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Harris shoots, but cameras don't

Photographers and television crews, though invited, are prevented from taking pictures of Harris at a gun range.

By BRIDGET HALL GRUMET
Published May 13, 2006

LAND O'LAKES - Katherine Harris was a pro with the .38-special, drilling holes through the center of a person-shaped paper target.

But the congresswoman's campaign staff missed the mark at Saturday's gun range photo op, said a local Republican Party official who organized the event.

Pasco County Republican Executive Committee chairman Bill Bunting fumed after Chris Ingram, the communications director for Harris' U.S. Senate campaign, tried to block photographers and television crews from taking pictures of Harris firing away.

"Katherine is welcome back at any time. She was gracious," Bunting said. "He's not. I think he was wrong, period."

Journalists had been invited to cover the event at the Hallelujah Land Ranch, but Ingram wanted to limit photos to a news conference after Harris finished target practice.

"If we've got a Bill of Rights, we protect all of them," Bunting told the St. Petersburg Times afterward. "You guys have a First Amendment right, and I thought those rights should have been protected today."

Harris visited the central Pasco gun range after taking a two-hour gun safety course taught by Bunting to obtain a concealed weapons permit.

Ingram told journalists no cameras were allowed as Harris shot.

"It's a distraction," he said, even as another member of the campaign staff took pictures of Harris firing.

Asked later about her staff turning away the invited cameramen, Harris said, "I was glad you guys were there," then changed the subject to how well she had shot.

Told of the incident, political observers said it is a sign of a campaign in disarray.

"To me, this is just one more symptom of this campaign's problems," said Jennifer Duffy, who tracks Senate races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report . "The campaign internally never seems to be on the same page, and they get out there on a fairly regular basis and have these sort of debacles in front of the press, which just fuels the entire perception that this is not a campaign that can win a statewide election."

Most of Harris' campaign staff left this spring after failing to persuade her to drop her bid against Democratic incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson. The Longboat Key Republican hired a new staff and vowed to devote her $10-million fortune to the campaign. But she continues to be dogged by difficulties, including revelations that she received illegal campaign contributions in 2004 and shared a $2,800 dinner last year with a defense contractor later convicted of bribing a congressman.

As Harris and her staff offered differing accounts of whether Harris paid for her share of the pricey Georgetown dinner (she didn't), party leaders urged state House Speaker Allan Bense to join the race (he declined). Last week Gov. Jeb Bush said, "I just don't believe she can win."

Harris has drawn three relatively unknown challengers for the GOP nomination: LeRoy Collins Jr., son of former Florida Gov. LeRoy Collins; Pinellas County developer Peter Monroe; and Windermere businessman William "Will" McBride.

"I've asked some of the party leadership and they haven't heard anything about them," Harris said Saturday.

She said she welcomed a primary: "I think it helps get our base engaged." And while polls have shown Harris trailing Nelson by 30 points, she said, "It's early. The polls don't matter right now."

Then she said her internal campaign polls show a tighter race in which Harris wins "if we turn out our base."

The Saturday trip to the gun range was designed to do just that. Images of Harris shooting a gun could have shored up her appeal among men and Republican women, analyst Duffy said.

Jim Dornan, a former campaign manager who left Harris in November, said he suspects Harris changed her mind about being photographed.

"I think that one thing Katherine does is thinks things to death," Dornan said. "Once she gets an idea in her head that something isn't going to turn out exactly the way she wants it, she changes things at the last minute."

Harris said she grew up hunting with rifles and shotguns, and she still bags quail, dove and Osceola turkey with her .12-gauge shotgun. She said she took numerous gun courses as a youth, earning the Girl Scout equivalent of the Eagle Scout rank, but was less familiar with handguns.

Last Thursday she told the Times she had a concealed weapons permit that had lapsed, and was taking the course Saturday to get it renewed. But she said Saturday that she had been mistaken, and may never have had a concealed weapons permit.

"I thought I had, but I'm not sure if I did or not," Harris said Saturday. "You think I would have known, but I never had this kind of training before."

Harris said she owns a small revolver, a Smith & Wesson, but shot Saturday with a .38 Special owned by the Second Amendment Club, whose members were also at the range.

Club president John DiGaetano loaded the gun for Harris. Dave Rowe, father of Army Sgt. Michael Rowe, who was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq March 28, put his arm around the congresswoman and told her to aim for the base of the bulls-eye.

"You don't pull the trigger," Rowe, a Second Amendment Club founder and instructor, told Harris as she walked up to the range. "You apply steady pressure."

With the pant leg of her navy trousers, Harris wiped a smudge from her matching blue safety glasses, then fluffed her hair and put on her black earmuffs.

Her aim was perfect. Had the target been an intruder, he would be dead.

"Now that I hit the target," Harris joked with reporters, "I wish you had been taking pictures."

[Last modified May 13, 2006, 21:12:30]