Word: stated
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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What spurred Harris' political career has provided it with a dramatic, perhaps historic turning point--to either her benefit or her detriment. She bounded onto George W. Bush's campaign as his hard-charging Florida co-chair. Watchdog groups objected when she used the secretary of state's office--and taxpayer money--to produce get-out-the-vote TV ads starring Bush boosters like General H. Norman Schwarzkopf. Thus last week, when Harris unloaded decision after decision that appeared to be in lockstep with Bush strategy, cries of partisanship sprang up immediately. Harris, 43, insisted that her rulings were "independent...
...chairman, who once made a joke about the problem of convicts' catching fire in Florida's electric chair. That mix ought to make Florida a more cooperative place during radioactive disputes like the recount. But in reality, says University of Florida political analyst Richard Scher, it has made the state a dysfunctional place in crises--a warning to the rest of the nation, he adds, about the pitfalls of centrism. "When the parties are as intellectually bankrupt as they are in this state today," says Scher, "it leaves the politicians with little to do but mud wrestle at times like...
...master's degree in public administration, has the rep of a country-club lightweight whose only exercise of "discretion" until now has been "pearls or diamonds?" "She was completely unprepared for both this job and this crisis," says Scher. Even some of her friends agree. Says one in the state capital: "She is in so far over her head that it's hard not to think that every move she makes is orchestrated by the Bushes and the Republicans...
Both G.O.P. and Democratic state legislators say that Harris, as secretary of state, has shown little interest in electoral-reform bills--despite taking office after one of the state's worst cases of voter fraud, one that saw a Miami mayoral race overturned in court. Her post requires especially detailed contact with local apparatchiks. But county election supervisors, the people who could have saved Florida from a week of embarrassment, grouse that she rarely attends their state meetings...
...lavish business trips to New York, Brazil and Australia to drum up commerce and culture. She is proud of bringing international culture like Mexico's Ballet Folklorico to Florida. "You can't believe how hard I work," she told the St. Petersburg Times last month. But a high-ranking state Democratic official, who was on the phone with Harris when the Florida recount was ordered on election night, says he was angry about her apparent foot dragging "until we realized that it was because she really didn't know what to do at that point...