No recount necessary

Sept. 6, 2006 | TAMPA, Fla. -- Rep. Katherine Harris, America's patron saint of partisanship, looked as radiant as ever. She stood Tuesday night amid her adoring fans, in "Harris for Senate" T-shirts, with a bevy of television cameras rolling, and a victory in her pocket. Despite a disastrous and humiliating campaign, Florida's Republican voters had selected her as their nominee to the United States Senate.

For the moment, it didn't seem to matter that little things were still going wrong. She had timed her victory speech just as Charlie Crist, Florida's Republican nominee for governor, took over the networks to accept his nomination, all but ensuring there would be no live coverage of the event. And though she was reading from a script, she accidentally accused her opponent, the incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson, of squandering his time in the Florida Senate, instead of the U.S. Senate. Then there was the repetition of words, which suggested either nervous improvisation or lousy speechwriting: "It's a great victory because it shows each of us that we can overcome adversity to achieve an extraordinary victory."

But, for the moment, the adversity had been overcome, and that was the important part. All year, her campaign staff has been deserting her in waves and giving nasty backstabbing quotes to the press. Many in the Republican leadership, including Florida's Gov. Jeb Bush, had all but pronounced her campaign a dead letter. The Justice Department had even issued a subpoena to her campaign, as part of an ongoing bribery investigation of a convicted lobbyist. Public polls showed her trailing Nelson by anywhere from 15 to 35 percent, with statewide favorability ratings below 30 percent. But here she was, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in Florida, not six years after she was introduced to the nation as Florida's secretary of state during the 2000 presidential recount.

"Make no mistake, it's not going to be easy," she told the fawning crowd of about 50. "But standing here tonight is proof positive just how we can courageously beat the odds."

So far this year, nothing has been easy for Harris. Wherever she goes these days, car crashes -- both literal and figurative -- seem to follow. Just a day earlier, on a campaign tour through Miami, she had just pulled into a gas station to wave at traffic, when two cars collided behind her. A stolen compact sedan smashed into the back of a Chevy Tahoe, which was carrying two small children. The driver of the stolen car sped off, and a local traffic policeman who had been escorting the congresswoman flipped on his siren in hot pursuit. Before long, the gas station was swarming with police from at least four jurisdictions, firemen, the occupants of the Tahoe, and, eventually, the captured perpetrator, who sat shackled in the back of a patrol car.

But Harris overcame this adversity as well. Without missing a beat, she darted back and forth between waving at traffic and tending to the collision. She rushed over to the occupants of the Tahoe to make sure they were all safe. "How are the children?" she asked, referring to the two young girls, ages 4 and 8, in the back seat. They were fine, so Harris gave them both campaign stickers. "Kids like stickers," she explained, a bit apologetically. She even made her way to the squad car to take a look at the perp. "I wanted to see who the jerk was," she said. Someone told her that a traffic officer from the town of Sweetwater had captured the alleged car thief. "That's fantastic," she exclaimed. "Good for the Sweetwater officer."

When she returned to the road, her wrist rotating in a pageant wave, the traffic greeted her with an equal measure of honks of support and jeers of derision. "Boo Harris," screamed one passing passenger. "Harris sucks," yelled another. "I hate Harris." But her wrist rotation never faltered. Her wide smile never slackened. "We don't pay any attention to the polls," Harris explained to me, as the cars continued to rush by. "I think some of the liberals try to ... well they can make polls say whatever they want to."

One-on-one, Harris can exude optimism that is infectious and unending, even if it has no clear connection with the grim reality of her situation. She is a case study of positive thinking, a Tony Robbins clone with mascara and black pearls. When she campaigns, her force of will is so intense that reality seems to bend and distort around her. The press corps follows a few steps behind, caught in the bubble of her self-confidence. They try to pierce through with questions filled with pesky facts. What about all the polls that show she has almost no chance to win against the Democratic incumbent? "We are going to win. Whenever we turn out our base, all the data shows we will beat Bill Nelson," she says, with a perfect smile and flared nostrils. What about the GOP heavies who have predicted her defeat? "The elite is tiny, at the top. All we want is the masses." How have you enjoyed the primary campaign so far? "It's been fantastic. On the trail, people have been extremely supportive."

This last answer omits any mention of the three campaign managers, two press secretaries, the pollster, the media advisor and the campaign consultant, among others, who have all quit the Harris campaign in the last year. Ed Goeas, the pollster, told a reporter his parting words were: "Get out." Ed Rollins, a former Reagan advisor who resigned as her campaign consultant in April, told the St. Petersburg Times: "My counsel was she could not possibly win. She didn't listen to anyone." Other former aides have been even less kind, describing her repeated behind-the-scenes "meltdowns," her obsessive micromanagement, her loose relationship with the truth, and her "Devil Wears Prada" demands for Starbucks coffee -- "extra hot venti triple latte, no fat, no foam, one Sweet'N Low." Jim Dornan, her first campaign manager, has called the Harris campaign "one of the most disastrous ever run in the United States."

Next page: "If I was a psychiatrist I could probably retire on trying to explain and figure her out"