Harris Bucks GOP, Other Naysayers

By WILLIAM MARCH and KEITH EPSTEIN The Tampa Tribune

Published: Aug 16, 2006

TAMPA - After Katherine Harris helped put a Republican in the White House in 2000, her party catapulted her to national fame.

Now that party wishes she would just go away.

They can keep wishing. The political phenomenon they helped create may now cost Republicans their chance to win back the last major Florida office held by a Democrat, Bill Nelson's Senate seat.

Stoked by caffeine, ambition and a professed belief that God wants her to be a U.S. senator, Harris is more indefatigable than the Energizer Bunny, to whom friends often compare her for drive and determination.

Fixed on her Senate quest, the one-time GOP heroine now she sees herself as independent and not beholden to the party that has abandoned her.

Dismal poll standings, the cost to her reputation and bank account, and public undermining by people who should be her allies don't affect her view of the righteousness of her cause.

The roots of her determination go deep.

In her 2002 book, Center of the Storm, Harris portrays herself as a dedicated and honest public servant, persecuted and vilified by unscrupulous political opponents, liberals and the news media.

"When I was assailed in the press, when I was besieged with lawsuits, when I was hammered by special interest groups, when I was mocked by pundits and late night comedians, I felt that my first and foremost duty was to cling to my convictions," she wrote of her experience as secretary of state during the 2000 presidential election recount, when she made decisions that helped make George Bush president.

Her "greatest solace was that I had acted consistently and fairly at all junctures."

Recently, she has added the Washington establishment and even her own party to the list of attackers.

In her book,an account of her life and the recount, she describes herself as a deeply religious country girl who grew up amid wholesome family values and simple rural pleasures, but also an heiress to one of Florida's wealthiest families.

"I am a Florida girl," she writes. "Our town, Bartow … is a wonderful world of high school football games and monumental Halloween parades, entrepreneurial business and no-nonsense politics, neighborhood cookouts and citrus groves."

Harris professes a spirituality combining a conventional Southern religious upbringing; the influence of Francis Schaeffer, godfather of the Christian right political movement; and good v. evil fantasy writings including J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy.

She sees herself as emulating Queen Esther, a biblical heroine with a divine mission.

Former top political adviser Ed Rollins said Harris told him, "God wants me to be a senator."

Rollins, a nationally known veteran GOP operative who left the campaign in March, said he responded, "Maybe God wants you to run because he wants Bill Nelson to be senator."

But if Harris considers her political mission a heavenly one, campaign staffers have found working for her hellish.

Many of those who have left tell stories of erratic behavior, accusations of disloyalty directed at her most steadfast allies and temper tantrums aimedat those she most depends on.

On the trail, aides can't predict what she'll say next. Harris has often made public claims in speeches and campaign literature that weren't backed by facts.

"She almost seems to want to sabotage herself," said Rollins.

Her chief campaign fundraiser, Stanley Tate, a volunteer who has stood by her and still tries to round up money on her behalf, summed up those problems: "Sometimes, Katherine is her own worst enemy."

Harris, who declined to be interviewed for this story, was born April 5, 1957, the oldest of three children born to George Harris and the former Harriet Griffin.

Griffin, in turn, was the oldest of five children of Ben Hill Griffin Jr., who founded one of Florida's largest citrus and cattle empires in the mid-20th century, and left a fortune estimated at $300 million when he died in 1990.

The family wasathletic and outdoorsy. Harris describes her mother as an avid camper and rodeo barrel rider, her brother Walt as a daring Iron Man competitor, skier and mountain-climber.

Harris herself sports a trim, athletic build, in part from tae kwon do practice. She's an accomplished horsewoman and a crack rifle shot with an NRA distinguished marksman badge.

In her book, Harris describes a loving extended family she calls "hardworking rednecks, not bluebloods."

Still, the little girl who got a quarter horse for her 10th birthday grew up amid power and privilege.

Her upscale Bartow neighborhood was the home of eminent business and civic leaders including Chesterfield Smith, founder of the Holland & Knight law firm. She recalls a visit to her home by then-Gov. Bob Graham.

And her family life wasn't entirely idyllic.

For six years starting in 1998, the family was riven by litigation over Ben Hill Griffin Jr.'s fortune. Some who ended up on the opposite side from the Harrises, including her cousin, state Sen. J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, aren't mentioned in her book.

After Bartow High School, she went to a small women's college inmetro Atlanta, Agnes Scott College. She studied at the University of Madrid and had congressional internships in Washington.

After college, in what Harris calls a formative event in her life, she studied with Schaeffer at his commune-like retreat in Switzerland. She scrubbed floors and ironed sheets while studying and talking theology.

Schaeffer believed Western society was suffering a pervasive moral breakdown and urged Christians to oppose what he called the "lie … of separation of religion from the state."

In a March speech to a conservative Christian group, Harris attributed her decision to run for office to Schaeffer's influence.

Still, she worked in marketing for IBM and as a real estate broker for more than a decade after school. A 1985 marriage ended in divorce barely four years later.

She became a patron of Sarasota's renowned Ringling Museum and part of the city's vibrant cultural scene.

In 1994, the local state senator, Democrat Jim Boczar, speaking of the museum's works by famed master Peter Paul Rubens, said publicly that to him, a Rubens was a sandwich. Harris, irked, decided to run against him.

Boczar was vulnerable and targeted for defeat by the state party - a gruff, abrasive Democrat newly installed in a heavily Republican district.

Harris won in a race marked by bitter accusations.

When Boczar accused her of being a "stealth" pro-life candidate, Harris declared herself firmly pro-choice, although personally opposed to abortion.

Today, her web site boasts of her Florida Right to Life endorsement, saying, she "has a proud record of protecting the rights of the unborn."

In 1996, she married Sven Anders Axel Ebbeson, a mild-mannered, wealthy Swedish businessman whom she met on a blind date to the Sarasota Opera.

Two years later she became secretary of state by ousting another vulnerable incumbent.

Jeb Bush, running for governor, had chosen Secretary of State Sandra Mortham as his running mate. But when a Tampa Tribune investigation revealed misuse of charitable donations by Mortham's office, Bush dropped her, and she ran for re-election instead.

Harris won a bloody primary battle in which the two attacked each other sharply, then easily won the general election.

As overseer of state elections, Harris was set up to become the central figure in the frenzied 2000 Florida presidential election recount, which made George Bush president by 537 votes.

Harris, one of several Florida Bush campaign co-chairs, made several crucial decisions that tended to impede manual county recounts Democrats thought could boost Al Gore's vote total.

She maintains steadfastly that she simply followed the law throughout.

Harris wrote that she was inspired during the recount by the Queen Esther story, and quotes scripture suggesting that God put Esther in power so she could prevent a massacre of her people:

"And who knows," Esther's father says, "but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?"

Overnight, Harris became an object of scorn to Democrats, but a rock star to Republicans, flown across the nation as a fundraising draw for GOP candidates.

When Harris next focused on Sarasota's congressional seat, held by Republican Dan Miller, who was retiring, party leaders helped make sure her dreams came true.

A vacant congressional seat normally draws a crowd of candidates, but Harris faced no major GOP opponent. Former county party Chairman Tramm Hudson, now one of five Republicans running to replace Harris, dropped out of the 2002 race after a phone call from a party leader.

"It was suggested that this is something that we need to do to help the party," he said.

Harris won and quickly set her sights on a higher prize, the U.S. Senate.

But in 2004, national-level party leaders asked her to stay out of the race to replace Democratic Sen. Bob Graham, fearing her polarizing effect on the George Bush re-election effort. Harris complied, and Mel Martinez won the seat.

This year, they again asked her to stay out, and even tried to recruit other candidates to run against her.

Harris was no longer willing to hold off her ambitions, and no other big-name Republican was willing to take on an opponent with Harris's stature among party activists.

Campaigning, Harris utterly belies the image of an aristocratic lightweight. She greets the public as an engaging, well-spoken, well-read dynamo of energy in an elegant tailored suit and heels.

Working small roomfuls of supporters, she moves from table to table, going face-to-face with each attendee, touching or hugging if she can, until aides physically tug her to the podium for a speech or out to the car to leave for the next stop.

She is always in motion, fueled by endless Starbucks coffee - triple venti latte, nonfat, no foam, one Sweet'N Low. It's a caffeine bombwith three shots of espresso, and Harris has five or so a day .

She was back on the Hill voting the day after having surgery to remove an ovarian mass.

Harris's restless compulsiveness has also cost her.

She's a notorious micromanager who fusses over details as minor as specific words in press releases. Campaign aides must have present at all times the special pen with which she prefers to sign autographs in practiced calligraphy.

Harris berates staffers, sometimes in public, when any detail goes wrong, or when she thinks one did. That has led to her drastic staff turnover - she's now on her fourth campaign manager and third campaign press spokesman.

Some former aides say her erratic behavior increased after the sudden death of her seemingly healthy father, whom she has called her staunchest supporter, in January.

Harris never considered leaving the race as result, saying he would have wanted her to keep running. But for weeks, her voice would break when she spoke of him.

Stories of her explosive temper pre-date his death, however.

Last year, when former Rep. Joe Scarborough declined party entreaties to run against her, he told Harris advisers, but said he was holding off a public announcement for a few days to contact friends and supporters first.

When Harris got that message, she called Collier Merrill, a Scarborough friend and financial supporter, and berated him because Scarborough wasn't dropping out quickly enough .

"She was enraged, screaming," and brought up an incident involving a young woman intern who died in his district office in 2001, Scarborough said, based on Merrill's account. There was never any indication Scarborough had any involvement in the death.

There was never any indication Scarborough had any involvement in the death, but left-wing bloggers have publicized the story.

Former Harris campaign manager Robert Dornan confirmed Scarborough's description, saying he heard Harris's end of the call, though Merrill said in an interview only that Harris was angry.

Tate, her finance chairman, said Harris "always thinks she has to answer or do something right away, and that can get her in trouble."

One result is public statements she can't back up.

At a 2004 Bush campaign rally in Venice, Harris made national headlines with the surprising claim that U.S. authorities had foiled 100 terrorist attacks in this country since the World Trade Center bombing. One, she said, involved the arrest of a man with hundreds of pounds of explosives in a plot to blow up the power grid in Carmel, Ind.

Officials in Carmel and Washington said they didn't know what she was talking about.

Since then, she has made numerous other unsupported statements, including:

• Telling interviewers the reason people made fun of her makeup during the 2000 recount was that newspapers had altered her photos. Campaign aides couldn't provide evidence or examples.

• Saying in campaign literature that the American Dream Downpayment Act, among her greatest achievements in Congress, enabled 4.5 million low-income workers to own their first home.

Government figures saythe program has aided a little more than 13,000 families and had little effect on home ownership rates.

Harris spokesmen said the larger figures reflected overall government housing programs and ended up in campaign literature through staff errors.

Harris's worst problem in this campaign, however, has been her link to a congressional bribery scandal involving defense contractor MZM Inc. and its CEO, Mitchell J. Wade.

Wade has pleaded guilty to bribing former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., who has received a prison sentence in the case.

Prosecutors say Harris, who unsuccessfully sought a $10 million funding request for MZM, received $32,000 in illegal political contributions from MZM employees. Wade reimbursed the donors, in effect contributing the money himself, violating contribution limits. He also discussed holding a fundraiser for Harris.

Harris emphatically denies having done anything wrong or knowing the contributions were illegal; prosecutors say there's no evidence Wade told her.

The issue is reminiscent of a previous embarrassment.

In the 1990s, Harris was one of scores of Florida politicians who got illegally reimbursed contributions from the Riscorp insurance company.

Harris said then, too, that she didn't know the contributions were illegal. She notes today that Nelson received more illegal Riscorp money than she did.

Some facts from that investigation, however, set Harris apart.

Harris's 1994 campaign manager, David Lapides, was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the case when investigators found evidence that he sought different addresses on the checks so reporters couldn't link them to Riscorp.

In addition, Riscorp reimbursed a former employee for expenses incurred as a Harris campaign volunteer.

In a recent interview Lapides said, "There was no conspiracy or collusion," and that he sought addresses for donors who had listed post office boxes so Harris could send them thank-you notes.

Rollins said in the case of MZM, the country girl from Bartow may have been blinded by her desire to be in the powerful inner circle of Washington.

"I think the problem was Duke (Cunningham) to her was a big guy. He represented the big time. She badly wanted to be part of that team."

Before leaving the campaign, Rollins pressed Harris to drop out, fearing that any public comments she made about MZM could put her in legal jeopardy,

Harris, beleaguered by grief, investigations and attacks from her own advisers and party, but possessing rock-hard determination to go on, might have answered Rollins with a quote from Abraham Lincoln, which she highlights in her book:, in a chapter called "Finish What You Start":

"I expect to maintain this contest until successful, or till I die, or am conquered."

William March can be reached at 813 259-7761 or wmarch@tampatrib.com

THE CANDIDATE

Name: Katherine Harris

Age: 49

Education: bachelor's degree, Agnes Scott College, 1979; master's degree, Harvard University mid-career program, 1996

Family: married; one adult stepdaughter

Residence: Longboat Key

Political experience: Florida state Senate, 1994-98; Florida secretary of state, 1998-2002; U.S. House, 2002-present

Business experience: marketing manager, IBM; real estate broker

Campaign Web site