KATHERINE HARRIS SENATE CAMPAIGN: WELCOME TO THE NUT-HOUSE. ANOTHER ENTIRE CAMPAIGN STAFF FLEES THE WHACKED OUT HARRIS

I have to be honest: I don't know how many campaign staffers have quit working for Katherine Harris' ill-starred senatorial campaign. And she hasn't even been in the primary yet! I know last November her campaign manager and the entire staff quit. Then there people coming and going for a few months until March when serious Republican strategists/managers Ed Rollins and Jamie Miller walked out-- accompanied by the entire staff-- and claimed she was certifiably insane and that she should do herself, the Republican Party and the citizens of Florida a favor and retire from political life.

Around that point she hooked up with a predatory religionist figure, a so-called "Dr." Dale Burroughs of the Biblical Heritage Institute, her own personal Rasputin, who started calling the shots in the campaign, turning it into a kind of a carnival/revival crusade. For a while she wouldn't appear publicly except in churches. A self-described "licensed clinical pastoral counselor," Dr. Dale-- like Harris, mad as a hatter-- specializes in "crisis and disaster." She certainly has found one! And since she is the only advisor Harris listens to, the crisis that is the Harris campaign turns more disastrous by the day.

In fact it was yesterday that right wing web sites started reporting that, after only 2 months of work inside the Harris Mad House, the newest entire staff is leaving this week! That includes the latest campaign manager, Glen Hodas and her communications director Chris Ingram. Like everyone who came before, the staffers claim she's out of her mind and impossible to work with. With the federal investigation into her bribery case closing in-- she was taking illegal bribes from Brent Wilkes-- she has started making bizarre statements and throwing hysterical tantrums. She seems to have convinced herself that Florida Democrats in Congress want her to win the senate race-- something every single Democrat in the Florida congressional delegation has denied... vehemently. And her latest is to start projecting her own criminal problems on to Democratic Senator Bill Nelson, lamely claiming, out of the blue, that he's been taking bribes.

Next week she's having routine surgery to remove an ovarian mass. One staffer suggested that while she's anesthetized they also examine her brain and she if it's still functional.


11 AM UPDATE: STAFF WALK-OUT CONFIRMED

A local newspaper has confirmed that crazy criminal congresswoman Katherine Harris has lost another campaign staff. This report is devastating to the haughty, bewildered Harris and probably dooms what's left of her faltering campaign. The BRADENTON HERALD headline reads: "Five top staffers leave embattled Harris campaign-- Former campaign manager claims that she 'treats people like garbage,' is disrespectful." Not even partisan Republicans who admire her for having stolen the 2000 election for Bush are likely to think much of that.

The report confirms that the campaign manager, communications director, field coordinator, political director and deputy field coordinator have left-- as of today. "The departures struck a blow to a campaign that has already seen a revolving door of top managers, communications directors and consultants."

Delusional as always, Harris released some cockamamie statement last night saying she had accepted the resignation of the communications director and denied earlier reports than anyone else was try to escape from her insane asylum masquerading as a senate campaign. One of her many former campaign managers, Jim Dornan, explains why campaign staffers leave and why they blast the far right kooky congresswoman on the way out. "She's fine for the initial stage and then she falls into her normal pattern of behavior... Treating staff like garbage, coming up with crazy ideas and strategies. She creates such hatred for herself because of the way she treats people that at some point, they just don't care... D.C. has completely written off this campaign, which is an incredibly sad commentary on a seat that had so much promise a year ago."

Ever since reports started hitting the Florida papers that Harris was taking bribes from defense contractors, he already abysmal polling numbers dropped further... and further. At this point, there's a 30% gap between her and Nelson.


FRIDAY NIGHT UPDATE: CRAZIER THAN YOU EVEN IMAGINED

No, this isn't another story about former GOP congressman/current MSNBC right wing propagandist Joe Scarborough telling anyone who will listen that he first realized Harris was batty when the Bush Brothers had tried to recruit him for the senate race against Bill Nelson and she started insinuating to Florida Republican donors that he had murdered a former assistant. (He may have but that just isn't something you say to Republican donors.) Anyway, despite Ken's wise warnings about chasing her out of the race before the primary, I just can't resist repeating a few choice tidbits from Brendan Farrington's report for the Associated Press today.

"Katherine Harris' Senate campaign staff is leaving again, and the description of working for the Republican congresswoman plays like a scene out of 'Mommie Dearest.' Harris is prone to tantrums, wants to be treated like a princess, micromanages, fixates on minutia while ignoring the big picture, and sometimes does exactly the opposite of what advisers tell her with bad results that they have to clean up later, staff members said."

Staffers, speaking anonymously-- as well as unanimously-- said the work situation was "intolerable." Harris, delusional and possibly psychotic, is trying to put lipstick on this pig, claiming her "campaign" is "aggressively moving forward... 'I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Glenn Hodas, Pat Thomas and the other departing staff members. I appreciate their hard work and service on my behalf. I wish each of them the very best in their future endeavors.'"

Her former campaign strategist, Ed Rollins suggests she use the operation she's having next week as cover to "gracefully" bow out of the race.