The Kendrick Meek campaign has been touting its support from President Bill Clinton, who will be stumping for the Democratic senate candidate on Aug. 16.
Their relationship, the St. Petersburg Times recounts, goes back to “when Meek was a state trooper and Clinton an obscure governor starting a presidential campaign.”
Meek was dispatched to pick Clinton up from the airport. Clinton requested to make a quick stop. Hilarity ensued.
“We stopped at the Suwanee Swifty on Lake Bradford Road where then-Gov. Clinton picked up some deodorant, roll-on. And he commenced putting it on in front of the Suwanee Swifty. As the protector of the governor, I didn’t want him to go down putting on roll-on, but we bonded through the process,” a chuckling Meek recounted last week aboard his “Real Dem Express” bus tour.
More than a year later, Trooper Meek saw Clinton again in Florida, though this time Clinton was president. Clinton was visiting the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach, heading toward the presidential suite with an entourage in tow.
“I’m following his Secret Service agents and Gov. MacKay and the president turns around and says, ‘Kendrick, we’re a long way from the Suwanee Swifty,’ ” Meek recounted. “At that point, I can just tell you a little bit of pee came out. You know? How could this man remember?”