Posted on 01/08/2004 8:42:04 AM PST by Bush Cheney
Edited on 01/08/2004 11:40:39 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Watch your makeup compact, Hillary, Florida's Katherine Harris may have her eyes on the United States Senate, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
MORE
Against the apparent wishes of senior Bush strategists, Harris has decided in her heart and mind that she will seek the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat, sources close to Harris tell DRUDGE.
"She wants it, wants it badly!" a top source said Thursday. "She'll make her decision public within the next week."
The source, who has daily contact with Harris, cautions the congresswoman still could hold back and not make the run, in deference to the president and his brother's wishes.
Sarasota County's GOP chairman, Tramm Hudson, said he spoke to Harris Tuesday night and that she seemed ready to run, according to reports. Harris continues to be one of the party's top fund-raisers.
Elsewhere, Texas Senator Kay Hutchison has reportedly advised her republican counterpart to "Go for it!"
If elected Harris would join a select group of women ever to serve in the United States Senate.
MORE Harris advisers dispel any notion that bad blood still runs in Florida over Harris's role in the 2000 election drama.
"Look, Governor Bush handily won re-election last year, after 2000, and the state's voters did not punish him," notes one top Harris strategist who asked not to be named.
"And they will not punish Katherine. The senate campaign will be on the issues, and electing the best person to represent Florida in the senate!"
Developing...
What relevance is this when you don't know who she'll be running against? Hillary had worse approval numbers than Lazio and still whipped his butt - and there we knew who both candidates were.
I don't understand why you say this, didn't he pick up all the illegal immigrant votes yesterday?
I have no idea what your logic is, if any.
My logic does not equate Bush with Harris.
Harris is well known but only 29% of people view her favorably, 27 negatively, the rest neutral or don't know.
Bush is universally known and in November, before the Thanksgiving trip and Saddam, he had a 53-30 favorable ratio. http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/news/local/7343228.htm
Bush is in a whole nuther popularity league from Harris.
Source?
In any case, if Harris were running in Texas (the GOP equiv of NY) it would not be a problem, but Florida ain't Texas.
Harris can win and at this point is has the best polling numbers of all the GOP candidates.
No she doesn't. She loses to Castor by 5 points. McCollum loses by 1, Martinez by 2. She has the worst favorability ratings (aside from Byrd), and leads the primary ballot mostly based on name rec.
I have previously pointed out that 2000 was a subpar GOP year, 2002 was a great one in Florida. So everyone did better. Most people (Jeb, MDB, Feeney) did a lot (7-10 points) better than GWBush did in 2000. Harris did only 1 point better.
It is far beyond that. Here in Florida, you need to run 5 races
Tancredo carried his race with 70% of the vote, and yet Rove wants to run someone against him. Go figure seeing how he has an (R) by his name and all.
DOH!
Strange?! Nothing strange about wanting 60 votes to overcome any future Demlib filibusters. Now is there?
First, the stats you cite only matter if you break them down in her congressional district. Second, you said it yourself, SHE DID BETTER THAN BUSH. If even at her worst (the first time the florida votes had a chance to take out their hate on her after the 2000 election) she STILL did better than GWB, then what possible reason is there for saying she shouldn't run because she would hurt him?
You know as well as I that that's an entirely different story than senate preference. Get a grip!
She is a winning candidate. How many elections has Mel Martinez won? I'll give you a clue - the answer starts with ZERO.
Precisely my point -- she can't be unpopular and still have 10 points of leeway to play around with, like she would in Florida, or like Hillary had in New York.
Precisely my point -- she can't be unpopular and still have 10 points of leeway to play around with, like she would in TEXAS, or like Hillary had in New York.
Yeah, but Tancredo is an absolute nut. It cracks me up when the media pushes him out as the 'conservative' in response to Bush's immigration reform. We'll worry about outting ol Tom in 2006.
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