If U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek expects to win Florida's U.S. Senate race, his road to victory will run through some pretty rough neighborhoods.
Meek, who is polling a distant third in a three-way race with Republican Marco Rubio and independent Charlie Crist, finished behind Jeff Greene in 34 of 67 counties in the Democratic primary. In 20 counties, Greene garnered an outright majority in the four-candidate contest.
While Meek racked up landslide margins in his home base of Southeast Florida, the rest of the state proved problematic for the Miami congressman. If Meek has any hope of winning this fall, or even being competitive, he will have to dial far beyond his 305 area code.
A Sunshine State News analysis suggests that Greene voters won't necessarily come home for Meek in those counties. Even if the congressman stumps through Florida's rural counties where he performed poorest, he will face gale-force headwinds.
In Glades County, where 57 percent of Democrats voted for Greene, Meek doesn't figure to have much of a chance.
"Glades tends to vote Republican in state and federal races. I don't think Kendrick will take this county," said Glades Democratic Chairwoman Ellen Geake.
In Holmes County, where Greene took 63 percent of the primary vote, Chairman Charles Smith said Meek's only chance to win would be "to change his skin color."
Smith said the Alabama-abutting county has a record of voting for whites, conservatives and tough-minded campaigners.
"They like mean, and Greene ran a mean campaign," he said.
While some chairmen, including Geake, say personal visits to their counties would improve Meek's prospects, others wonder if even that will help much.
"Kendrick was here at least three times. He's known," said Okaloosa County Chairman Jerry Mallory. Still, Greene took the Panhandle county.
Though Greene won many small northern counties, Meek prevailed with wide margins in the state's large population centers. But even there, Meek could have problems in November.
Two big West Coast counties -- Pinellas and Hillsborough -- figure to go to the hometown boy, Crist. And Southwest Florida counties, such as Lee and Collier (which were won by Greene) are hardly automatic for Meek.
A Lee County party volunteer, who asked not to be named, noted that Greene "blanketed the area with robo calls and glossy mailers. There was nothing for Meek."
With Rubio, another Miamian, running in the general election, it's difficult to see how Meek could improve his standing in South Florida. It's unlikely he can come close to matching the 73 percent of the vote he grabbed in Miami-Dade during the primary.
And even if the Democratic Party manages to boost turnout across the state -- which pollsters and the party's dismal primary vote suggest is a long shot -- there's no guarantee those voters won't end up in Crist's column. The governor has carried a majority of Florida's counties in his previous races for governor and attorney general, whereas Meek, a four-term congressman, remains a virtual unknown in many parts of the peninsula.
Clearly, a large-scale media campaign will be needed to boost Meek's name recognition and bolster his image. Yet it's far from clear how much the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee will be willing to throw into the effort if Meek remains mired in third place.
Crist, meantime, has aggressively reached out to Democratic donors in Meek's backyard, courting their money and posturing to peel off their votes.
Steve Schale, who helped engineer Barack Obama's victory in Florida in 2008, tends to discount Crist's chances, even as the Republican-turned-independent tacks steadily leftward.
"Rubio has the clearest path to victory," Schale declares.
"But," he adds, "once Democrats figure out that Meek is their only option, his path will get much more clear as well."
Attempting to hammer home that message, Meek dispatched U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Orlando, to do some attack-dog work for him.
This week, Grayson started sending fund-raising e-mails to supporters, labeling Crist as a conservative.
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Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 801-5341.
