Posted on 09/10/2002 9:36:59 AM PDT by kinganamort
Four years ago, we endorsed Katherine Harris for Secretary of State because we saw her as being "among the top Republican leaders in the state . . . bright, energetic, with tremendous potential and a distinguished career in state office." We said Harris was "in the right place at the right time to forge an exciting partnership between the arts, education and economic development."
She was then a little-known Sarasota legislator with impressive credentials, including a Harvard master's degree in public administration, international trade and negotiations. Now the whole nation knows her as the secretary of state who presided over Florida's controversial 2000 presidential election recount, earning her a place in history and a reputation for either extreme courage or extreme ignorance, depending on one's political bent.
Now she seeks to parlay that notoriety into a seat in Congress, replacing the retiring Dan Miller of Bradenton as the District 13 representative. Her opponent for the GOP nomination is John Hill, best known as the former anchor of WWSB-Channel 40's news report.
Despite the national focus on this race, we approach it as we do every other one: by considering the candidates' qualifications, public service records, grasp of the key issues, positions on those issues and demonstrated leadership skills. We evaluate how each candidate stacks up against the others in those areas, and then recommend the one we think will be the strongest to carry his or her party's banner in the primary and ablest representative of the people in the general election.
Using that yardstick, Katherine Harris is the better choice for Republicans in the Sept. 10 primary - assuming that Hill doesn't prevail when his lawsuit challenging her eligibility to run is settled. Put aside the rhetoric of the 2000 presidential fiasco, the lionization and vilification of her as the lightning rod of the recount battle, the partisan wrangling over whether the wrong person is in the Oval Office. Is Harris better qualified for Congress than Hill?
Hill has failed to make a convincing case for himself, declining to attack Harris on her record and focusing primarily on his opposition to and her support for the North American Free Trade Act. He has not put forth a broad, well-developed platform, although in debates he and Harris are not far apart on most issues. Quite simply, the strongest argument Hill makes is that he is an alternative to Harris. And that is hardly a ringing endorsement.
What about Harris' record? To be sure, she did not inspire confidence in her handling of the election controversy. She seemed unsure of election law in the beginning and was far too inaccessible to a waiting public throughout the long ordeal. More should have been done to prevent voting problems; she had, after all, made election reform one of her top priorities in the '98 campaign. For one who professes a firm commitment to upholding the letter of the law, she seems poorly educated in the finer points of election law - including as it applied to her own candidacy when she failed to resign upon qualifying to run for this office.
However, in her defense, Florida - and the nation - had not had a national election this close in more than 100 years. It would have been difficult to anticipate all of the problems that occurred as a result. The fact is that, if this had been a normal election, there would have been few complaints about election irregularities, save possibly for the famed "butterfly ballot" in Palm Beach County, which that county's election supervisor - a Democrat - had approved. Other states with close outcomes had similar voting problems.
Beyond that, Harris has lost none of the energy for which we admired her four years ago, nor her passion for promoting international trade favorable to Florida and the United States.
She fulfilled her promise to promote the arts in Florida, and, with the legislative influence of Senate President John McKay, helped negotiate a restructuring and financial rescue of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, this area's premiere cultural institution. In Congress, we would expect her to continue to be a strong advocate for arts in education, as well as for promoting the role that arts and culture play in economic development.
Miller himself has endorsed Harris, calling her "well-qualified for the job." Indeed, Harris has a well-developed platform on education, health care, energy and the environment, taxes and homeland defense, most of which lines up with the Republican administration's policies. If elected in November, she undoubtedly would support Bush's policy initiatives.
In this campaign, Harris should be regarded as neither heroine nor villain, but rather as a candidate who wants to represent the Republican Party for a seat in Congress. Clearly she has demonstrated she is the better qualified candidate in this primary race. That is reason enough to vote for Katherine Harris on Sept. 10.
When they feel the heat, sometimes they see the light...
All I can say is, if Davey, the liberal activist Leon county judge who was "shopped" for to preside over RINO John Hill's lawsuit, decides to "toss out" all the votes for Harris due to his recalcitrant stonewalling, I'm all for hitting the streets in protest over a genuine case of
VOTER DISENFRANCHISEMENT.
I gotta love this... this is awesome. Obviously, they haven't been calling John McKay!
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