After hampering Harris, what is GOP's next move?
There are supposedly currently some of the most brilliant Republican political minds in modern history at work, but the way the botched the U.S. Senate race in Florida is nothing short of stunning.
By ADAM SMITH
Published March 10, 2006
The White House, Capitol Hill, and Tallahassee are supposed to be loaded with some of the most brilliant Republican political minds in modern history. What happened to them?
The way those allegedly savvy strategists have botched the U.S. Senate race in Florida is nothing short of stunning. Let's take stock:
Rep. Katherine Harris within the next few days may pull the plug on her snake-bit campaign to unseat Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson. If she stays in, she's a badly injured candidate whose wounds come at least as much from party leaders trashing her as from her own missteps and controversy.
If she gives up, the party is left without a clearly anointed successor in America's biggest battleground state. Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson has more than $8-million in his campaign account, and a campaign operation that's been revving for months. Al Gore is in South Florida today helping raise more money for Nelson.
Serious statewide campaigns in Florida normally take at least a year of preparation, and most of the credible prospects to replace Harris are people few Floridians have heard of.
"There's a point where we may not be able to mount a credible campaign (with someone else)," said former state Republican chairman Al Cardenas. "We may or may not have passed that point yet, but we're close."
It wasn't Democrats ranting about a stolen 2000 election who created this mess. It was Harris' own wobbly performance, revelations of illegal campaign donations from a crooked defense contractor and Republican leaders publicly and privately sticking knives in her back.
Convinced she couldn't win, they spent much of the last year making sure that would be the case by undercutting her candidacy. The Bush family is reputed to cherish loyalty, but Harris proved otherwise.
After the 2000 election debacle, the former secretary of state used her celebrity power to raise money for Republicans across the country. When Karl Rove worried she would hurt President Bush's re-election if she ran for an open Senate seat in 2004, Harris stepped aside.
How did the Bushes reward her? After she announced her candidacy for the Senate in early June, Jeb Bush and the White House openly recruited House Speaker Allan Bense of Panama City to run against Bill Nelson.
Even after Bense declined, the National Republican Senatorial Committee repeatedly talked about looking for other Republicans to run. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, head of the committee, to this day has not publicly said she supports Harris for the Senate.
"You could make a very strong and persuasive argument that Katherine Harris is responsible for George Bush being the president of the United States. That argument being made, it would seem to me her IOU list would be infinitely long," said former state Republican Party chairman Tom Slade, who counts himself among the Republicans stunned by Harris' treatment by party leaders.
"On my watch, it wouldn't have happened," said Slade.
Brokering backroom deals was much easier when Republicans were the minority party in Florida, he acknowledged. But even in 2000, Jeb Bush and then-state GOP chairman Cardenas pushed Tom Gallagher out of the U.S. Senate race to clear the field for Bill McCollum.
In today's mighty Florida GOP: Jeb Bush sits on the sidelines while two formidable Republican gubernatorial candidates, Charlie Crist and Tom Gallagher, prepare for a nasty primary and refuse to switch to the Senate race; state party chairwoman Carole Jean Jordan urges Republicans to unite behind Harris and nobody listens; Republican state senators divide into bitter factions over who will lead that chamber in four years.
Meanwhile, Bill Nelson keeps raising more money, and Republicans across the country watch their their party's approval ratings drop into the basement. Less than eight months before Election Day, Republican leaders aren't sure if they even have a candidate for the top of the ticket. Friends of Harris quietly insist she might have been persuaded long ago to forgo the Senate race had party leaders not been so overtly antagonistic to her. All they really succeeded in doing was pushing her into a corner from which she wouldn't budge - and drying up much of her fundraising.
In recent days, neither Senate President Tom Lee of Valrico nor House Speaker Bense has closed the door on running for the Senate should Harris drop out. Had the White House not declined to openly endorse Bense back in June, perhaps he could have spent the last nine months ramping up a campaign.
But as it now stands, few Floridians have heard of either Bense or Lee. While they're tied up in a two-month legislative session, Nelson's campaign operation grows richer and stronger. Technically, Bense or Lee could bypass legislative rules barring fundraising during session because it would be for a federal office, not a state office. Politically, though, using a loophole to solicit money while presiding over the Legislature could be devastating.
U.S. Rep. Mark Foley of West Palm Beach says he's considering it, and has the benefit of a campaign account with $2.3-million. But that would require risking his political career - and giving Democrats a stronger shot of picking up a House seat - to campaign during the worst political climate Republicans have seen in more than a decade. Tom Rooney, a political novice and rich nephew of Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney, also is talking about running.
Florida is poised to decide the presidency in 2008, and every statewide official can make a significant difference for the party's nominee.
We'll probably know within a week whether Harris is in or out of the Senate race. Either way, Republicans may wind up ruing the way their leaders sabotaged her campaign.
Adam C. Smith can be reached at 727 893-8241 or adam@sptimes.com