Uncle Luke, the man whose booty-shaking madness once made the U.S. Supreme Court stand up for free speech, gets as nasty as he wants to be for Miami New Times. This week, Luke sizes up U.S. Senate candidates Charlie Crist, Kendrick Meek, and Marco Rubio.
Marco Rubio will probably go down in history as the first non-white person to join the Ku Klux Klan. The former Florida House speaker has linked up with the good ole boys in North Florida. He wants to represent only the Tea Party Republicans, and in my view, this is just a new name for the KKK. Look at how Tea Party protesters against the health-care bill behaved this past March 20, when the thing was being debated. They were spitting and shouting "nigger" at several black lawmakers outside the Capitol building. They held up signs painting President Obama as the Devil and called Barney Frank a "faggot." What more proof do you need? These folks don't like Obama. The prez could come out saying he is going to lower taxes for the rich, and the Tea Party followers would still hate him. They can't handle that a black man was elected to the highest office in the nation, so they have a fuck-you attitude. I don't want to elect someone with that fuck-you attitude. I want to elect a candidate who will help the state of Florida.
It's a damn shame, because Rubio is an intelligent young man. He could have taken his cue from Mel Martinez, who despite being a Republican, was for everybody. Martinez did a helluva job for our state.
I think Kendrick Meek is the best candidate, and not because he is black. Unlike his two main competitors, he is already working in Washington, D.C., so he knows Capitol Hill politics. As a U.S. congressman, he sits on the Ways and Means Committee, one of the most important groups in the House of Representatives. And he learned a lot from his mother, Carrie, who was the first black lawmaker elected to Congress since Reconstruction.
A new guy on the scene, like Charlie Crist or Rubio, would spend a couple of years learning D.C., discerning the good and bad cops. During that period, Florida would suffer. That is why it makes all the sense in the world to have a senator who knows the way around the Capitol. The knock on Meek is that no one outside Miami-Dade knows who he is. The Democratic Party has done a terrible job promoting him.
Crist automatically became the frontrunner when he announced he was running as an independent. Crist is good because he has never been a hard-core Tea Party Republican. He makes decisions that are good for all Florida residents. Outside of former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, Crist has been the best governor this state has ever had. The problem with Crist is that if he gets elected, he is not going to get shit done. The Republicans think he turned on them. And the Democrats aren't gonna work with him either.
Follow Luke on Twitter: @unclelukereal1.
