Katherine Harris is being treated like a toxic substance by the Republican Party. I noticed, thanks again to the intrepid Olbermann, a piece on how Bush and his Brother refused to face the camera to get pictures together with her during a visit to Florida Today.
After Harris devoted her inherited fortune to her own campaign for Senator, something very suspicious and unexpected happened. The Republican party is forcing her not to run. Today the president and Jeb publicly snubbed the wannabe candidate when they met outside of Air Force One.
Follow the fold.
Also note, this is all occurring after Harris gave up her bid for Senate in 2004 to Mel Martinez in exchange for her chance for the Senate in 2006. The Republican party withdrew their promise and backed out of a deal to support her.
Slate reports this candidacy exchange deal in this quote.
A little history: In 2002, Harris ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in a heavily Republican district and won. Two years later, she considered making a run for Bob Graham's Senate seat. But the White House wanted a different candidate in the race--Mel Martinez, then the secretary of Housing and Urban Development. In an effort to keep Harris out of the primary, Republicans approached her with a backroom deal, according to Florida media reports: Stay out of the 2004 race and the party will support your Senate run in 2006. Harris agreed, and Martinez ascended to the Senate.
Why would they be doing this? Slate notes that she has been polling poorly and that's a Republican's worse nightmare. There may be something more. Is it because The Republican party would be in a LOT of trouble if the public eye focused on her past? If she enters the race there will be so much attention paid to her on her campaign and by tenacious Democratic opponents, people will begin to learn what happened in Florida for the 2000 elections.
Imagine if Harris ascended to the level of public spotlight that a Senatorial candidate is subject to. It would elevate into the national political dialogue some things that I am certain the Republican party wants quiet.
For example:
(1) A Katherine Harris specialty site has a link to the Saint Petersburg Times accusing Harris of being involved in a bribery scandal. In February of this year a Defense Contractor admitted in court
to committing voter fraud and for having corruptive ties to Harris. The contractor's admission of wringdoing links Harris to the Cunningham scandal.
(2) In 2001, he NAACP and the ACLU filed a complaint in the U.S. District court in the Southern District of Florida, accusing Harris of utilizing laws intended to prevent felony voter registration to remove non-felon citizens from the voting rolls. There is evidence that she removed people from the voting registry because they shared birthdays with felons. Additionally, she scrubbed minority and poor voters from the voter registration list because they were ex-felons.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg of accusations against her.
There is a lawsuit accusing the official in charge adminstering the 2000 Florida election purged voter rolls. Katherine Harris, the head of the Bush presidential campaign in 2000, is accused in U.S. District Court of a charge that would bring to light facts and accusations that could obliterate the remaining credibility (however much that is) in the Republican Party. If this were national news, it could mean one of the worst scandals they have faced yet: intentional disenfranchisement.
And she's in bed with a defense contractor tied to Cunningham.
The Republicans are scared of this GOP heavy-hitter running for Congress because the charges of malfeasance levied against her could light the spark setting aflame the Hindenberg that is this Republican party.