Election brawl could leave officials with political scars

By DIANE RADO

© St. Petersburg Times, published December 6, 2000

TALLAHASSEE -- Soon, the national media and the out-of-town lawyers will go home. The presidential election will be sorted out. The state capital will settle back into the routine of a government town that loves its universities and college sports teams.

But much will have changed for the top Florida politicians left behind.

Caught in the vortex of a historic and sometimes vicious fight for the presidency, they face far less certain political futures:

Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris dreamed as a young girl of becoming a U.S. ambassador. Today, Republicans and Democrats alike don't think she could be confirmed by the U.S. Senate or win any statewide political race in Florida.

Gov. Jeb Bush was considered unbeatable in the next gubernatorial election. Now, his approval rating has slipped slightly -- though he remains popular -- and Democrats consider him vulnerable.

Agriculture Commissioner Bob Crawford has so alienated top Democrats that they want him out of their party. But some observers suggest he's an attractive candidate for Texas Gov. George W. Bush's effort to add Democrats to his administration if he wins the presidency.

Attorney General Bob Butterworth seems to have survived unscathed. He's still the Democratic Party's top choice for a governor's candidate in 2002. But Butterworth, Florida's longest serving attorney general, isn't interested in mounting a campaign. At the end of his current term, he'll be 60.

"My time has come and gone," Butterworth said.

By now, most of these Florida officials have become household names in the internationally televised drama about who will become the next president, Bush or Vice President Al Gore.

No one could have imagined the script: Presidential race comes down to razor-thin contest in Florida, where the governor is the Republican candidate's brother; Secretary of State Harris, the state's chief elections official, is a co-chair of the Bush presidential campaign in Florida; Attorney General Butterworth is statewide manager for the Gore campaign; Agriculture Commissioner Crawford, a Democrat who supported Republicans Jeb Bush for governor and George W. Bush for president, is appointed to the state commission that will certify election results.

Throughout the struggle, Harris has been attacked as a Republican party hack who can't be impartial. She has become the butt of jokes over her makeup and appearance. She has been criticized for her stiff performance at news conferences, where she reads written statements and refuses to answer questions. A Democratic political strategist said Harris looked like Cruella De Vil. On CNN, celebrity lawyer Alan Dershowitz called her a crook. By the time the Florida Supreme Court ruled against her on Nov. 21, Harris was fed up.

She sat in her Capitol office, dejected, on the day the court allowed hand recounts to continue in South Florida over her objections.

"She looked emotionally and physically exhausted," said Sen. Jim Horne, R-Orange Park, a friend who was with Harris that day. "The politics of personal destruction have certainly taken a toll on her."

Harris, 43, served one term in the Florida Senate representing Sarasota before being elected secretary of state in 1998. With a master's degree from Harvard and a net worth of $6.5 million -- she is the granddaughter of the late Ben Hill Griffin Jr., a citrus and cattle tycoon -- Harris' political future had been bright.

Her name came up as a candidate for state agriculture commissioner in 2002, when her term as secretary of state runs out. Some political observers envisioned her as Florida's first female governor or at least a U.S. ambassador.

Now she is seen as so intensely partisan that even her supporters say it would be unlikely that she could be confirmed by a U.S. Senate closely divided between Democrats and Republicans.

"It would be tough," said Horne, who believes Harris' best hope is to run for a congressional seat in a heavily Republican district.

Harris continues to get an avalanche of supportive e-mails. "She's the icon of state Republicans," said Senate Majority Leader Jim King, R-Jacksonville. "I think she's a force to be reckoned with."

And after Gore's challenge of the election results was rejected in Leon Circuit Court this week, Harris' lawyer, Joseph Klock, declared, "The secretary has been completely vindicated."

Still, a Mason-Dixon Florida poll conducted Nov. 27 and 28 shows that Harris is in some trouble: Thirty percent of those surveyed said she was doing a poor job, far worse than the assessment of Gov. Jeb Bush or other state Cabinet officers.

Harris says she isn't even thinking about her political future. "I'm just concentrating on my job right now," she said.

Gov. Jeb Bush is concentrating on his job as well, trying to avoid the media circus gathered in the capital. Last week, he was enjoying an arcane discussion about Florida's indebtedness at a meeting of the governor and Cabinet.

Halfway into his first term as an elected official, Bush loves immersing himself in state policy discussions. He says he fears that if he thinks too much about politics, he'll lose the intensity he has about state business.

"My mind works in a different way," Bush, 47, explained before last Wednesday's meeting.

He said he still hasn't decided whether he'll seek a second term. But he added, "I want to serve, and I have a passion for serving."

The new Mason-Dixon Florida poll shows that Bush continues to be popular, with a 58 percent approval rating. But that rating was down 5 points since June, a drop attributed to black voters' dislike for Bush's plan to eliminate most state affirmative action laws.

Bush also has been criticized for failing to deliver Florida to his brother, and he has been in an uncomfortable position as state officials try to sort out who won Florida's vote.

Democrats are gearing up to challenge him in 2002 and are already floating names of possible challengers. Among them: Butterworth, who has served as attorney general since 1987; former state Sen. Rick Dantzler, who ran for lieutenant governor on Buddy MacKay's ticket in 1998; U.S. Reps. Jim Davis, D-Tampa, and Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton; state Sens. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, and Richard Mitchell, D-Jasper; and Tallahassee Mayor Scott Maddox.

State Democratic Party Chairman Bob Poe said the party needs to consider a younger generation of Democrats as candidates -- and Butterworth agrees.

Butterworth told the Times last week that if he wanted to run for governor, "I would have done it years ago."

A former county and circuit judge, Butterworth also thinks he is too old to serve on the federal bench. He said he has twice declined to pursue a seat on the Florida Supreme Court, even though Gov. Lawton Chiles urged him to consider it.

His name has come up as a possible U.S. attorney general or FBI director in a Gore administration. But Butterworth says he is committed to serving out his term as attorney general.

Agriculture Commissioner Crawford has been mentioned as a possible U.S. secretary of agriculture in a Bush administration. But he isn't saying what he'll do, even to his closest associates.

"As long as I've known him, I haven't been able to get him to discuss even in the most general terms what happens after he leaves office," said Craig Meyer, who has been friends with Crawford since elementary school and now serves as deputy commissioner of agriculture.

Crawford, 52, is a former state Senate president who has been involved in Florida politics for nearly 25 years. He is a moderate Democrat who appeals to Florida's farming and citrus communities.

"He has the full faith of the agricultural community, and it's not a matter of being a D (Democrat) or an R (Republican)," said Dan Richey, chairman of the Florida Citrus Commission.

Crawford supported Democratic Insurance Commissioner Bill Nelson for U.S. Senate this year. But he alienated the Democratic Party when he supported Jeb Bush over Democrat Buddy MacKay for governor in 1998. He irritated the party again when he supported George W. Bush for the presidency.

On Nov. 26, he joined Republicans in certifying presidential election results in favor of George W. Bush.

"I think he ought to shed all pretenses and go ahead and switch," said Poe, Democratic Party chairman. About Crawford's future, Poe said, "I think he goes to the farm and enjoys his pension."

SECRETARY OF STATE KATHERINE HARRIS

Many Republicans and Democrats think the U.S. Senate would not confirm her for an ambassadorship, nor do they think she could win statewide office.

AGRICULTURE CHIEF BOB CRAWFORD

Though he has alienated top Democrats, some observers suggest he's a good candidate for George W. Bush's effort to add Democrats to his administration.

ATTORNEY GENERAL BOB BUTTERWORTH

He would top many lists as the Democratics' top choice to run for governor in 2002. But he isn't interested in running.

GOV. JEB BUSH

The governor's approval rating -- 58 percent -- is down 5 points. He has not said whether he will seek re-election.

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