POLITICS' VERSION OF "HELL'S KITCHEN": WORK FOR KATHERINE HARRIS!

Anyone who has seen the Fox TV reality series will know what I am referring to: Contestants try to earn a job as executive chef at a new Las Vegas restaurant but have to deal with learning the trade from world class chef Gordon Ramsey, a demanding teacher who curses at and degrades the contestants when they err.

AP Florida political writer Brendan Farrington writes that description of working for the GOP U.S. Senate candidate Congresswoman Katherine Harris "...plays like a scene out of 'Mommie Dearest'.

"Harris is prone to tantrums, wants to be treated like a princess, micromanages, fixates on minutia while ignoring the big picture, and sometimes does exactly the opposite of what advisers tell her with bad results that they have to clean up later, staff members said.

It's a story that's been told before. When her first campaign staff left in April, the same description of Harris was given by those who quit the effort to unseat Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson.

The attention comes as five key campaign staffers --- Campaign Manager Glenn Hodas, Communications Director Chris Ingram, Field Director Pat Thomas and two of her assistants --- are leaving the campaign this week. Two other staffers are also leaving, including a fundraiser. Hodas is the third campaign manager Harris has had during this run.

The Longboat Key Republican's temperment has been described before by her first campaign manager, former Reagan political director and Ross Perot campaign manager Ed Rollins. A couple of his comments regarding Harris:

"Everything is someone else's fault. If there's not a Starbucks coffee house within distance, it's someone else's fault."

"Katherine is probably the worst micromanager I have ever seen, and her instincts are 100 percent wrong...After a while you say, `Why am I putting up with this crap?' "

This latest upheaval, along with the news regarding her upcoming surgery to remove an ovarian mass, has some thinking that Ms. Harris would soon withdraw. Wishful thinking among some Republicans is all that is. Ms. Harris is a very proud woman who believes that this should be her time to run, and that she is owed the support. Remember, she withdrew last year from seeking former Senator Bob Graham's seat after reportedly being asked to do so by President Bush and his political operatives so that Mel Martinez could run under the promise they would support her in this effort.

Thirty points down, campaign staff leaving left and right...it seems that this campaign is ready to crash and burn, and Ms. Harris can't seem to see it. That's allright...burn, baby, burn!