Free Republic

<p>"I am a politician," Mrs. Harris said before a recent lunchtime campaign appearance, her third of the day. This one was before a star-struck gathering of the Sarasota Bay Republican Women's Club.</p> <p>The petite partisan firebrand is a hero in Republican circles. On this day, she is designer-black-clad from head to toe, the familiar smile pasted to her face in earnestness as she works the banquet room of Troyer's Dutch Heritage restaurant.</p>

<p>To challenge Secretary of State Katherine Harris for an open congressional seat in Republican-dominated southwest Florida, Jan Schneider last week secured her first voting bloc: the Hillary Rodham Clinton Fan Club.</p> <p>The 54-year-old Washington lawyer won't say what brought her from a prospering practice in the District of Columbia to Sarasota, except to acknowledge that she, like many here, has been something of a snowbird, visiting her family in the winter months regularly.</p>