Harris obviously has a screw loose.

She was allowed a safe House seat, which she might have held as long as she wished. There's nothing wrong with ambition, but she should have seen early on that she wasn't a strong enough candidate to win the Senate seat, and that the party wasn't behind her bid. It seems she has ridden on ego alone, and will ride off into the sunset after November.

I blame Liddie Dole to a great extent. It was HER job to find and recruit strong candidates EARLY to run against the vulnerable Democratic incumbents like Bill Nelson, Stabenow, and Cantwell. She dropped the ball on all three. If we have any shot at MI and WA, it is wholly due to the candidates who finally emerged, and NO THANKS to Dole.

Heck, we would have had a good chance of whipping Nelson if Dole had only managed to keep Harris and her inheritance money out of the race, because that scared off the stronger potential challengers. It's hard to start a primary campaign with a $10 million deficit.

Jim, how do you blame Dole and not Rove, Cheney and Bush?

Forget her job title - what on earth could she DO to influence people to run who didn't want to, and influence others NOT to run (like Harris) who wanted to.

If you want to blame Dole for money raising issues - feel free. But we won in 2002 because THE PRESIDENT got on the stupid phone and recruited good talent.

The President and the RNC get involved recruiting Senate candidates when the RSCC asks them to. The Senate, on both sides of the aisle, is very persnickety about its perceived perogatives.

The JOB of the RSCC Chairman has always been to lead on recruitment. If Dole needed help, I am sure Rove would take her phone calls.

It's rather late in the game to complain she didn't get the help she didn't want when it might have been useful.

FWIW, George Allen did a poor job in '04, too - with a strong recruiting effort, we might have had 60 seats in this Senate.

Jim, you did not answer my question (though I appreciate your additional information)

What could/should Dole have DONE? I remember the list of 'dream candidates' but how does Liddy Dole convince Capito in WV, Hoeven in ND, Douglas in VT, Rossi in WA, to run? How?

And how does she keep Harris from running in FL?

That was my question.

Look, it is a coach's job to win games too. But it is easy scapegoating to blame all the team's woes on the coach. Frankly, a coach has more control over a team than Liddy Dole has over the freewill political aspirations of human beings.