The Freshman They Love to Hate
DICARLO, RACHEL
The Freshman They Love to Hate She's running for the Senate—but not this year. BY RACHEL DICARLO WHEN I MEET Florida representative Katherine Harris in her Capitol Hill office, she pumps my hand...
...We're delighted he's in the election and wish him well...
...They realized I wasn't Cruella De Vil...
...And of 2000 she says, "It's all rather humorous that Nader insists that it wasn't him who hurt Gore in Florida...
...It's not overwhelmingly conservative—Bush won her district with 52 percent in 2000—^but she's hugely popular with her constituents...
...She practices Tae Kwon Do in the mornings with several male Democratic colleagues...
...The second is Harris herself...
...She'll raise a ton of money and be a very attractive candidate in a Republican primary...
...Harris says the assaults on her character are "personally difficult," but she finds Nader amusing...
...It's a good thing Harris brims with anxious energy...
...Stage two: the beauty makeover...
...If Harris is polarizing, though, she's also upwardly mobile...
...Katherine is tireless on the floor," House majority whip Roy Blunt said...
...Stage One: public ridicule...
...I'm here to announce my candidacy for the U.S...
...We can't take anything for granted in Florida," she says...
...I think it was the sand...
...I have to constantly be running," she says...
...Stage three: posing nude for Playboy...
...The White House hasn't said much about the race, but there are two reasons why they might want her to wait...
...We don't want to have a quiet victory...
...Harris says she'll campaign for whoever wins the Florida Senate primary, as well as for House members who may be vulnerable in November...
...She says she has unfinished business in the House and denies reports that Karl Rove told her to sit the race out...
...She gets a standing ovation wherever she goes," pollster Kellyanne Conway said...
...If an aide interrupts, she taps her fingers on her armrest or cuts him off, then holds forth for minutes, reeling off numbers and other particulars relating to policies...
...One is Mel Martinez...
...Stage four: becoming Mrs...
...She's looking to position herself for the Senate in 2006," a GOP strategist in Washington said...
...Harris won't say whether she plans on challenging Nelson in 2006, but she's fed the speculation...
...She's small, athletic-looking, and—today at least—not made-up...
...Though Harris is only a freshman in Washington, she may be one of the most polarizing figures in the House...
...She's also dismissed the rumor that she was offered a consolation prize: to run against Democratic senator Bill Nelson in 2006...
...Beltway insiders speculated that she'd run for the Senate in November, but in January at the Boys and Girls Club in Sarasota, she withdrew her name from a field of candidates to replace Bob Graham in 2004 despite "every poll showing me leading the race...
...Senate leadership supports him, and he should help draw Florida's expanding Hispanic population to the voting booths...
...She also plans to help get out the Florida vote for the president, who trails John Kerry 49-43 percent in the state, according to the latest Miami H^irald/St...
...Four years after she oversaw the ballot recount in Florida, she still regularly makes the news...
...I don't know if it's true, but I wouldn't be surprised...
...I lost it somewhere in Iraq," she explains...
...The former secretary of Housing and Urban Development resigned in December and is emerging as one of the Republicans' best bets to expand their narrow majority in the Senate...
...She's still asking for extra committees...
...She's got that seat as long as she wants it...
...For now her seat in the House is safe...
...Harris insists that her experience with Democrats on the Hill has been cordial...
...Of course, then again, you won't find them defending me...
...Petersburg Times poll...
...She has a lot to keep up with...
...They hope Martinez will prevent that and help bring out Hispanics for Bush...
...The former Florida secretary of state, both famous and infamous for her role in the Florida recount in 2000, is adjusting to life on the Hill...
...A New York Times editorial on February 15 concluded that, "In 2000, the American public saw, in Katherine Harris's massive purge of eligible voters in Florida, how easy it is for registered voters to lose their rights by bureaucratic fiat...
...What other House member has been parodied by Ana Gasteyer on Saturday Night Live and made fun of on the Late Show...
...The thing that surprised Rachel DiCarlo is an editorial assistant at THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...BY RACHEL DICARLO WHEN I MEET Florida representative Katherine Harris in her Capitol Hill office, she pumps my hand and greets me in a gravelly voice...
...Larry King...
...Senate—^but just not yet this year," she said at the Boys and Girls Club...
...She's burnished it with her brand...
...The issues are the same at the state level, but here the nuances are completely different...
...Katherine Harris is in the middle of her 15 minutes of fame," David Letterman said on November 27...
...Harris is not as forbidding as she appears on television...
...During her first term, Harris has been tapped for the prestigious Whip Team and sits on the International Relations, Financial Services, and Government Reform committees...
...If Al Gore had won his own state we wouldn't be in this situation...
...The word is she got a deal," a source from a Florida newspaper said...
...It's a vertical learning curve...
...On Meet the Press on February 22, Ralph Nader told Tim Russert that the election "was stolen by Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush and their cohorts from Tallahassee to the Supreme Court...
...They couldn't find one letter of the law I violated...
...Republicans have expressed concern that she might spur Democrats still angry about the 2000 election to vote against both her and President Bush...
...people most was that she wasn't anything like the view projected by the national media...
...But the base is excited and invigorated...
...She's also said she'll do everything she can to ensure a Republican senator in Florida...
...We sit down to chat, and Harris slides to the edge of her chair...
...She gestures with her hands to emphasize important points...
...There's too much at stake...
Vol. 9 • March 2004 • No. 27
