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Election ghosts haunt Harris
By BRADY DENNIS, Times Staff Writer TAMPA -- To someone who once occupied the center of the universe, Tuesday night must have seemed awfully quiet to Katherine Harris. There she sat at the Borders bookstore in Carrollwood, wearing a black business suit, black pumps, a red turtleneck sweater and a Chiclet-sized diamond ring, waiting for the crowds that didn't come. She smiled anyway, two hours straight. This was not the Katherine Harris ridiculed on Saturday Night Live, the one likened to Cruella De Vil and Tammy Faye Bakker, the one a Washington Post writer wrote "looks bad -- not by the hand of God but by her own." This was not the woman at the Center of the Storm, the title of her new book she had come to promote. This was a more relaxed Harris, willing to chat, writing personal notes to the dozen or so patrons who showed up, patting children on the head, even leaving a voice mail message for a fan who couldn't come. But no matter where she goes, the ghosts of 2000 follow. You could see them in the handful of protesters holding signs along Dale Mabry Highway that said things like, "Cruella the Thief Stole Our Chads." "We don't ever want the voters to forget," said Lorelei Jackson, as she marched and shouted. You could see them in the well-wishers, who invariably neglected Harris' recent Congressional election victory and instead thanked her for the way she handled herself in 2000. "I saw all she'd gone through," said Sue Anders, with a freshly signed copy of the $22.99 book. "I admire her spirit to carry on." You got the feeling that while life went on all around her -- as people browsed for Christmas gifts, as students pored over math books, as one man read a Star Trek novel and another ordered a mocha freeze with whipped cream -- that the former Florida secretary of state was stuck in a time warp at her table in the art section. Even now, as her life revolves around one event, she takes both criticism and praise with a smile. "I've only had three people (ever) say something unkind to me in person," she said. Make that four. As if on cue, a white-haired old man who looked like Colonel Sanders shuffled in and told her she had stolen the election. Minutes later, several protesters came in to berate her as well, getting in a few insults before deputies led them outside. Harris smiled, shook her head and muttered, "What's so bad is they don't know the truth." That's part of why she wrote the book, she said, to set the record straight.
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From the Times state desk
From the state wire
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