Democrat Kendrick Meek facing uphill battle in Florida Senate race

MIAMI -- In a year of the unconventional candidate and in a Florida Senate race filled with them, the by-the-book campaign of Democrat Kendrick Meek has left the congressman in such a precarious spot that he might not even make it out of his own party's primary.

Already the forgotten man in an expected three-way race with "tea party" darling Marco Rubio and newly independent Gov. Charlie Crist, Meek faces a formidable last-minute challenge for the Democratic nomination from investor Jeff Greene. Polls suggest Meek could lose the Aug. 24 primary in this state battered by foreclosures to a man who made billions betting that Americans would default on their mortgages.

"Jeff Greene has come in with giant size-12 boots and stomped all over Kendrick," said Rick Wilson, a Republican consultant who worked for Crist 12 years ago but is not involved in this year's campaign. "Greene is just killing him in the mail, on television. You can't do a Google search about the Senate race without a Jeff Greene ad popping up."

(Campaign 2010 map)

Meek responded last week with a television ad that amounts to an all-out assault on Greene's character, accusing the onetime Republican of "betting on suffering" and being a man who "helped fuel the economic meltdown."

Meek, 43, is not without advantages. He has a compelling story and a prominent family name, enjoys the backing of the state Democratic Party and has a close relationship with former president Bill Clinton, who has held five fundraisers for Meek and is planning to headline a rally in the closing days of the primary.

A native of inner-city Miami and son of Florida's first black congresswoman, Meek worked as an airport skycap and a state trooper after attending Florida A&M University on a football scholarship. In a state where the economy is reeling, Meek says he understands folks who are hurting, as the only candidate who has punched a clock to earn a wage.

As Meek stumps across South Florida, he also points out that he has overcome adversity in a way few know about.

Meek is dyslexic -- so severely that he nearly flunked out of the trooper academy because he confused numbers on the math test, that instead of reading a briefing book he listens to an aide every morning talk about the news, and that as a Senate candidate he never delivers a speech from notes, for fear of tripping over the words.

"I have to work harder than the next person," he said over dinner here, the neighborhood where he was born and which he now represents in the House. "In the real world, no one really cares about your shortcomings or your reason why things are not the way they should be."

Meek said he realized this at Florida's trooper academy, where he would sit in a bathroom stall studying for hours past lights-out to memorize numbers for the math test. "That was the first time in my life that I was really faced with a wall and saying, regardless of what the reality may be, I've got to figure out how to knock through this thing."

Then Meek, a 6-4 hulk of a man, paused. He had just shared some of the painful details of his dyslexia for the first time publicly. His voice broke and his eyes filled with tears. He patted them dry with his linen napkin and apologized for getting emotional. "I've walked up to mountains and I've walked up to them every day," he said. The Senate race, he said, "is just a new one."