"On Monday, one of President Obama's top consultants hosted a fundraiser for Crist," recounts The Hill this morning. "Democrat Freddy Balsera, who led the president's outreach to Hispanic voters during the 2008 presidential campaign, is now openly aiding Crist's Senate bid despite White House backing for Meek."
That, as you know, is the way things have been going for Florida's Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate. No matter whom he's vanquished to date, and no matter what he does from here on out, Kendrick Meek's upper-house bid is doomed.
I know that, you know that, Kendrick knows that, and for damn sure the White House, which dearly needs another friendly face and empirically huggable vote in the Senate, knows that, hence what it giveth to Meek in dreamy formalities it taketh away in sober utility.
All of this poses a fascinating dilemma for Florida's liberals, which reduces to the simplest of formulations: principle versus pragmatism.
Are they to stand by their party man -- who's already puffing that last smoke and awaits only the blindfold -- thus vastly abetting right-winger Marco Rubio's swearing-in ceremony? Or do they inch away from principled allegiance and tactically hurl an anti-Rubio ballot through the independent conduit of Crist?
Along philosophical lines, which is the deeper violation of liberal principle -- the liberal or the independent vote? If casting one's ballot for the certified liberal candidate is, by Election Day, demonstrably tantamount to aiding Rubio's inescapable victory, and therefore contributing to the right's Congressional re-ascendancy, has one actually cast a liberal vote? Or is such an act but a paradox of principled betrayal?
Some will argue the choice in principled terms only, rejecting, with near religious fervor, any compromise with conscience. Others will argue that the frisson of individual Conscience Unbound is an unacceptably huge price to pay for six ... long... years ... of Rubio-reactionaryism; that the pragmatic detour, by way of Crist, is in philosophical fact the only acceptably principled roadmap.
Fortunately, although at the considerable risk of sounding all Dudley-Do-Right about this, there is a correct answer: yours.