Via the AP: Poll: Harris leads Fla. GOP Senate race

Congresswoman Katherine Harris holds a double-digit lead in the race for Florida’s Republican U.S. Senate nomination less than a week before the primary, according to a poll released Thursday.
However, the poll also indicates that a large number of Republicans haven’t settled on a candidate, and about a third of those supporting Harris said they still might change their minds.

“If Rep. Harris had only one opponent she might be in deep trouble,” said Peter Brown, assistant polling director for the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, which conducted the poll last week. “But having three candidates splitting the anti-Harris vote is a major plus for her.”

Harris was favored by 38 percent of 317 likely Republican voters.

William McBride, a 34-year-old attorney, was supported by 22 percent; retired Navy admiral LeRoy Collins Jr. of Tampa was backed by 11 percent; and Peter Monroe, a real estate developer from Safety Harbor, received 3 percent.

If anyone wants a lesson in the anemic influence of party leadership and the general fact that the process of choosing primaries candidates is a self-selection process, this race is it. It has been clear for months that Harris has no chance of winning this Senate seat, and while there were attempts by GOP leadership to recruit another candidate, or to dissuade Harris from running, the bottom line is that they have no power to actually make such things happen. Party leadership sometimes can actively and successfully recruit candidates, but on balance it is a catch as catch can in terms of who is willing and able to run.

There can be little doubt that she is not the best candidate for the GOP in Florida, but that lack of stronger competitor equals the likelihood that she will win the opportunity to lose miserablNovember.

This case also provides further evidence of the fact that people who go into politics have huge egos that get in the way of rational decision-making.