After the Shirley Sherrod debacle, President Barack Obama doesn't need to pick another fight with his African-American base. But Florida's Democratic Senate primary poses a new no-win situation.
Black lawmakers are urging -- even threatening -- the White House to elevate its support of Kendrick Meek, an African-American congressman locked in a tight fight with multimillionaire Jeff Greene.
But Obama, who supported Meek before Greene entered the race and before Gov. Charlie Crist took his own Senate bid independent, has been sending mixed signals.
"As the president has said, Kendrick Meek is his candidate and he fully expects that he will be the next senator from the state of Florida," White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton declared last week.
At the same time, however, Obama's director of Latino outreach, Alfredo Balsera, is organizing a fund-raiser for Crist in Meek's hometown of Miami. The invitation list is said to be loaded with Obama supporters.
And Crist recently signed with Democratic operative Anita Dunn's Washington, D.C.. consulting firm to work for him. Dunn said she cleared this with the White House beforehand.
All this comes as Meek remains mired in the polls, trailing Crist and Republican candidate Marco Rubio.
Also lagging in the fund-raising race, Meek needs high-profile support on the campaign trail, and his supporters in the congressional black caucus are turning up the heat on the White House.
"If they do not step up their support for Kendrick, then they cannot expect that I and my allies will support them in 2012," U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, told Politico. He described the treatment of Meek as "poor."
Rep. Barbara Lee, chairwoman of the congressional black caucus, said African-American lawmakers have made "very clear" that black lawmakers expect the White House's total support for Meek.
State Rep. Perry Thurston, an African-American from Fort Lauderdale, even took to the pages of the Palm Beach Post to lecture Obama on the need to stick with "our own."
"It is very easy for people to say that someone can't win, but they never will win if we don't support our own," Thurston wrote.
The White House has responded by assigning Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to organize a fund-raiser for Meek on Aug. 2. But that event will be held in Washington, D.C., not in Florida.
The arm's-length treatment clearly irks Hastings, who said Obama should make at least two appearances for Meek in separate cities in Florida before the November election and bring more resources along the way.
"President Obama is going to be on the ballot in 2012. If Kendrick Meek could win this election, then Obama's election is a slam dunk," Hastings predicted.
Daniel Smith, a political science professor at the University of Florida, calls such pressure and promises "fairly hollow."
"Obama didn't rely on the congressional black caucus in 2008, and he won't in 2012," Smith said.
"When you look at the polling numbers of Meek in a three-way race, there's reason to be circumspect. (The White House) isn't going to come in with guns blazing when chances are less than 50 percent," Smith noted.
"The White House is looking long-term, and the Meek candidacy may not be it."
Indeed, as polls show Obama's own support eroding in Florida, the president's political advisers are keeping their options open.
An increasingly likely option is to quietly court Crist, who has not ruled out caucusing with the Democrats next year if he wins in November. Crist's ongoing outreach to Democratic donors heightens the suspicion that the governor may, in fact, be the Democrats' best bet to grab the Republican seat.
Strategists say the White House doesn't necessarily have to back Crist openly or directly, but by withholding resources from Meek at this stage, the congressman may not even get out of the primary. That means Greene, a Republican-turned-Democrat whom party leaders consider an arriviste outsider, would be offered up as a sacrificial lamb in the fall, and Crist would be the party's de facto candidate.
Greene's campaign declined to comment, but African-American lawmakers insist that the Crist scenario needn't come to pass if the White House would simply make good on its earlier pledges to Meek.
"When he became an independent, Gov. Crist gifted the Senate seat to Kendrick Meek and the Democratic Party," Thurston said.
Such subtle and not-so-subtle pressure illustrates the tricky political calculus of this year's Senate race, as well as Obama's chances for re-election. Party loyalty is important, but being on the winning side is crucial to Obama's prospects for holding Florida two years from now.
"These primary contests can leave the White House bloodied, even when you win," Smith concluded.
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Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 559-4719.
