Posted on 05/12/2006 1:34:53 PM PDT by Joe Brower
Four qualify to challenge Harris in GOP primary
Associated Press
May 12, 2006
TAMPA, Fla. - Four relatively unknown candidates qualified Friday to challenge U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris in the race to win Florida Republicans' nomination for U.S. Senate.
They are: LeRoy Collins Jr., son of former Florida Gov. LeRoy Collins; Peter Monroe, a Pinellas County developer who helped manage the government's savings and loan bailout; Windermere businessman William "Will" McBride; and Tampa law professor Belinda Noah. The GOP primary is Sept. 5.
Gov. Jeb Bush and other Republican leaders have been looking for someone to take on Harris because she trails incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson by about 30 percentage points in public opinion polls. Bush said earlier this week that he didn't believe Harris could beat Nelson.
Monroe, of Safety Harbor, managed the liquidation of more than $400 billion in real estate assets from failing savings and loans while heading the Federal Resolution Trust Corp. Oversight Board in the early 1990s. Collins' father, considered one of the most important Florida governors of the 20th century, served from 1954 to 1960.
State Rep. Dennis Ross of Lakeland had said he may enter the Republican primary, but he did not qualify by the noon deadline Friday. Harris and Nelson qualified earlier in the week.
Calls to the candidates were not immediately returned Friday.
Any chance the GOP will just shut up and get behind Harris now that the other candidates have no star power?
The sticklers and stuck ups in the Florida GOP might just end up costing the GOP the senate because they wont back her. Idiots.
You know what will really help the Florida GOP? If they go out of their way to trash Katherine Harris.
Har! Ya think?
Good question. With their hell-bent drive to commit political suicide in this particular race, I'm not going to hold my breath.
Can someone explain why Bush hates Harris?
That's a mystery to me, too. I actually thought she was a good candidate, but Jeb and the other GOP folks here have done everything possible to undercut her. I honestly don't know why, whether it's personal animosity or some strange political thing. And I live in Florida and like Jeb, btw.
They don't call the GOP the "stupid party" for nothing.
I considered myself a Republican before I was old enough to vote, growing up with President Reagan. I had always carried that as a badge of honor when all other young people were going through their liberal phase. The GOP is looking a lot less grand these days, and it's a real shame.
Gov. Bush and the rest of the Florida GOP are torpedoing her campaign, then sitting back and complaining that she's sinking.
Nahh. Not in a million years
From pg. 3 of the above link: - In Congress, Harris has served less than four years and has already had four chiefs of staff. She is now looking for her fourth press secretary in less than a year. There has been similar turnover in other key positions.
US: Katherine Harris in Hot Water Over Defense Contractor
She is far behind in the polls in Florida and in fundraising. She has had to put millions of her own money into the race and what happens when that is gone?
Republicans want the seat, not a troubled candidate who seems likely to lose no matter how much help and money she gets from the party.
Mush a we would like for her to win, it is overwhelmingly apparent she is not going to. The voters here in Florida will decide this, not a bunch of out-of-state "experts".
He doesn't hate her and you have to be very unobservant to think so.
Succinct and accurate.
There's some faint name recognition with William McBride. Oh yeah--same name as the 'Rat who was stomped by Jeb in the 2002 Governor's race.
I doubt that he 'hates' her. Perhaps he's paranoid and thinks her involvement in "Chad Hunt 2000" is still a political detriment. She seems like a decent and principled Republican to me. I'd vote for her if I lived in her district.
It might help if you were to know that it was Jeb Bush who has kept supporting her all this time while the Republican party and all of us here in the field are saying "Katherine is trying to swim up Niagara Falls and is now wasting her own money on a hopeless campaign.
It was Jeb that told everybody to give her support and try to turn this around. It has finally become very obvious that there is no way she can win. There are those of you that think we should go ahead and make her our candidate and when we lose....at least we had the best candidate.
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