against.

"I don't have a preference," he said in an interview last week with the Tribune and News Channel 8. "Whoever comes out of that primary, we will be prepared."

Meek, who is on the liberal end of the spectrum of Florida congressmen, declared his candidacy in January 2009, soon after Obama made history by winning Florida in the 2008 election. Meek proclaimed in his announcement that he intended to be an Obama ally.

Then he hired former Obama deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand for his campaign.

Political winds shift

But political winds have shifted. Hildebrand is gone from the campaign. In the interview, Meek sounded more independent of Obama. He emphasized his recent vote against raising the debt ceiling, saying it drew criticism from party leadership and the White House.

"I've always been an individual to talk about the deficit," he said. "I talked about it during the Bush administration and I've talked about it during the Obama administration."

He declined to defend Obama when asked whether the president broke a campaign promise of openness in the congressional consideration of the health care bill, a charge Republicans and some Democrats made.

"It's up to the president; his interpretation of what he said during the campaign is for him to answer," Meek said.

But he denied he is distancing himself. "I voted for the president. ... I'm glad that he's in office, that he's in at such a time as this. There are issues that I disagree with the administration on, and there are issues that I agree with the administration on wholeheartedly."

In October, shortly after Brown announced that she wouldn't run against him, Meek dropped his co-sponsorship of a bill for a single-payer health care system, and another, favored by organized labor, calling for a review of U.S. trade treaties.

In interviews, he emphasizes his career as a Florida Highway Patrol trooper, his service on the Armed Services committee and trips to Iraq and the Middle East.

He tells stories about hunting, and he and his wife obtaining concealed weapons permits, though he says he has never bought a gun to carry.

But he said that doesn't signal a shift in his political philosophy.

He said he halted sponsorship of the single-payer bill to help move the main health care bill through Congress, and that he has long been an advocate of free trade, voting consistently for trade pacts.

"I didn't just start hunting and fishing because I was running for Congress," he joked. "My record speaks for itself, and I look forward to talking about it."

That is, as soon as he can get people to listen.