Could the GOP Culture of Corruption being expanding for another member?As our blog has reported, U.S. Congresswoman Katherine Harris in the midst of a bribery scandal just as disgraced Congressman Duke Cunningham was.
Harris is currently running for the U.S. Senate in Flordia, however, she will make an announcement about her campaign tomorrow.
The Gainsville Sun has more:
Rep. Katherine Harris, a fourth-generation Central Floridian, has always found a safe haven in this railroad and ranching town south of Tampa, where the smell of citrus blossoms and horse manure swirls in the moist, warm air.
Her U.S. Senate campaign now in a state of uncertainty, that safe haven beckoned this weekend. Voters here stuck by Harris after the election debacle of 2000, when, as Florida's secretary of state who certified George W. Bush the winner, she became one of the most polarizing figures in American politics. In 2002 and 2004, these voters helped elect her to an open seat in Congress, 55 percent to 45 percent each time, in the solidly Republican 13th District.
With her campaign to unseat Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in a tailspin now because of illegal donations she received from a corrupt defense contractor - and speculation that she could face a primary election challenge - the 48-year-old Republican came back to Arcadia over the weekend to wait out the storm and seek comfort.
In a roller-coaster week of meetings and phone calls with advisers and donors, Harris and her staff went from vowing to stay in the race no matter what to issuing a cryptic release Saturday in which Harris canceled her planned appearance at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in Memphis, Tenn.
"Unfortunately, I am unable to join you this weekend, as I prayerfully prepare with my family, friends and advisors to finalize the strategy for a major announcement next week concerning my candidacy," she said in a statement issued to delegates in Memphis.
But for a few hours Saturday in Arcadia, all the chaos took a backseat. She stopped in at the Clock restaurant, where she met with a pastor and other supporters over breakfast, and then down the road at the Arcadia Rodeo and its accompanying parade, where she rode a horse through town, in a snug hot-pink shirt, jeans, boots and a black cowgirl hat.
In an interview Saturday morning, Harris suggested key party leaders would be circling around her and reaffirming their support, although she wouldn't give any specifics. "I think that's all been settling down in the last few hours - I mean, the last few days," she said.
"We have some very exciting things that will unfold next week," she said. "We've had conversations. We're pretty clear on the overall support now of my race."
Across Arcadia, there were hugs and handshakes and promises of support.
"Are you going to get everything straight?" asked one old-timer, Clyde Hollingsworth Jr., with a twinkle in his eye, before urging her to press for more tax cuts. "Oh, we've got everything straight," she assured him, calling him by name.
"I'm a Democrat, but I like her," said Christi Witmer, a nail technician who is married to a local schoolteacher.
Harris has been coming here since before she was born. In March 1957, her mother, eight months pregnant at the time, rode in the rodeo parade. As a girl, Harris spent summers down the road, on her wealthy and politically connected family's ranch.
To succeed in a general election against Nelson this year, Harris must get beyond places like Arcadia, to bigger cities, where skeptical independents and downright hostile Democrats reside along with an influx of voters who are new to Florida since the 2000 election.
They include Monica Bishop, a business consultant in St. Petersburg, who previously lived in the Midwest and North Carolina and, although registered as a Democrat, says she has voted for Republicans. She'd be hard-pressed to ever consider voting for Harris, though.
"Based on her lack of professionalism in the presidential debacle, it makes me skeptical of her abilities," Bishop said. "It seemed very political."
But before Harris can worry about these criticisms, she has to make it to the general election - and that possibility has come into question.
Statewide, polls have been showing almost no Democratic support for Harris and a preference for Nelson by more than 2-to-1 among independents. And as of the last campaign reporting period, Harris had raised about $2.5 million compared with Nelson's $10 million.
Harris' campaign has been hanging by threads since a defense contractor who admitted bribing a congressman told authorities last month he also gave Harris illegal campaign contributions and sought her help for millions of dollars in federal military spending.
Mitchell Wade, who entered a guilty plea in the bribery case that brought down ex-California Rep. Duke Cunningham, admitted illegally funneling $32,000 in campaign contributions to Harris using names of company employees and their families to bypass contribution limits.
Harris had unsuccessfully sought $10 million in budget earmarks at Wade's company's requests, and one of her staffers had left to take a job at Wade's firm, MZM. Harris told reporters she sought the budget funding for the military program to bring good jobs to her district, not to reward a contributor.
She is not accused of knowingly accepting contributions, and her campaign has given up all the money it received in connection with Wade and MZM.
"There's no way you can know that somebody has reimbursed their employees," Harris said. "I didn't know."
But the scandal has threatened to reopen the field in the Senate race, just as campaign season is heating up and as Republicans were becoming reconciled to the idea Harris would be their nominee.
Tom Rooney, a thirty-something political unknown who runs a Florida charity and whose family owns the NFL champion Pittsburgh Steelers, told the Palm Beach Post last week he had been talking with local and national Republican leaders and was seriously considering challenging Harris.
And a spokesmen for U.S. Rep. Mark Foley and Florida House Speaker Allan Bense have been coy, saying their bosses are focused on their jobs and that Harris is currently the only Republican candidate, but declining to rule out other options. Calls for outgoing Gov. Jeb Bush to run have been renewed, although he and his team early on shot down the idea.
Between votes on Capitol Hill and campaign stops on the fly, Harris and her team have spent days batting down rumors she will drop out of the race, and seeking to assure donors, national party leaders and voters that she has no ethics troubles and that her candidacy remains viable.
In the midst of all this, Harris has been coping with the sudden death of her father.
Nelson once seemed vulnerable enough. He'd won his Senate seat in 2000 with a bare 51 percent of the vote and had yet to build a national image.
National Republican leaders worried Harris wasn't the strongest Senate candidate for a general election -- they had talked her out of running for the other Senate seat in 2004 -- but for 2006 they couldn't find a stronger Republican willing to get in.
The 2000 presidential election had made Harris a hero to many Republicans, a villain to many Democrats, and an enduring symbol to independents of the ugliness of a race that was challenged all the way to the Supreme Court. She had a degree from Harvard but was better known as the subject of untoward rumors and ghastly caricatures that played on her coquettish appearance and once heavy makeup and heavily sprayed hair.
Harris said during an interview Saturday, before canceling the Memphis appearance, that she believes she can win a statewide race despite voters' memories of her role in 2000.
"It has stood up to the test of time that I followed the law exactly," she said. "It's six years. I think people have moved on."
It seems the GOP in Congress would be ready to get serious on ethics. However, that doesn't appear to be the case.
Scandals such as this one will just keep being the rule of the day for the Republicans in Congress.
John Boehner has already said he is against ethics reform, so what we see is what we get with the Republicans.
