Katherine Harris Wants It ... And She Wants It Bad

The cosmetically-challenged former realtor and Florida Secretary of State as well as the current Congresswoman from the 13th District of Florida, Katherine Harris, wants retiring Senator (and Vice Presidential piner) Bob Graham's seat (no pun intended). She wants it so bad.

The former realtor married a rich sugardaddy, businessman Anders Ebbeson and by December 1999 listed her net worth as more than $6.5 million.
I'll just let that sentence percolate in the blogosphere for a moment. Ahh.


Anyhoo: All the way in New York City I can feel the burning embers of her smouldering ambition. The former realtor wants a career upgrade ... like, now! Then again, to be fair, the American Senate has always been made up of such busywork of the ambitious on their way onto the pages of history.

I mean who else could plausibly turn a backwater position like the Secretary of the State of Florida into a Congressional seat, then a credible Senate run within just 4 years -- fucking amazing! --- against the wishes of the president she so hastily put into power feuled by an ambition that makes Livia Drusilla look like the civilian women who have given their lives in the Iraqi conflict. And we won't even talk about the voter rolls in Florida ... that would be naive ... pedestrian even ... why bring such outmoded moralities up to a woman so strong in Machiavellian virtu and fortuna, with, better yet, a steady hand in negotiating that rickety social ladder that is our nation's capitol. Harris is the Sir Edmund Hillary of social climbers.

And such luck! Her fortuna is indeed formidable! Her position as Secretary of State was largely ceremonial -- she pretty much looked after cultural institions and public papers while in office -- and it was about to be abolished when she finished her term, in 2003. That might explain how manic she looked with that pen signing over the election to the President, no Supreme Court (why should they get the glory?), just Katherine -- just ... Katherine.

Of course, ultimately the Supreme Court made the final call. Imagine the cheek. The Supreme Court deemed to supplant the role of Kathy and her nimble, overfast and mighty pen!

Granted, Bob Graham's double-barrelled lock on the Dems Veep slot and his shameless campaign for that position is legendary (what the fuck is it about Florida? Is it the citrus combined with the tropical heat that feuls such caustic ambition in it's inhabitants?). But Katherine Harris' lust for power is unprecedented in scope in that it flies in the face of a Presidential no.

Actually ... more than a no: The New York Times reported that The White House advisors shuddered.
And, let me tells you, my little pomegranates, it takes a whole truckload of moxy to make Karl Rove do a heebie jeebie dance.

And you can tell from the President's Immigration speech, that he, unlike Clinton, does not play politics with votes. In that vain, Bush hand picked HUD Secretary Martinez to fetch that errant Florida Senate seat, and he looked like he would win. Until now. Everything was stable, solid even, until someone invited Katherine Harris' fucking ambition into the room. Then everything went Mariah.

Harris is, to put it mildly, a lightening rod. She is the Platonic eidos of polarization. Her candidacy -- should she win the spot -- would electrify the pro-Dean anti-Bushites, the African Americans who were excluded from the voter rolls, the Jewish voters who somehow cast their lots with anti-Semite Pat Buchanan, and the Al Gore crew.

Katherine Harris would probably tear this country apart if it meant she could rise one step higher on the social ladder. The Corsair deems her dangerous (puffs out his chest and struts around the blogosphere acting all moral, imagining himself a Tom Paine and what not)!

My guess is that the Bushies will offer her royal citrus an ambassadorship to some place ritzy (we hear she likes Madrid and Geneva, although a nice South American vaca-ambassadorship might help her in future Sunshine State elections con the latino vote) so she will be out of their hair. If not, look for another ultra-polarizing election season.

Whatever