Posted on 08/04/2005 4:25:50 PM PDT by Crackingham
Dashing the hopes of the White House, Florida House Speaker Allan Bense said Wednesday he will not challenge U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris in next year’s U.S. Senate Republican primary.
Bense, a Panama City businessman, had flirted with the idea of challenging Harris since May. Karl Rove, President George W. Bush’s deputy chief of staff and top political adviser, asked Bense to enter the race during a visit in Washington last month.
Many Republicans fear Harris simply cannot beat U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson — the only statewide-elected Democrat in Florida.
GOP leaders also fear Harris will energize a moribund Democratic Party still smarting from her role in the 2000 presidential election, when Democrats accused her of jettisoning her nonpartisan duties as secretary of state to assist the election of George W. Bush by 537 votes.
Bense said it was “very hard” to decline an invitation from the White House that would have carried considerable fund-raising and strategic muscle.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance,” he said. “It’s not often you get the support from important people like that.”
Bense called Gov. Jeb Bush on Wednesday to tell him he would not run. Like his brother’s advisers in the White House, Bush has been cool to Harris’ candidacy.
Bense said he told Gov. Bush that he was “flattered that he and others felt I was qualified to run,” but added that “I don’t think you can juggle being an effective speaker of the House and also run a very highly contested race for the U.S. Senate.”
I like the Bush Brothers, but I'm really unhappy with the way they're treating her.
I'm not that deeply involved in the GOP party of Sarasota, but I can tell you that all this media hype about Harris is BullDroppings. Sarasota Herald is owned and operated by the New York Times. Take what they say with a grain of salt.
She's a member of the House. That isn't a bad job, and she can keep it for as long as she wants it.
However, she has little chance as a statewide candidate.
So? That's where it gets decided in the primaries. It's undemocratic to try to "appoint" a candidate. This isn't the Soviet Union.
She will beat that wooden indian nelson going away. This busniess of her being a bad state wide candidate because of something she did in 2000 is a figment of over active ratmedia imaginations. I'm talking to the Florida GOP state people. Wake up dudes, if 2000 didn't mean shiite in 2002 it will mean even less in 2006. A joke or an issue you have to explain is neither.
I don't care how they are treating her. The bigger question is can she win? And I don't know the answer to that but if Rove thinks she can't I would have to respect that. We need this seat. And if not her, what other conservative is going to win this seat?
If I were Karl Rove, operating in Florida, I definitely would put out the word in Spanish, Creole and Nigerian(?) that the dems were paying $100 per vote in the Harris election, just to get expectations raised and well understood. But, that would be a dirty trick to pull on the crapweasels!
They are quoting unnamed and/or phantom GOP sources, and even Harris herself stated that she hasn't talked to anyone in the GOP that asked her to step aside. True, the support for Harris to run for Senate may be lukewarm at best and tepid to nonexistant at worse from the GOP, but they're not going to interfere in the race.
All of this is pure media wet dreaming, designed to talk down Harris and discourage conservative turnout. If she can't win, then why waste time and newsprint talking about her and her chances of winning?
The Bush brothers just want to win. Of course, if they really wanted to win, they'd run Jeb.
I like the Bush Brothers, but I'm really unhappy with the way they're treating her.
Please tell us how are they treating her???
Whoever the nominee is, we must be sure to REPLACE THIS JACKASS:
How about Tommy Franks in the Primary?
I agree.
And it's long past time for the national party to realize that running as a conservative wins more often than running as a "moderate".
Besides, if you can't win as a conservative, you can't win anyway. And, winning without advancing the cause of conservatism is not winning. It's just getting power.
Katherien will work hard to win.....and she has told supporters (like yours truly) that the WH has NOT put any pressure on her to not run!
The SH-T is full of it!
BTW I sent it to the Harris Campaign.
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