The Florida AFL-CIO’s split picnic
From the Joint Bureau of The Reid Report and Saint Petersblog: The Florida AFL-CIO sure knows how to throw a barbecue. At Saturday’s fete, you had your choice of hotdogs or burgers, ketchup or mustard and … Kendrick Meek or Charlie Crist…???
From the Palm Beach Post:
At the Palm Beach-Treasure Coast AFL-CIO’s Labor Day Picnic on Saturday, Gov. Charlie Crist and Democratic nominee Kendrick Meek, who are in a three-way race for the U.S. Senate with Republican nominee Marco Rubio, marked the unofficial beginning of the fall campaign season.
“The real campaign for me started in the primary, but I’m sure you’re going to see more of this,” Meek said. “The governor has to find votes and continue to try to hold onto them.”
For the first time in his almost 20-year career as a Republican, the newly independent Crist sought support in May from a traditionally Democratic source: the Florida AFL-CIO. But the state’s largest labor movement threw its 500,000-member weight behind Meek.
That didn’t deter Crist, who enjoys the backing of the Florida Teamsters and Florida Pipe Trades locals, from schmoozing with the AFL-CIO.
“Working for the working people is the most important thing we can do in this economy,” he said to a small group of supporters surrounding him and his wife, Carole.
Coincidentally, Meek and Crist arrived at the cookout within minutes of each other, shaking hands and then staking out separate areas of a pavilion redolent of char-grilled food and crawling with people holding Meek campaign signs.
Not mentioned in the article is that Florida’s statewide teachers union, which is a large part of the AFL-CIO, split its endorsement between Meek and Crist after the latter vetoed a hated teacher tenure bill, steaming the Meek campaign, which then put on a full court press to get the solo endorsement of the overall union.
