Lower the Bar

We interrupt this broadcast for a bit of
inside-the-beltway who-haa that will likely be
uninteresting to anyone living in the reality, which I
have recently been informed, surrounds the island of
D.C. on all sides.

The Washington Post is describing the problems of
Representative Katherine Harris's campaign in Florida.
Apparently anyone with the seniority to have
something to lose by being associated with her
campaign is jumping ship. Campaign managers, press
secretary, finance director, all leaving. And leaving
soon.

For those of you less up-to-date on arbitrary senate
races around the country (and therefore more likely to
have a life than those of us who do follow them),
Katherine Harris (famous for her role as Florida
Secretary of State in 2000, and instrumental in the
election and post-election manuevering that ultimately
resulted in the United States having a second
President Bush), who was elected to the House of
Representatives in 2002 is now the primary (some say
only) Republican challenger to incumbant Democratic
senator Bill Nelson.

Call me a cynic, but part of me thinks this isn't just
a bunch of seasoned campaigners smelling blood in the
water, and trying to make sure as little of it as
possible is their own. Part of me thinks this is
actually an ingenious ploy by Harris and her team to
get nation-wide atttention for a flailing candidacy.
It will bring the "elect a Republican at any cost"
types running to the campaign, will shore up support
with the rank-and-file out-to-the-horizon rightists,
and it will give her a chance to establish a new
campaign team to pursue a more solidly defined goal.
Not only that, it will send a signal to Democrats that
while initially targetted as a could-win seat for
Republicans, he's now a rather safe figure. This will
stop or slow the flow of Democratic resources (people
and money) into the race, and make Harris's bar easier
to surpass.

Most of the rest of me is mocking that small part of
myself for even considering such a risky, treacherous,
politically suicidal course of action. But then
again, if you're a two-bit snake-oil politician with
almost no credibility to begin with, what do you have
to lose from trying lunatic tactics.

My hope-of-hopes is that Harris is a bellweather for
the nut-job Republicans across the country. Maybe
they have pushed the American public just a little to
far into theocratically driven fiat-rule, and we might
start to experience a swing back towards a more
rational political conversation.

This concludes the interrruption. We return you now
to your regularly scheduled reality.