Saturday, October 22, 2005

ORLANDO NEWS REPORTER TWEAKS HARRIS

Congresswoman and U.S. Senate candidate Katherine Harris (R - Longboat Key) was definately annoyed, but kept a smile on (see the video for yourself), during the early part of her interview with Greg Fox of Orlando television station WESH-2 Friday as she was participating as emcee at a "Hob Nob" sponsored by the Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce.

The transcript begins with Fox's introduction:

FOX: "...and we have one of the leading Republican candidates, and that's Katherine Harris, the congresswoman from Sarasota. Uh, first of all...

HARRIS: "The ONLY Republican candidate.

FOX: "Well, uh, so far.

HARRIS: "I believe, I think...

FOX: "The House Speaker is still discussing how much money he might be able to raise to get into this race; Allen Bense...

HARRIS: "Actually not."

And later on, Fox asks her about not getting into the race last year for the Senate seat being vacated by Bob Graham's retirement. Of course, the Bush/Rove clan worked to make sure their boy Mel Martinez was the nominee.

FOX: "...Why not run then?

HARRIS: "Because I felt that I was so fortunate to be in the Congress, and was getting so much accomplished. And it would be betting the farm at a time when there was such a great future, and I had just arrived. And I had a job to finish; several bills that I wanted to get through. And also at that time in the presidential election the President had to win by four points for, to make sure that the Senate would be taken. And so, I believed he would win, but I just...didn't want to bet the farm on his margin of victory."

Then he focused in the last bit on a National Journal article stating that the GOP had not been able to get other favoured candidates to run instead of Harris:

FOX: "Why are you not one of the preferred challengers?

HARRIS: "I think early on, they just didn't want the word 'recount' to be mentioned, but now, they've seen the polling data, they clearly believe I'm preferred and all of those channels have now been lined up behind me."

And I thought the hot air was just from the barbeque...

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

To what polling data is she referring? From everything I've seen, she cannot beat Nelson. And she also lost the straw poll at that event, which had a predominantly Republican crowd. Ouch!

8:22 AM  
Blogger Robert C. said...

She must be referring to some polling information I remember seeing a couple of months ago where she fronts a list of possible GOP candidates that had been approached to run...and she didn't lead that poll too handily, if I remember correctly!

It was obvious the Chamber folks who put together the "Hobnob" event were pushing Harris' candidacy when they scheduled her to be emcee. But her losing the straw poll to Nelson when they were expecting her to win in his backyard had to be embarrassing.

10:09 AM  

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