It was another exciting week for Katherine Harris's Senate Campaign:
not only was she caught lying about her achievements in Congress, but
her high-level campaign staff resigned.
Again.
Let's start with the lying.
The Palm Beach Post reported last week that:
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/local_news/epaper/2006/07/13/m1a_HARRIS_0713.html
On the campaign trail and in her literature, U.S. Rep. Katherine
Harris boasts that, as a freshman member of Congress, she passed the
American Dream Downpayment Act, "enabling 4.5 million low-income
workers to own their first home while growing the U.S. economy by $256
billion."
Federal reports indicate Harris' claims are grossly exaggerated.
Those federal reports state that 13,000 low-income families have been
assisted.
So that means Harris was only off by about 4,487,000 families.
According to the Post, "Harris' congressional spokesman, Gerry Fritz,
conceded Wednesday that the claims in her campaign literature were
inaccurate. 'Someone in the campaign made an error,' he said."
No kidding.
Now let's find out why Harris's staffers have been leaving her in
droves.
It seems that in the summer of 2005, when rumors were flying that Joe
Scarborough might run against Harris in the Republican primary, she
called top GOP donors and told them that the former Republican
congressman "would have to answer questions about the strange death of
a former staff member in 2001," according to the Miami Herald.
For those of you who missed that story, it's quite simple:
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/15034557.htm
one of Scarborough's staffers turned up dead in his office in 2001;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Scarborough#Congressional_career her
death was ruled to be accidental.
If you're wondering why the case didn't make major headlines, it's
because at the time the media was busy chasing down another
congressman who didn't murder one of his former staffers: Gary Condit.
Anyway, the point is that Joe Scarborough didn't even have a chance to
announce he wasn't running before Harris started making nutball
phonecalls to donors accusing him of murder.
That didn't play well with her advisers, who have since referred to
her thusly:
"This (story) encapsulates everything wrong with her as a candidate.
She reacted without thinking. She made stuff up. She called people she
had no business calling. And when confronted with the insanity of her
- I use this term lightly - 'strategy,' she denied it and tried to
blame someone else." - Jim Dornan, former Harris campaign manager
"It definitely hurt fundraising. It drove her crazy, but it didn't
take long to get her there." - Ed Rollins, former Harris campaign
manager
"I wish Katherine Harris the best, but it appears all the old patterns
are repeating themselves: Tantrums. Minor things cause her to blow.
She doesn't take advice. Micromanaging to the Nth degree. It's nothing
new. But I didn't have the energy to move on with the campaign,
considering everything." - Glenn Hodas, former Harris campaign manager
Wow, and those are her friends talking.
I bet poor Katherine is longing for the good old days when she could
just play footsie with college newspaper reporters.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/06/242_harris1.jpg
Oh, and one last thing:
it was revealed last week that Harris has decided to take $100,000 out
of her campaign coffers in order to renovate her home.
I'm not joking.
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/breaking_news/15042374.htm
From Democratic Underground
http://www.democraticunderground.com/
Harry
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