After months of Republican machinations to find someone – anyone – rather than Katherine Harris to run for U.S. Senate, Harris has set her 2006 campaign against incumbent Senator Bill Nelson in motion.
For many Republicans, this is a mixed blessing: a widely known candidate with star power and fundraising prowess but a lightning rod for Democrats who haven't gotten over 2000. For Democrats, it's an absolute wet dream, a chance to run against their most hated opponent, the woman they blame for giving the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush. Nothing like the threat of the Wicked Witch of the South to rally Democratic money and MeetUp-happy foot soldiers from all over the nation to Florida once again.
I have to admit that Harris' written announcement was a tad surprising – not just that it was sudden but that she would leave her safe Congressional seat and run at all.
In 2004, I became campaign manager for Johnnie Byrd's failed Republican Senate effort after his previous director, Mike Zolnierowicz, left to work in Harris' 2004 Congressional campaign. He told me at the time his work would keep him in Sarasota through her 2006 Senate bid. But earlier this year, I learned that Mike Z was gone from the Harris campaign, along with others from that 2004 effort.
It appears that the only old-timer left is Adam Goodman, the Tampa political consultant with national heft: He directed two Rudy Giuliani campaigns and was instrumental in Harris' rise from the Florida Senate to Secretary of State to the U.S. Congress. Harris' congressional staff confirmed that Goodman is building a new campaign team. (Disclaimer: Goodman and I worked together on many races when I was a political consultant.)
The dispersion of her old team had stoked the rumors that she might not run. News that White House political guru Karl Rove met with her (to try to talk her out of a race, it was widely speculated) fed the fire.
Then there's election night in 2004, when a member of Harris' team told me that the campaign had been worried about the race – until an angry man drove his silver Cadillac up on the sidewalk and veered toward Harris and a handful of her supporters as they waved at drivers along Fruitville Road. After that incident, sympathy shifted the polls by double digits, the Harris team member said, and the race was much more in hand.
So without the accident of the angry driver, Harris might have faced a much tougher challenge, even though the Democratic nominee, Jan Schneider, had little beyond money going for her and had already lost one race to Harris.
Harris' forces have been scrambling to staff a Senate campaign office, which at press time didn't even have a copy of her written announcement days after it was distributed by Goodman. It does have a resurrected campaign website with a new homepage touting the Senate run at electharris.org.
The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported that Harris rushed her statement out a few weeks sooner than she had planned because of growing speculation that other Republican big hitters (namely Vern Buchanan) would run. She held no news conference this time; in 2004, her announcement that she wouldn't run for the Senate was covered live by national cable news channels. Goodman admitted to the Herald-Tribune that Harris' June 7 launch didn't go as planned but said word of Harris' decision leaking to the press – and not concern about other Republican candidates – led to the premature announcement.
Harris' congressional office referred political questions to Goodman, who could not be reached for further comment.
The Democrats, however, were talking. Phil Singer of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee detailed Harris' list of sins and called her "a polarizing figure" the same morning that Harris made her announcement.
"As a public official, Katherine Harris is better known for generating controversies than for her achievements on behalf of the people she represents," wrote Singer, the communications director for the committee. "We look forward to hearing Rep. Harris explain why she has been such a polarizing figure."
Nelson's press secretary (and my former boss at The Tampa Tribune) Dan McLaughlin likewise weighed in. "Katherine Harris represents only the radical right," McLaughlin said. "In over three decades of public service, Bill Nelson has always strived to help everyday people and has represented mainstream Florida values."
You last saw McLaughlin on temporary loan to the failed Betty Castor Senate campaign. With McLaughlin and Goodman spinning for their respective sides, this ought to be fun.
A split in Belleair: As the uncertainty surrounding the future of the Belleview Biltmore Resort in Belleair continues, and a developer hopes to convert at least some of it to condos, a rift has emerged among those trying to save the structure.Diane Hein, who first put up the savethebiltmore.com website in 2004 after the historic wooden hotel structure was first threatened by redevelopment, released a statement on June 6 disassociating herself from another high-profile activist, Rae Clair Johnson.
"This is to announce that I, Diane Hein, am no longer associated with or cooperating with Rae Claire Johnson and her group 'Friends of the Belleview Biltmore' to save the Belleview Biltmore Hotel," Hein announced. "However, I will continue to try to stop the demolition and to save the Biltmore…"
Hein disagrees with the evolving position of Johnson and her group who are working with investors who would save the main hotel building but tear down other wings to make room for condos. She said in an e-mail response to questions that she broke with Johnson after a recent article in the Orlando Sentinel that seemed to portray Johnson as the sole advocate for Biltmore.
"It was at that point that I really started questioning everything Rae Claire said and whether I could trust her," Hein wrote to the Planet. "It came across in the article that she was going to be the master savior of the Biltmore where in reality, she had plans to destroy two wings, thereby destroying the Biltmore as the largest wooden structure in Florida … ." Hein accused Johnson of being "very secretive" with the Sentinel reporter and failing "to disclose all of her plans."
Johnson did not return a telephone call for comment. In an e-mail sent to supporters, however, she acknowledged that she and Hein have different goals and bemoaned their split.
"We regret this, she has been a big help," Johnson wrote. "She believes the whole building can be saved – we do not. We have looked at numerous options and have been talking to potential partners/investors for several months now and have concluded that a compromise is the only thing that will allow us to reach our goals."
Political Whore can be reached by e-mail at wayne.garcia@weeklyplanet.com or by telephone at 813-739-4805.
This article appears in Jun 15-21, 2005.
