Following reports that he asked Kendrick Meek to drop out of the senate race former President Bill Clinton has taken some serious heat. However, he's just released a statement refuting Politico's story and says he never asked Meek to drop out, nor did Meek ever at any point agree to drop out.
Here's the statement as released to Politico:
Kendrick Meek is my close friend. I have supported his campaign from the beginning, though our relationship extends far beyond politics. We did talk last week following a rally in Orlando about the race and it's challenges. I didn't ask Kendrick to leave the race, nor did Kendrick say that he would. I told him that how he proceeds was his decision to make and that I would support him regardless.The statement essentially refutes most of the meat in Politico's original story.
Over the years, I have watched Kendrick become an able, effective public servant with the strength to fight for what he believes and the common sense to work with people of different parties and points of view. I still believe he could be the best Senator to help Florida and America emerge from the current crisis and build a growing middle class economy.
Whether or not Clinton is lying or Politico seriously dropped the ball and was reporting false information from questionable sources is a story for political hounds and media ethicists to argue about. Frankly I wouldn't be surprised if Clinton was, uh, "modulating the truth." I also wouldn't be surprised if the story was planted by people in the Democratic Party sympathetic to Charlie Crist, if not Crist's camp itself.
It doesn't really matter.
Kendrick Meek continues on in the campaign, and in just five days Floridians have a serious choice to make based on issues and who they think will best serve the state. The rest is just a media and political carnival. On the plus side, at least something moved us past the "iCheat." I wonder what distractions we'll see in the remaining days.
