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Thursday, February 23, 2006

FL-Sen: Second Finance Director Bails on Harris

Posted by DavidNYC

Kathy Harris' second finance director quits - and just when things were looking up:

Just as her wobbly campaign for the Senate appeared to be steadying itself, Katherine Harris lost her finance director.

Mike Miller, a veteran Republican fundraiser, resigned Friday. He is the second finance director to leave the Harris campaign since she started running to unseat Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, but Miller said his departure is purely for personal reasons.

Personal reasons - or was he pushed out?

In December, Harris hired Anne Dunsmore and her California company, Capital Campaigns, to lead a national fundraising effort.

"We're thankful for all Mike has done, but Anne is setting up her own team, her own structure," said campaign spokeswoman Morgan Dobbs, who, like Miller, downplayed his departure.

Now that's interesting. In fact, I think I'm seeing a pattern here. In MD-Sen, the national boys march in and instantly cause turmoil, leading to the departure of several local hands. Is the same thing going on here? What I'm sensing is that as the DC-based GOP leadership grows more and more nervous about its election prospects this year, it marches in the infamous "outside consultants" into races which are looking bad. It's a sign of desperation, and it also hasn't been working out very well.

In any event, it's pretty sad-sack that Harris has to hire someone from out-of-state to run her anemic fundraising operation. It certainly opens her up to the easy charge that ordinary Floridians don't want to donate to her. Meanwhile, Bill Nelson has raised the third-most ($7.5M) of anyone seeking election to the Senate, behind only Clinton and Santorum. Plus, he's got $8M cash-on-hand, while Harris has just $1M.

Posted at 02:17 PM in 2006 Elections - Senate, Florida | Technorati

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Comments

This sounds a lot like the previous complaints about the D-Trip shoving out the preferred local candidates. Perhaps poor structures can work for us as well as against us?

Posted by: shimamoto at February 23, 2006 10:30 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Sometimes, the out-of-state big boys show up and are rightly hailed as the cavalry. Sometimes, they just show up and muck things up. The verdict is still out on IL-06 and OH-Sen (on our side), but things are looking pretty shaky for MD-Sen and FL-Sen for them.

Posted by: DavidNYC at February 24, 2006 12:17 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment