GOP Tries to Talk Katherine Harris Out of Florida Senate Run

Katherine Harris, the former Florida Secretary of State who certified the Florida election results for President Bush in 2000 wants to run for the U.S. Senate in 2006.

Currently a Congresswoman from Florida, Ms. Harris stood down from a Senate run in 2004 due to GOP pressure fearing a backlash that would hurt Presiden't Bush's re-election chances in Florida.

She has been extremely loyal to President Bush when her help was needed most and frankly, it's time for the Bush team to let her have her shot.

Karl Rove certainly has more data on her electability than I do, but I can't help thinking that she would bring out the Florida conservatives like few other people, thus negating the lefty moonbat factor.

We all want to hold as much advantage in the Senate as possible, yet you have to ask why no first tier candidate has come forward in Nebraska, one of the reddest of the red states to unseat weak incumbent Ben Nelson. Expecting Ms. Harris to carry the water one more time is too much to ask.

From The Washington Times: White House political strategist Karl Rove and the National Republican Senatorial Committee have been trying to talk Florida Rep. Katherine Harris out of running for the Senate next year, but have been unsuccessful thus far.

Mrs. Harris has had several private meetings with Mr. Rove and with NRSC officials, including Chairman Sen. Elizabeth Dole, North Carolina Republican, who have urged her to forgo the Republican Party's high-priority Senate race. Instead, they want her to run for a third House term, pointing to internal polling data that shows she cannot beat freshman Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in 2006.

But the congresswoman, who won national attention as Florida's secretary of state during the bitter ballot recount in the 2000 presidential election, has argued in these meetings that she has proved the polls wrong throughout her political career. To prove it again this time, she has put together a cadre of heavyweight campaign advisers, including Ed Rollins who managed President Reagan's 1984 campaign.

'I know I can win this,' she has told doubting party officials.

Mr. Nelson, who narrowly won his seat in 2000 with 51 percent of the vote, is one of the Democrats' most vulnerable incumbents, and Mrs. Dole and Mr. Rove, who has played a key role in the party's successful candidate recruitment, have made the senator one of their chief targets.

Polls show Mrs. Harris, who is popular with the state's conservatives, would be the clear front-runner in a party primary contest, but they also show she runs particularly poorly among independents and draws virtually no support among Democrats. A Quinnipiac University poll last month showed Mr. Nelson leading her in a head-to-head matchup 50 percent to 38 percent.