Campaign staffers talk about K Harris' erratic behavior.

[lpbk2713]

This article is very revealing and is highly recommended. It stops just short of claiming Harris is certifiable. It's from today's Palm Beach Post

Link: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/state/epaper/2006/08/06/c1a_HARRIS_0806.html


Her campaign should be named the Caine Mutiny with all these staffers bailing out in droves. And Krazy Katie sounds more like Captain Queeg with every passing day.


From the article ..... "She kept saying 'I need those books. Why didn't you get them to me?' She wouldn't let it die," said the aide, one of more than a dozen key staffers who have quit Harris' campaign for the U.S. Senate this year.

Working for Katherine Harris was like working for Meryl Streep's super-demanding, hypercritical boss-from-hell character in the movie The Devil Wears Prada, said another former campaign aide.

Another ..... "We used to call her 'The Hurricane' because she would spin completely out of control over the smallest things," said Jim Dornan, Harris' first campaign manager, who quit last fall.
"I have never in my life worked for somebody like her — ever — and hopefully I'll never have to again," Dornan said.


Another ..... For those travel aides, a top priority was to get her Starbucks coffee, no matter where she was campaigning, "and God help him if it wasn't hot," an aide said

Several aides said Harris was so obsessed with Starbucks coffee (Ed: Ah, the notorious "strawberries") she insisted that Starbucks locations be mapped out when she was traveling from one campaign stop to another.

One aide recalled going to Harris' house for a day of fund-raising calls without bringing her a cup of Starbucks. The aide said Harris made it clear that it was expected he bring her a coffee when coming to her house.


Another ..... At least one aide went shopping with Harris to help her find more suitable clothing, but there was little change in her apparel.

Even when the press noted her sexy outfits, such as when she wore a form-fitting hot pink shirt while riding a horse at the Arcadia rodeo, Harris found it amusing, the aides said.

"She would rather have that publicity than be ignored," Miller said.


Scary, very scary.






"Ahh, but the strawberries that's... that's where I had them."

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. This is the sort of sick twisted mind that America would consider

for a "leadership role". 'Nuff said about the pitiful state of the American psyche.

[antonialee839]

30. She's the kind of gal they'd like to have a cup of

Starbucks coffee with.

[salin]

2. I think she has legitimately stolen

the title of "Queen of Mean" from Leona Helmsley (sp)

[Mrs. Overall]

3. But, by establishing that she's "crazy," if she does ever come clean

with what happened in Florida in 2000, it will simply be dismissed.

[elehhhhna]

5. OR ot's good news: she may eventually wig out and spill it all...

she's obviously on the edge.

[leesa]

9. Exactly. I think this is just another GOP 'project'. She is being dumped

and they are afraid she will talk, so they are going to make her look as crazy as possible. After all, Dubya could make her look sane on one of his 'good' days, I'll bet. She probably had a running joke about Starbucks and they are turning it into a Cruella segment. Remeber, these are Republican staffers we are talking about here.

[KoKo]

13. Agree....Repug staffers ....trying to get her off the ballot...although

she probably is a witch to work for...that doesn't mean she's crazy. We are all hoping she will "turn" and talk about "Selection 2000," so we don't want her to seem "crazy," because then who will believe her?

[LeighAnn]

18. Staffers got what they deserved

Stupid GOP freeper idiots. It took them until 2006 to figure out what we all knew in 2000. I don't feel sorry for rethuglican staffers, ever. I think she should have been harder on them.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

4. One thing to remember in all of this...

...is that all of these supposedly abused people were trying to get Katherine Harris elected. Katherine fucking Harris. I think they got off easy for trying to put that monstrosity in office.

[DeepModem Mom]

6. K&R

[Lerkfish]

7. just the instances cited seem not out of the norm for male executives.

I've seen male executives be just as particular about coffee, certainly, and expect underlings to snap to with ridiculous requests.

Not that I don't think she's certifiable for other reasons, just saying the ones quoted and bolded in the OP, if the candidate were male, would never have made it to the press.

IMHO

[Warpy]

10. No kidding, I quit one job when an exec demanded I take his suit

to the dry cleaner's. Now I was a technical staff person, not a personal assistant, and I couldn't believe the asshole was demanding that of the only woman in the department, just because I was a WOMAN.

So I took his crap to the cleaners and went home, never to return. The ticket went into the garbage and my phone number was changed. I had another, better job in two days.

I always wondered if he got the point. Probably not.

[Ex Lion Tamer]

11. That's brilliant!

[Lerkfish]

12. An exec I know of required his assistant to babysit his kids for days

on end while he jetsetted out of town. She had to do his dry cleaning and do everything else besides wipe his butt (and for all I know he wanted that, too).
Why she put up with it is beyond me. We were friends with her and encouraged her to quit several times.

my point is that this society finds the SAME behaviour acceptable for male execs but not female execs, when in fact its reprehensible REGARDLESS of gender.

[Lilith Velkor]

25. John Bolton has a similar reputation

In fact, it may be worse. Just sayin'.

[rzemanfl]

8. I had nearly this same thing happen to me with a lawyer I was

working with about 20 years ago. Substitute "contract" for speech, the rest is the same:

Once, her staff took a speech Harris had rewritten, saved it for about two months, and then gave it back to her as a proposed speech. Harris called it "terrible."

When the staff informed her she had written it, she said, "I guess I had a bad day."

[benddem]

14. It will be interesting to

see what happens in the primary. We know the reptiles can fix elections. Will they do it again????

[stevedeshazer]

15. Texas-style Cage Match: Cruella and Mean Jean

http://www.theguycode.com.nyud.net:8090/stories/1.37/pics/katherine_harris.jpg

http://taylorville.sunk.org.nyud.net:8090/images/jean_schmidt_before.jpg

[Olney Blue]

17. Pseudo-medic who will administer first aide at the cage match:

[suston96]

16. Karma !

Ain't it wunnerful?

[ThoughtCriminal]

19. This is all familiar to anybody who ever had a Freeper boss

way too many of them.

[saskatoon]

20. Quit picking on her

Jeb LOVES her---remember!

[truthisfreedom]

21. stop making fun of our little miss favorite, crazy Katie!

we want her to keep running! 8^D

[warrens]

22. The sad thing is, she's just run-of-the-mill nuts by GOP standards

There are a LOT crazier people in the party. Millions of them.

[SteppingRazor]

23. I blogged about this story...

in an entry in which I theorized that Harris is, in fact, chasing the dragon:

Caffeine addiction is an ugly thing, the Addiction of the 21st Century, now that everything else but alcohol and tobacco has been banned, tobacco is extremely frowned upon, and alcohol only slightly less so. We have so puritanized ourselves that people like Harris, who actively court a religio-crazy base, have only a Starbucks addiction to keep them up.

Back in the late 19th Century, a wealthy woman of means like Rep. Harris wouldn't have bothered with a pissant addiction like caffeine. She'd have had a bottle of Laudanum with her at all times, and that would've been the end of it.

In fact, opiate addiction would go a long way toward explaining Harris' behavior.

The heavy makeup is simply her attempt to mask the paleness and frailty associated with the heavy laudanum user. The freakish, high-strung meltdowns described in the Post story could easily be explained as the fevered rantings of a laudanum addict in dire need of a fix. Her recommendations to female staffers that they freeze their eggs for later use can only be ascribed to the dreamy meanderings of a woman deeply in the throes of an opiate trance. Clearly, Harris is chasing the dragon, under the spell of a tincture of opium. Believe me, folks, I know about these things.

More here:
http://blogs.southflorida.com/citylink_dansweeney/2006/08/remember_when_katherine_harris.html

[Richard Steele]

24. Oddly enough, that kinda meshes with one of my 'tinfoil' notions.

Yeah, she REALLY shows symptoms of a drug problem,
but is it necessarily aself-inflicted problem?

The GOP has every reason to want her discredited,
to have her known as a 'looney' who cannot be
taken seriously.
And slipping her very small doses of opiates or mild psychotropics
over a long period of time would be a FINE way to accomplish
that goal.

Seems to me that she didn't start becoming 'crazy' until
the GOP decided her usefulness was at an end.

Maybe her coffee obsession is caused by a little something
EXTRA in her coffee once a day that she isn't even aware of?

Her coffee fixation just REALLY reminds me of a crack addict
I once knew who hadn't visited his family (2 hours away)
in over 5 years, because he didn't know any crack dealers
in their area.

[BlueInPhilly]

26. Seems manic-depressive to me.

[Marie26]

27. Go Kathy.

Don't let those turncoats bring you down. This is all an attempt to ruin her reputation from some bitter former staffers, possibly aided by Karl Rove. I don't believe a word of it.

[mac56]

28. Can somebody explain the "strawberries" thing to me?

Idoan geddit.

[Richard Steele]

33. It's a quote from Captain Queeg in the classic film "The Caine Mutiny".

The ship's captain in the film is a real anal/paranoid type:

a full-scale investigation of the men is called
to determine who pilfered a quart of frozen strawberries
from the wardroom pantry refrigerator that was reserved
for the Caine's officers.
Drawing from his experience in a previous pilfered cheese investigation,
Captain Queeg orders a vain "detective work" dragnet
(including strip-searches of crew members)
for a duplicate (non-existent) key to the refrigerator lock,
and refuses to believe the real explanation
that the messboys ate the strawberries.

[rocktivity]

29. I still say she's working up an insanity defense

for when her role in Selection 2000 is investigated.

:headbang:
rocknation

[Zorra]

31. Guilt over throwing the election that destroyed America drove her over

the edge. She's gone certifiable.

I should not be smiling over the complete collapse of Krazy Kat's mental faculties, but....

Bwaahaaahaaahaaaa. Fuck that wicked hag.

[antiblazer]

32. This is TOO funny

Harris also routinely belittled the efforts of her press aides and speech writers, saying their writing was "the worst she had ever seen," and spending hours rewriting their work, one aide said.

Once, her staff took a speech Harris had rewritten, saved it for about two months, and then gave it back to her as a proposed speech. Harris called it "terrible."

When the staff informed her she had written it, she said, "I guess I had a bad day."


:rofl:

[lpbk2713]

34. You've got to feel sorry for anyone who works for Cruella.

I sent an E-mail expressing my condolences to "to whom it may concern" at the Harris Senate campaign HQ 'contact' address to express my sympathies to whoever might have the unpleasant task of reading Krazy Katie's mail.


Harris contact page: http://www.electharris.org/contact/


Certainly they will find a better job than this one when they get fed up and bail out like all the other staffers have.

[Moderator]

35. K

[DoYouEverWonder]

36. Former staffers open up on chaos of campaign (Katherine Harris)

Who else?

August 11, 2006

The smallest things would set her off.

Buying the wrong candy for her to toss at parades. Photographing her vertically instead of horizontally. Failing to bring her favorite Starbucks beverage extra hot venti triple latte, no fat, no foam, one Sweet'n Low.

One minute, U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris would lavish campaign staffers with praise and hugs. The next she would lose her temper, screaming "stupid" or "idiot" at a startled employee.

"You never know what you are going to get," said Mike Miller, who left in February after serving eight months as her finance director. "Some days, it would be great. Other days, it would be 'Oh my God.' "

Harris, the leading Republican in the U.S. Senate race this fall, has lost at least 25 campaign staffers in the past year, including three campaign managers and a slew of prominent consultants. Even in politics, a world of hard-to-please bosses and oversized egos, that's an unheard of number for one campaign.

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/08/11/State/Former_staffers_open_.shtml


It seems that Ms. Harris has some serious mental health issues. I hope she gets the help she needs someday.

[quiet.american]

37. Wait a minute -- I thought only Dems drank lattes. :) n/t

[orleans]

38. multiple personality disorder? n/t

[WhiteTara]

49. I'm gong for caffiene toxicity

Anyone who drinks that much coffee must be frying her nerve endings.

[gratuitous]

39. I'm no mental health expert, but . . .

Does this sound bipolar to anyone else?

[napi21]

41. Hmmm, sounds like a bitch to me!

And YES, I'm a female so I can say that without sexual prejudice!

When I first saqw her on TV during the 2000 voting scam, I could see that "name" on her face!

I'm not going to give her any benefit for having any mental illness, she's just a BBBB!!!

[grytpype]

40. The Repugs should run her for President in 08.

That would be a riot.

Harris/Lieberman for a Effed Up America

[whistle]

42. Sounds like BPD (borderline personality disorder)

<snip>

ICD-10
Criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder

The ICD-10 Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders World Health Organization, Geneva, 1992
F60.3 Emotionally Unstable (Borderline) Personality Disorder

A personality disorder in which there is a marked tendency to act impulsively without consideration of the consequences, together with affective instability. The ability to plan ahead may be minimal, and outbursts of intense anger may often lead to violence or "behavioural explosions"; these are easily precipitated when impulsive acts are criticized or thwarted by others. Two variants of this personality disorder are specified, and both share this general theme of impulsiveness and lack of self-control.

Impulsive type:
The predominant characteristics are emotional instability and lack of impulse control. Outbursts of violence or threatening behaviour are common, particularly in response to criticism by others.

Includes: explosive and aggressive personality (disorder)

Excludes: dissocial personality disorder

Borderline type:
Several of the characteristics of emotional instability are present; in addition, the patient's own self-image, aims, and internal preferences (including sexual) are often unclear or disturbed. There are usually chronic feelings of emptiness. A liability to become involved in intense and unstable relationships may cause repeated emotional crises and may be associated with excessive efforts to avoid abandonment and a series of suicidal threats or acts of self-harm (although these may occur without obvious precipitants).

Includes: borderline personality (disorder)

<more>
http://www.psycom.net/depression.central.BPD-ICD10.html

[MADem]

46. Well, Marcus Welby, I think you hit that one out of the park!! NT

[whistle]

57. Thank you, it was all of those Parent Magazine articles that helped

...me narrow down the diagnosis...oh...and more than few experiences of sicko relationships out of the past B-)

[Infomaniac]

43. Sounds like a case of arrested development

That's my generic description for an adult that throws those kinds of temper tantrums. She's an emotionally stunted person with the coping skills of a three year old. Just what you want in a senator. Not.

[leesa]

44. That's right. Make Katie sound crazy so when she spills the beans on

the 2000 election crimes, everyone just clucks their tongues.

[MADem]

47. You can be crazy, and still tell the truth! NT

[Hekate]

48. "The Martha Mitchell effect"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Mitchell_effect

> The Martha Mitchell effect is a process by which a belief is
> mistakenly diagnosed as a delusion by a psychiatrist.
> This is named after Martha Beall Mitchell (the wife of
> John Mitchell, the Attorney-General in the Nixon administration),
> who alleged that illegal activity was taking place in the White
> House. At the time her claims were thought to be signs of
> mental illness, and only after the Watergate scandal broke
> was she proved right (and hence sane).
> The effect was first named by psychologist Brendan Maher.


Hekate

[Vidar]

55. I remember Martha fondly--the butt of latenight jokes--who actually

tried to reach the nation with the truth.

[kskiska]

60. I remember the bumper stickers back then

"Martha Was Right!"

[bluestateguy]

45. She needs Bob Shrum to come in and run the campaign for her

I hear he writes GREAT concession speeches.

[opihimoimoi]

50. The Leona Hemsley of Politics...The Queen of MEAN......

[Melynn]

51. Maybe she will turn on the BFEE

if she thinks the Bush gang didn't give her Senate run enough support to be successful. I bet old Katherine Harris knows a lot of Bush family secrets......espcially about Jeb Bush.

[nealmhughes]

52. And Noelle....

the only Bush most likely to be on multiple Reality TV shows: Intervention, City Confidential, and Surreal Life with Kate Harris!

[superconnected]

53. what a psychotic nut

"To younger staffers, she would say "What are you, stupid?" or "That's the stupidest thing I ever heard" while complaining the campaign did not have enough Ivy League-educated employees. To older staffers, she would say, "You ruined my life."

"I can't tell you how many times I ruined that woman's life," said Dornan, her first campaign manager.
"


I bet she will spill the beans about bush. She's too unstable to save herself, let alone save him.

Plus part of her psychosis IS saying too much and being out of control with what she says.

[whistle]

59. She'll end up in a mental ward or worse before that happens

[Vidar]

54. If i could afford it, I'd contirbute to her campaign just to sustain the

train wreck.

[Judi Lynn]

56. It might have taken some powerful promises of future indulgences

and enormous personal success to get her to ream the American voters as she did. She had far, far too much power. There should be a way to block a Presidential candidate's State Party Chairman from also being the Secretary of State.

I hope during the empty, lonely hours stretching out before her, she'll want to purge herself of her betrayal of American ideals and go grab another reporter, and spill her guts.

[lebkuchen]

58. There are political prima donas like in both parties

whether the politicians themselves, or the managers they hire.

[lpbk2713]

61. Here's a recent pic of Katie from today's newspaper.

I know you can't tell a whole lot from a photo, but I enlarged it and the lady doesn't look normal to me. I believe the last six years have really taken their toll on her well-being.


And being used and cast aside by the goppers didn't help a whole lot either.


Here's a link to the accompanying article in today's paper, evidently she spoke here
and I missed it. I could have used a few good laughs. Among other things she urged the
crowd to jump on the jingo bandwagon and "support the troops" .

Link: http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060812/NEWS/608120359/1134


One priceless quote from the article is from a spokesman for Democratic incumbent U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (talking about Harris' claim of war casualties) .....

"I don't know if the numbers are close to reality, but I know Katherine Harris is not," said Dan McLaughlin, a spokesman for Nelson.



I love it.

[ronnykmarshall]

62. She's three Glenn Close roles.

Curella DeVile: GET THOSE PUPPIES!!



Alex Forrest "Fatal Attraction": I not going to be IGNORED!!

http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2004/05/12/fatal,0.jpg

Norma Desmond: MAAAAAXXXXXXXX!!!!!