Flickr/<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/americanprogress/3444973897/">Center for American Progress</a>
From Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fl.) directed at his Democratic opponent, Jeff Greene, in last night’s US Senate primary debate:
“Your life is a question mark and every day we learn about your business dealings and how you treat your employees and how you come up with versions of why you went to Cuba and why you didn’t go to Cuba. You have more versions of why you went to Cuba than Baskins Robbins has ice cream.”
As this utterance suggests, last night’s Meek-Greene debate was short on, well, debating, and looked more like Ali-Spinks (the first version, that is). Indeed, the entire Meek-Greene race has devolved into a big, bruising slugfest. One day Meek’s campaign blasts out an email titled “One Investigative Story, One Editorial, And One Terrible Day for Jeff Greene” and the next Greene rips Meek for his ties to security contracting company Wackenhut. And ’round and ’round it goes.
That’s not to say seamy ties and skeletons in the closet—or, in this case, Cadillacs of dubious origin and vomit-caked yachts—don’t matter. They do, sort of. But when they consume an entire campaign, as last night’s debate showed, leaving little oxygen in the room to address issues of social and economic policy, of fixing Florida’s jobless crisis or housing debacle, then we have a problem. No wonder Americans are so pissed off at Congress and disillusioned by American politics.
