http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/10/1573... ORLANDO -- In a pool hall lit by Budweiser lamps and big-screen TVs, U.S. Senate candidate Kendrick Meek and a few union leaders from the nearby Lockheed Martin plant bonded over Buffalo wings.
The Miami congressman with a taste for steakhouses and cigars serves on a powerful tax-writing House committee, has flown on Air Force One and was recently spotted getting a pedicure at a popular Washington salon. But in an anti-incumbent election year, Meek is emphasizing other parts of his résumé: his working-class background, love of fishing and hunting, even his dyslexia.
As he told the union guys, "Remember, I used to be a state trooper. I used to be a skycap." Meek, 43, worked for the Florida Highway Patrol and at Miami International Airport before he began a career in public office in 1994. "I want you to feel like can you talk to me," he told them.
Meek's everyman-themed campaign to belong to the most exclusive political club in America took him last week from the Orlando sports bar to a Tallahassee food bank to a Mulberry phosphate plant. While the media obsesses over the nationally charged Republican primary between Gov. Charlie Crist and former House Speaker Marco Rubio, the leading Democratic contender for Florida's open Senate seat has been trudging across the state longer than any other major candidate.
10-WEEK WINDOW
The GOP bloodletting prompted one Capitol Hill newspaper to change the race's description from "lean Republican" to "tossup." Still, Meek is expected to be overshadowed until after the Aug. 24 primary, leaving his campaign just 10 weeks to blanket the nation's fourth largest state.
"It is difficult to imagine Meek winning in November," political analyst Stuart Rothenberg recently wrote on his website, echoing a pervasive view in Washington. "While he will talk often about his years in the Florida Highway Patrol, his record is relatively liberal . . . and the recently enacted healthcare bill has received a very chilly reception in the state."
The union bosses in Orlando told Meek they hear the law could add $30 million to their healthcare costs. "There's a fear of what's going to happen down the road," said Scott Reid, the local UAW union president.
Meek said skepticism toward the new law will fade as warnings about death panels and free insurance for illegal immigrants -- what he calls "the sky-is-falling arguments" -- don't pan out. Democrats need to be more aggressive about highlighting the law's benefits, he said, such as a ban on insurers rejecting patients with previous illnesses.
"A lot of people think they are going to lose their insurance," he said. "I tell them, `I'm your congressman and I am going to tell you right now that you are not going to lose your insurance.' "
While he has not wavered in support for the law, Meek carefully labels himself as a "moderate progressive" and points out his disagreements with the Democratic administration on Israel, Cuba and NASA funding. (This is Meek's first statewide bid in the nation's largest swing state.) Last week, he declined to sign a letter from three liberal Democratic colleagues against a proposed offshore drilling plan because their criticism was too "strong."
But when it comes to casting votes, Meek rarely strays from the party line. He has voted with the Democratic majority more than 98 percent of the time since it took over Congress in 2006, according to a Washington Post analysis.
The Republican line of attack is obvious: Meek is a taxing-and-spending, healthcare-meddling, deficit-increasing South Florida liberal, not to mention a sitting congressman tied to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
"Right now, being an incumbent seems toxic," acknowledged Brevard County Democratic Chairman Beth McMillen, who greeted Meek with a bear hug and spread of pinwheel sandwiches, chips and lemonade. "But Kendrick has a common sense approach to people."
TAKING THE WHEEL
Unlike most candidates, Meek usually carries his own bags and takes the wheel on campaign road trips, even while making fundraising calls or doing interviews. He drives a solid 80 mph on the highway, frequently in the left lane. "The one thing I like about going out on the road [to campaign] is that I get a chance to drive," he said.
Meek recalls how his opponent in his first race for the Florida House ripped him for having four speeding tickets, two traffic citations and a license suspension.
"Every ticket I got in college was from the Florida Highway Patrol," he said. "I figured if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
Being a patrolman was Meek's only job before he became a state legislator and later, a member of Congress. When he pulls into a Dunkin' Donuts for a meeting with the St. Lucie County sheriff, he backs his rental car into a space -- at the ready, just like his fellow law-enforcement officer.
Meek said he would like to be a reserve trooper one or two days a month even if he is elected to the Senate. Though he left the force in 1994, Meek talks about it like he turned in his badge last month. A campaign brochure features a grainy photo of his 1989 swearing-in.
"It's just like someone who served in the military who calls himself a former Marine. Once you serve in the highway patrol . . ." Meek said, noting that he arrested 300 drunken drivers before joining the governor's security detail.
Meek talked little about the trappings of Capitol Hill during last week's road trip, rhapsodizing instead about the $11 khakis he bought at Ross, the free breakfasts at the Hampton Inn, and the joys of Chick-fil-A and Arby's.
Meek said he doesn't want to brag about the guns he owns, but he eagerly pulled out his hunting license and mentioned the fishing gear in the trunk. He jokes about his size-15 shoes and calls his hometown by the area code, "the 3-0-5."
"He's is a regular guy. He's an everyday guy," says his wife, Leslie, an administrative law judge and former lobbyist, in a new biographical campaign video that will provide footage for campaign ads. Their two children go to public school.
FOOTBALL, NASCAR
It's practically Florida political lore that Meek and two sisters were raised in inner-city Miami by a single mother, Carrie Meek, who became one of the first black members of Congress from Florida since Reconstruction. Kendrick Meek succeeded his mother in 2002.
The video also reveals lesser-known facets of Meek's life, like his lifelong struggle with dyslexia. "Kendrick had a disability and he still has a disability," his mother laments.
Among the other images of Meek in the video: a bushy-haired pre-schooler, a six-foot-three college football player, a father with his family at the park, a race car-sponsoring NASCAR fan. Voters won't see the stogie-chomping Meek posing in a 2008 feature story in Cigar Aficionado magazine, raising money at tony receptions hosted by Bill Clinton, or huddling with Pelosi, who made sure he got a seat on the powerful Ways and Means committee.
"It's obvious that I am a congressman," Meek said, explaining the video's focus on the other parts of his life. `We're trying to introduce me to the people of Florida who do not know me, who do not know of my past."
Meek has not faced a serious opponent in years, though he solicited hundreds of thousands of dollars for his reelection bids. He used some of the money to pick up checks for swanky dinners with other lawmakers and Washington insiders, which he called a necessary expense for a young congressman eager to serve on powerful committees and influence party strategy.
"I was building relationships with people," Meek said. "I'd say, `Let's have dinner. I'll meet you at Ruth's Chris . . . Isn't that better than a lobbyist taking me to dinner?"
For the current race, Meek had about $3.4 million cash on hand by Dec. 31, the most recent total available.
If the campaign trail is humbling, Meek doesn't complain. He tried to fire up an audience of 35 people in a former Sam's Club warehouse being coverted into a job training facility in Fort Pierce and a similarly sized crowd at a Democratic office in Melbourne. At each, he offered to put signed bumper stickers on supporters' cars.
In a rare appearance last week with his struggling Democratic challengers -- former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre and former North Miami Kevin Burns -- Meek spoke to a half-full hotel ballroom at the Florida General Baptist Convention in Orlando.
"Sorry we're a little late. Matt Lauer just wanted to talk after the show," Meek joked to a TV reporter earlier. Meek has had little national media attention since the January earthquake in Haiti led to a spike of interest in the congressman who represents South Florida's Haitian-American community.
GRASS-ROOTS PLAN
Last week, he juggled interviews with local radio reporters between campaign stops.
"These small counties are going to add up," Meek said of his grass-roots strategy, which included gathering about 140,000 voter signatures instead of paying a fee to get on the 2010 ballot. "People love the retail politics."
On the drive to Orlando, with only a faint glow of pink left in the darkening sky, Meek pointed out prime fishing waters along the road.
"I'm not one of those folks who tries to recreate themselves for statewide office because they think that's the way to get the trust of their future constituents," he said. "I believe we win because people vote for me as a person."
Posted By: Kendrick Meek
Wednesday, April 14th 2010 at 11:31AM
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