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His task: get Harris elected senator

Top Republicans want her to stay out of the Senate race, but imagemaker Adam Goodman is in Katherine Harris' corner.

By ADAM C. SMITH
Published August 9, 2005

	[Times photo: Melissa Lyttle]
	Adam Goodman, 50, is known for his work for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and politicians throughout Florida. Now he's Katherine Harris' political adviser.

TAMPA - Can somebody who makes a living in Republican politics get away with bucking Karl Rove and the White House?

Adam Goodman had better hope so.

He is the political adviser to U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris, who officially kicks off her campaign to unseat Sen. Bill Nelson today.

Rove has made it clear he does not want the controversial congresswoman from Sarasota running. Gov. Jeb Bush has talked up alternatives. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, head of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, is openly recruiting other candidates.

Amid the public snubs from top Republicans and the grim poll numbers showing Nelson drubbing Harris are the whispers from fellow Republicans that Goodman is just out for a buck. Word is that his firm, the Victory Group, stands to make more than $1-million on the race.

"Ka-ching," said Rick Wilson, a political consultant who used to work with him. "It would be hard to ignore the temptation of that much money, even if you cared about the odds."

Goodman, chuckling in his south Tampa office, brushed off the suggestion that he will make $1-million or that money has anything to do with how he's advising Harris.

"If you were to price out (our work) on an hourly basis I should be the first one at the head of line screaming for a revision of the hourly wage," said Goodman, who hinted that his deal with Harris called for him to get a bonus if she wins.

Whatever happens, some say Goodman can't lose.

"It generates reputation," said J.M. "Mac" Stipanovich, a veteran Republican strategist who worked side-by-side with Goodman in 2000, advising Secretary of State Harris during the presidential recount.

"If that Senate race is not won, I don't think anyone will blame that on Adam Goodman because it's a tough race. And if that race is won, Adam Goodman is going to be gold."

Few people have helped elect more Republicans in Florida than Goodman, an amiable and wiry 50-year-old who could pass for 38. The son of one of the most legendary political consultants in the business, Robert Goodman of Baltimore, he has developed his own national reputation as a whiz imagemaker.

"Adam's the best," said former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, one of Goodman's old clients. "He has incredible enthusiasm, and he does very, very high quality, well-produced work."

Goodman helped Giuliani win re-election as New York mayor in 1997, and in 2000 started leading his media team for what promised to be an epic match-up: Rudy vs. Hillary for U.S. Senate. Prostate cancer took Giuliani out of the race, and Goodman toyed with getting out of politics altogether.

Now Katherine Harris promises to return Goodman to the national spotlight. He likens media campaigns to plays - "where there's good and bad, heroes and villains" - and with Harris, he has a superstar client starring in a blockbuster drama: a famously loyal Republican who helped put George W. Bush in the White House has to buck the the GOP establishment and prove wrong all the pundits and strategists who say she can't win.

"I'm waiting for all the stories after the fact about where Katherine was and where she came to win, as if it was some kind of surprise," Goodman said. "If you look at her history it's no surprise at all."

He worked with her in her first campaign for state Senate in 1994, and in 1998 when she unseated Republican Secretary of State Sandra Mortham in a bruising primary contest.

In a 2002 state senate race, Goodman helped Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, beat a Democratic icon, former attorney general Bob Butterworth. That same year he helped persuade voters to amend the state constitution to protect pregnant pigs. In 2004, he counts 20 wins and two losses.

He produced memorable TV spots for Democrat Bob Buckhorn's run for Tampa mayor, depicting him as a community hero.

"Katherine Harris will be prepared, and he will take maximum advantage of whatever resources she has," Buckhorn said. "The Katherine Harris that will be portrayed will be diametrically opposed to the negative caricature of her. If I was going into battle I would want Adam Goodman with me."

A married father of two, he downplays his role in Harris' political ascent (and discouraged this article about him). He said the decision to run for U.S. Senate was entirely hers. Still, he is part of an unusually small inner circle of political advisers, including former aides Ben McKay and Dan Berger.

"She really trusts him, and she really listens to him," said David Johnson, former executive director of the state Republican Party. "If Adam Goodman had told her you shouldn't do this, she probably wouldn't."

Though Republicans insist that Nelson is vulnerable, they say Harris cannot win. Recent polls have shown Nelson leading her by anywhere from 8 to 17 points. A Mason-Dixon poll in June found that 32 percent of voters surveyed had a negative impression of Harris, while just 10 percent had a negative view of Nelson.

As it is, Harris has a knack for generating controversy without any help from opponents. Last week she blamed newspapers for altering photos of her in 2000 to make her look bad. The claim, without any backup, prompted negative columns and editorials in newspapers across the state.

"I assume that with at all the things that are being said and all the polling that's been done about that race, that he has information that others don't see," said Republican state Senate President Tom Lee of Brandon, another Goodman client and admirer.

An internal polling memo by Harris' well-respected pollster, Ed Goeas, suggests that Harris can close the gap with Nelson with the right kind of campaign.

Goodman, say his fans, is not so much an imagemaker as an iconmaker. His ads tend to be biographical or to feature community members talking about the candidate. He includes something to stand out before viewers, whether it's Giuliani, after hours, snoozing at his City Hall desk or Harris literally drawing a line in the sand while vowing to fight offshore drilling.

"There is a memorable, payoff moment in every ad that he does," said John Sowinski, a Republican consultant who has worked with Goodman.

Goodman speaks with pride about some the tough, negative ads he has produced over the years, but he is better known for his feel-good spots.

"This is a race that is going to be more vicious and sharp-edged than anything he's ever done," said consultant Wilson, crediting Goodman for "beautiful work."

Goodman maintains that the doubters merely lack the necessary vision.

"If conventional wisdom determined elections, a heck of a lot of winners never would have made it to the starting line," he said. "Conventional wisdom is based on the here and now, not on the potential and what the candidate can do conveying the message of the campaign."

--Adam C. Smith can be reached at 727893-8241 or adam@sptimes.com

[Last modified August 9, 2005, 01:24:12]