Getting Roved

The most important things you have to know to understand Katherine Harris is that the football stadium at the University of Florida is named the Ben Hill Griffin Stadium and Ben Hill Griffin Jr. was her grandfather.

There is no honor more sacred in the states of the South East Conference than to have your name on the football stadium in your home state university.

Katherine Harris is intelligent and a millionaire in her own right. In addition to her BA from Agnes Scott College, an excellent liberal college for Presbyterian ladies, and MPA in International Trade from the Kennedy School at Harvard, she studied in Switzerland and Spain. She made her own money in real estate, probably about $50 million.

When she decided to go into her grandfather’s favorite hobby, politics, there was no question in her mind that she had the right to win any office she sought in the state.

Her run for Secretary of State in Florida 1998 was nasty and she steamrollered Jeb Bush’s candidate, the incumbent, Sandra Mortham to win the primary. Ms. Mortham was an inoffensive creature, overly fond of parties and tchatchkes, but not terribly fond of accounting.

The Democratic opponent was Karen Gievers, an attorney who did a lot of pro bono work for foster children, was involved in NOW and GWEN [Get Women Elected Now], pushed for tougher traffic safety laws, and opposed tort reform.

Cruella said Ms. Gievers was a liberal lobbyist and implied she was a lesbian. It was as brutal a “shock and awe” campaign as had ever been seen. It was total overkill.

Below the fold: rumors and guesses.

Now we get to the fun stuff, the rumors. Understand that none of this has been proven, and no one is willing to go on the record with Rove on one side and Cruella on the other.

The primary story is that a diplomatic posting is suggested and Harris is suddenly co-chair with Jeb of the 2000 Rovian Steamroller in Florida. Katherine does her thing and the Shrubbery is elected, but the post offered is a minor African country, so Cruella is annoyed.

Cruella takes her hereditary family seat in Congress to await the next Senate election. In that election promises are again made so she will step aside and allow Rove’s choice, Martinez, to run. Cruella stays in her Congressional seat and waits for 2006 when everyone is supposed to back her Senate run against Bill Nelson.

So, this year Rove again double-crosses her, but no one in the state is going to get in her way. She is totally ticked off with the national party refusing to endorse her and blocking her fund-raising efforts.

Now it looks like Rove is re-running McCain 2000 with all of the leaks and mental unbalance stories.

Katherine Harris maybe around the bend, but, just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean that people aren’t out to get you. She pulled in a lot of outsiders for this run and there have been an unbelievable number of screw-ups with her campaign.

The word is out that the national party doesn’t want Cruella to succeed, and they are still trying to get someone else to run. They don’t have any more Floridians in Washington to do it, and the locals are not going to challenge the granddaughter of the man whose name is on the University of Florida football stadium, especially since she’s meaner than a snake on a skillet.