Crist talked to White House about getting Meek to drop out

Gov. Charlie Crist (I-Fla.) said Thursday he spoke directly with a top aide to former President Clinton about the possibility of Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.) dropping out of Florida’s Senate race and that he spoke to “several people” at the White House about the possibility. 

Crist, who trails Republican Marco Rubio in Florida’s three-way Senate contest, made the comments in an interview on Fox News with Greta Van Susteren.

{mosads}Of a reported deal brokered by the former president that would have Meek throwing his support to Crist, the governor said, “I do know that it was happening. We’ve had several conversations and discussions with people close to the former president and it was in play.” 

Politico reported Thursday that Clinton lobbied Meek to drop out of the race and throw his backing to Crist in an attempt to prevent Rubio from capturing the Senate seat. 

Meek has fiercely denied the chain of events in the report, which described him as privately agreeing to drop out and back the governor and then changing his mind. He told supporters at a news conference late Thursday night that the story is “inaccurate at best.” 

Asked directly Thursday whether he had spoken to anyone at the White House about the reported plan for Meek to drop out, Crist said, “Yes I did, subsequent with conversations with those close to President Clinton.”  

Van Susteren pressed Crist to reveal exactly who he spoke to in the White House, asking the governor whether he had spoken to either top White House adviser David Axelrod or David Plouffe, to which Crist answered no. 

“There were several people that I spoke with,” Crist said, declining to name anyone.  

Crist’s comments add a new level of intrigue to the story that comes just five days before Election Day. The relationship between the Meek campaign and the White House has been a rocky one. President Obama has backed Meek, but the White House’s level of commitment has been questioned repeatedly throughout the campaign. Obama appeared in photo ops with Crist while he was in Florida to examine the fallout from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

During the state’s Democratic primary this past summer, the White House had to publicly deny that it had spoken with Crist about caucusing with Democrats in the Senate should he win.

Meanwhile, Meek rode a wave of momentum Friday morning following the report. His flagging candidacy benefited from more attention than it’s
received in weeks.

He did several TV interviews and admitted to having discussed the state of the race with
Clinton, but denied that dropping out of the race was ever an option.

“I’m
not playing politics. I’m not doing back-room deals,” a defiant Meek
said Friday on CNN. “I’m running for the United States Senate.”

He claimed momentum, saying that his website “blew up” with an influx of traffic.

Appearing on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Meek said he never told anyone he was going to get out of the race.

“I never told President Clinton or any of his staffers … or Charlie
Crist or anyone else that I was going to get out of the race,” he said.

“I guarantee you that I did not say I am getting out of the race,” he added.

And his Twitter account has increased its activity with tweets like: “I will NOT back down & NOT sell out the people of Florida.”

The latest Quinnipiac poll in the race has Rubio up 7 points, winning 42 percent of the vote to Crist’s 35 percent. Meek is stuck in third with 15 percent.

—Michael O’Brien and Emily Goodin contributed to this post. This post was updated at 10:02 a.m.