Posted on 09/03/2006 10:26:05 PM PDT by goldstategop
Whenever the media establishment's long knives come out for a politician, I figure the person is doing something right – that he or she is a legitimate threat, that he or she is effective and getting to the enemy.
That's the conclusion I came to after reading an L.A. Times hit piece on Rep. Katherine Harris, now a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Florida.
It was an amazing piece of "journalism." Here are some key excerpts:
"She's called for a Christian theocracy so Congress won't 'legislate sin.' She's lost a dozen key campaign staffers in the home stretch, advertised endorsements she didn't get and failed to pick up a single recommendation from Florida's leading newspapers."
"Rep. Katherine Harris – the former darling of the Republican Party for her pivotal role in the 2000 presidential recount – has stumbled so badly in her bid for the U.S. Senate that pollsters and pundits no longer focus on her longshot chances against Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson in November, but instead on the outlook for Tuesday's primary race against virtual unknowns."
"Three polls released this week all put Harris, 49, at least 16 percentage points ahead of her three Republican rivals. But with two of the challengers closing in on her, and the share of undecided voters larger than her advantage, analysts say the contest for the party's nomination is far from over."
The report characterized "the latest controversy stirred up by Harris – an interview she gave to the Florida Baptist State Convention for its weekly journal in which she deemed the separation of church and state 'a lie we have been told' and 'so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers.' She also told the Florida Baptist Witness that only Christians should serve in Congress because otherwise it will 'legislate sin.'" What actually happened? To find out, you'd have to read actual news accounts of the events, not the L.A. Times editorials posing as news stories.
In an interview with the Florida Baptist Witness, Harris said she did not believe God intended for the United States to be a "nation of secular laws."
It was not Harris who called for a theocracy, but one of her political opponents, state Rep. Irv Slosberg, a Democrat, who demanded an apology for the comments, saying: "What is going through this woman's mind? We do not live in a theocracy."
In fact, Harris wasn't calling for a theocracy, just simply representing mainstream evangelical thought. She added that her Christian beliefs animate everything she does, including her votes in Congress. She then warned voters that if they do not send Christians to office, they risk creating a government that is doomed to fail."
As a Christian, I agree with everything Harris said – and we must stop being afraid to tell people the truth.
"If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin," she said. "Whenever we legislate sin and we say abortion is permissible and we say gay unions are permissible, then average citizens who are not Christians, because they don't know better, we are leading them astray and it's wrong."
Do you find that shocking? I don't. I find it commendable that a politician of Harris' stature is saying what she is saying. Notice the L.A. Times calls her chances against incumbent Bill Nelson a "longshot." Do you really think so? Why do you think a paper on the other side of the country is so threatened by Harris. It isn't because she is going to lose the race to Nelson, it's because she alone has the best chance to win. Notice how the L.A. Times manages to portray a candidate with a 16-point advantage over her nearest competitor as some kind of loser. The race is tomorrow – but it's far from over, according to the L.A. Times.
Notice how it's shocking to the L.A. Times reporter that a Senate candidate would say that separation of church and state is a lie. It most assuredly is. It is found nowhere in the founding documents of this country – however it was found in the Constitution of the Soviet Union.
Notice how the L.A. Times calls her "the former darling of the Republican Party. The truth is that Harris has never been embraced by the Republican establishment – not George W. Bush, not Jeb Bush, not any of the other country club Republicans. And that's another reason I find her so attractive despite the occasional and inevitable political missteps.
It so happens I got to know Katherine Harris when her "Center of the Storm" was the very first book ever published by WND Books way back in the fall of 2002. (It's now a valuable collector's item – especially when you buy an autographed copy.)
I was surprised by the person I met back then – because she wasn't anything like the media depictions of her. She was diminutive. She was attractive. She was extremely bright and warm – not the cold, harsh character I saw on the news throughout the 2000 election dispute.
So don't be fooled, Floridians. Do the right thing tomorrow. Vote for Harris. And vote for Gallagher.
I understand that a central part of her campaign is a bill that would tax the rest of the country by requiring higher property insurance premiums that would offset the high premiums charges in Flordia. Would someone please tell me what is conservative about that?
I am curious as to why they hate her. They certainly used her enough.
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Because she's a conservative. They prefer the likes of Specter and Liddy Dole.
Were voting Harris and Gallagher.
I think you lost it.
McBride / Gallagher here.. but I think I mentioned that already in another thread somewhere..
FReegards,
David
"Meet the conservative the GOP Country Club establishment hates - Katherine Harris. "
She's not even a conservative!
She came up with that Govt giveaway for new minority homeowners. Not a conservative idea.
She is hated by GOP regulars because people told her she couldnt win the race against Nelson and she stubbornly chose to continue her path of political self-destruction.
She is still in the basement in Florida polls and her recent gaffe that insulted Jews just seals her fate.
Another lost opportunity in the Senate, in a year when we need all the help we can get.
If Harris wins the GOP nomination, Nelson is a shoo-in for re-election.
McBride would do better than Harris in November, but obviously Harris has her boosters ... and she looks good on a horse!
"the conservative the GOP Country Club establishment hates - Katherine Harris."
I find the whole concept ironic and ludicrous because the not-too-conservative, well-to-do, fabulous-on-a-horse, wellgroomed Katherine Harris is the epitome of a country club Republican.
Article IV and the 1st Amendment are illusions.
You have it backwrds, the RNC, Senate & Congressional committies, Bush/rove and the Business establishment all hate all conservative Republican candidates.
It insulted and startled a lot of us Christians, too.
If she meant it she is extremely dangerous. If she didn't, she is extremely stupid. Either or both is a good reason to keep her out.
"Rep. Katherine Harris already answered questions about her statements about voting for Christians for office - she encourages everyone of faith to run !"
Undoubtable true, but the liberal media runs the gaffe on page 1 and the correction in fine print on page 39.
There are good ways and bad ways of expressing the support of the idea that we are not a secularist nation; she chose a poor way by implying that a vote for a non-Christian was a vote for 'sin'. We need to oppose the ACLU version of history and the Constitution without coming across like religious bigots. The damage has been done, and its yet another sign of how badly her campaign has been run.
People who cant run good campaigns dont get elected.
You have it wrong. The RNC supports INCUMBENTS like Santorum, Talent, Kyl, Burns, Hutchinson, etc.
They do not like McCain who is also on the conservatives' $hit list.
They do not like mavericks or loose cannons like mccain, tancredo, harris, pat buchanan, pete mcclosky, etc.
The RNC will try to take down the "rebels without a cause" or as I prefer "the rebels without a clue" and that includes Katherine Harris.
When she wins the primary, they may put it on page six, or ignore it, and that too will be Harris' fault??
Oh great, she's got Joe Farah's support.
there's NO way she can lose now!!!!
Oh wait.......
Didn't he ALSO support Alan Keyes?
They have a lot in common among themselves, one of the most common traits-in-common being an Ivy League degree. Liddy Dole went to an Ivy, or one of the Seven Sisters, I forget which.
If there is anything in that crowd that is sooooo uncool, it's the personal profession of principles that openly embraces Christianity. That tells you something concrete about Yacht Club values.
It puzzles me why Midwestern men like Bob Dole, who was maimed in World War II and nearly died of his wounds after the war at least twice (he was shot by a German heavy machine gun during a battle in Italy), would make peace with, and work hard for the agenda of, Ivy Leaguers who dedicate their own lives to spitting on small-town Rotarians like him.
I disagree. They don't run the correction at all -- unless everyone in town finds out they screwed up a matter of fact, or else they lose a lawsuit.
If your statement were true, you'd have a point. But when he was governor of Texas -- and since he left, the new governor has done the same -- he ran RiNO challengers in the primaries against incumbent conservative Republican members of the state school board.
He did this when the battle over schoolbook content (history, morals, politica) was flaring hot and heavy, and People for the American Way was sending folks to Texas hearings on schoolbooks to try to neutralize Texas conservatives like Donna Ballard who'd courageously taken a stand against the NEA/East Coast clerisy claptrap that was being propagated into Texas schools.
The fight was started by a very unstylish, conservative couple, Mel and Norma Gabler, who began attending state school board comment sessions with marked-up copies of Texas schoolbooks that were riddled with factual errors and liberal editorializing. The Gablers stirred up grassroots conservatives to try to do something about the intellectual and moral pollution of their schools, and they elected a small number of school board members. Enter Governor Bush, and he promptly opposed them, putting up RiNO business types to run for the conservatives' seats (not the seats held by liberal Democrats and people who toed the line of the NEA and Texas Education Association).
It's important to remember that Bush and the people around him, when he was in Texas, didn't support Texas conservatives in their cultural fight against liberalism. That fact contextualizes their lack of support for Katherine Harris, Bill McCollum, and other conservatives now, even as they continue to support moderate-liberal "mavericks" like Arlen Specter, Penny Collins, and Olympia Snowe, who have gone off the reservation repeatedly on votes important to the Administration.
Bush and company have a lot of "'splainin'" to do, but they don't explain squat to anybody -- you just go along with everything, including NAFTA, CAFTA, the WTO, and the NWO, or get stepped on.
They do not like McCain who is also on the conservatives' $hit list.
I think the only people who like McCain are the MSM and George Soros, who has given McCain a lot of money.
Freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. Meaning that groups should not complain about seeing a cross from the freeway and having it banned. That actually happened here in Hawaii.
Indeed, yes - -
There are some discussion-board pages on Yahoo that are dedicated to returning the Republican Party back to the Conservative Path .
A path that Dubya has mostly(but not entirely) abandoned over the last five years !
I lost the address of this Conservative Party page on Yahoo .
It is a message board memebership I got by private invitation .
I lost a lot when I crossed over from AOL to CS . .
There are a lot of GOP chatsites on the Boomis Webring, I believe !
>>It puzzles me why Midwestern men like Bob Dole, who was maimed in World War II and nearly died of his wounds after the war at least twice (he was shot by a German heavy machine gun during a battle in Italy), would make peace with, and work hard for the agenda of, Ivy Leaguers who dedicate their own lives to spitting on small-town Rotarians like him.
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Maybe because Bob Dole forgot where he came from .
He was inside Washington D.C. too long !
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