Harris Wins Florida Primary Despite Party Resistance

To many outside Florida, Katherine Harris is the ex-secretary of state down there who ensured that Florida went to George “LBJ” Bush in the 2000 election through dirty tricks, official misconduct and plain cheating. As a result, the Florida Republican establishment talked her out of a run for the US Senate fearing those who hated her would turn out in droves to defeat the GOP this November. Last night, she won her party’s primary to replace Jeb Bush as governor of the state. The powers that be in the GOP camp forgot that a lot of Republicans love her for her actions back then.

Currently a member of congress for Florida’s 13th Congressional District, Ms. Harris garnered around 50% of the primary vote to readily defeat attorney Will McBride at 30% and retired Navy Admiral LeRoy Collins at 15%. She now faces sitting Senator Bill Nelson, who had no rivals in the Democratic primary. William E. Gibson, the DC bureau chief for south Florida’s Sun Sentinel says she “enters the fall campaign under-funded, widely criticized and spurned by GOP leaders.” The rather likable Senator Nelson has $12 million in his war chest and will have the support of every Democrat who wants to take the Senate.

According to CNN, “Harris’ campaign for the nomination was widely derided as spectacularly inept. Fundraising lagged, prompting her to pledge $10 million of her own money. Her makeup, clothes and personality were mocked on national TV. She was linked to a corrupt defense contractor. Staff members kept quitting in frustration. Still, she won comfortably, thanks to weak opposition and a strong base of Republicans who loved her because of her role in the recount furor.”

Not surprisingly, she is going to be the issue of the campaign, even Iraq and national security will lag. The GOP apparatchiks knew this going into the election season, and for that reason prevented her proposed gubernatorial run. Having her on the ticket for statewide office anyway doesn’t do much to hold down the anti-Harris vote, which was their entire purpose.

Jennifer Duffy, editor of the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election newsletter, said, “The die-hard Republican voters, they love her. They think she got a bum rap in 2000.” But there aren’t enough of them to carry her to victory. “There is probably not a Senate race in the country that is more of a lost opportunity than this one,” Ms. Duffy added. One can hear the entire Florida Republican apparatus chanting the Mo Udall line, “The people have spoken, damn them.”

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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