Katherine Harris, who is trying to become a U.S. senator, says she is writing a tell-all about the many people who have wronged her. This includes, but is not necessarily limited to: the Republican leaders who didn't want her to run, the press that has covered her troubled campaign, and the many staffers who have quit her employ, whom she accuses of colluding with her opponent.
She is vague about what, precisely, makes her a victim, but she says she has it all documented.
"I've been writing it all year," she says in that kittenish voice. She often smiles and cocks her head as if she's letting you in on a secret. "It's going to be a great book."
If it is, it may be one of very few things that go well for the two-term Republican congresswoman. Once beloved by the Republican leadership for her role in overseeing the 2000 recount that delivered the presidency to George Bush, Harris was snubbed by those old friends before the primary. Republican chieftains, considering her too polarizing to win a statewide race, tried to recruit others, and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) said publicly that she could not win. Fundraising has been poor. She has come under scrutiny for her role in a bribery scandal. She has caught flak for a series of bizarre statements, including a comment in August: "If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin."
[....]
The way Harris sees it, a vast left- and right-wing conspiracy, encompassing both the "liberal media" and the Republican "elite," is attempting to keep her out of the Senate. She says anyone could see the way the panel of questioners coddled [Democratic candidate Bill] Nelson at their debate last week. Her voice gets all high and mocking as she imitates them.
To be honest, I think I would love to see a tell-all book by Katherine Harris about her inept Senate campaign. I'm sure she has plenty of dirt that she can pull out on not just her staffers, but also the Republican Party as well. She was the darling in the 2000 Florida election snafu for the Republican Party--now she is completely snubbed by that same Republican Party for being too controversial. And I would hope that as Harris publishes her tell-all book on the campaign trail, that we would also see some tell-all books from her campaign staffers. The details are just juicy:
Perhaps the worst blow to Harris's campaign has been the stories that have emerged from former staffers. They describe a Jekyll-and-Hyde candidate who can be seductively charming at one moment and pitch a temper tantrum the next, throwing a cellphone at a wall or a sheaf of papers at a campaign manager. Former chief adviser Ed Rollins, who managed Ronald Reagan's reelection to the White House in 1984, said working for Harris was like "being in insanity camp." He likened her staff to dogs that have been kicked.
Before he became the first of three campaign managers to quit, Jim Dornan programmed his cellphone to play the theme song from "The Exorcist" when Harris called.
Several of her former staffers say they would have kept silent about goings-on in the Harris campaign if Harris herself had not publicly criticized them after they left, accusing them of being bad at their jobs, of putting "knives in my back" and of working with the Nelson campaign. They describe her as a micromanager, unable to trust her staff, prone to tears and rages over tiny things. They say she would rewrite speeches and press releases over and over. She would get upset if an aide hadn't brought her the correct coffee order from Starbucks. Dornan, the former campaign manager, says Harris was so concerned that only the best photographs of her went up on the campaign Web site that she insisted on going through every picture.
"It would be weeks and weeks and weeks before we could put anything up on the Web site," he says.
Dornan says he once infuriated Harris right before an event by setting it up so she could make a grand entrance. Instead, she wanted to greet supporters at the door as they arrived.
"She just goes completely ballistic," Dornan recalls. He says she yelled at him for 10 minutes and accused him of ruining her life. "I literally held the phone away from my ear, and everybody within a six-foot circle of me could hear her screaming."
Harris's former staffers say they worried about her health, especially after the death of her father earlier this year and the news that she was implicated in a bribery scandal with a federal contractor named Mitchell Wade, who had pleaded guilty to bribing former congressman Duke Cunningham (R-Calif.). (Wade admitted funneling $32,000 in illegal donations to Harris, but Harris has said she didn't realize the contributions were illegal and ultimately gave the money to charity.)
They worried about her clothes -- suit jackets and sweaters that were too tight, skirts that were too short. Rollins says an aide was dispatched to take her shopping for more senatorial apparel.
They worried about what one former field coordinator called her sense of "religious mission." Two former staffers -- Rollins and another onetime campaign manager, Jamie Miller -- have said Harris told them that God wanted her to be a senator. Rollins adds, "She told me that she thought she could be the first woman president."
These would make great instruction books on how NOT to run a senate campaign.
No comments:
Post a Comment