ALLAHASSEE - Surely Katherine Harris never dreamed that becoming Florida secretary of state would involve all this.
When she assumed the official title in January 1999, Harris embarked on an international tour to promote trade with the state of Florida, traveling to Rio de Janeiro and Barbados on relationship-building missions. One newspaper dubbed her ''a Florida version of Madeleine Albright.''
The granddaughter of the late Florida citrus baron Ben Hill Griffin, as well as a multimillionaire in her own right, she also was the talk of Republican circles. Some viewed her as a potential US Senate candidate, while others pegged her for an ambassadorship in a Bush administration, given her ties to Florida Governor Jeb Bush and her co-chairmanship of George W. Bush's presidential campaign committee in the state.
Now, just two years after being elected, Harris is at the center of a crisis that boils down to the nitty-gritty of her job. She is overseeing a recount of Florida's disputed presidential election, a task that requires a close command of the elections process even as her office is being phased out of existence through a recent change in the state constitution.
No longer is she putting on the state's sunshine face; today she remains virtually barricaded in her Capitol office, the one next door to the governor's. She arrives and departs via an underground garage, and until yesterday hadn't made a public statement since a news conference last Thursday that was widely derided as uninformative.
Democrats, including former US secretary of state Warren M. Christopher, allege that she is biased, especially in the aftermath of her announcement yesterday that she was going to adhere to a deadline of 5 p.m. today to certify all of Florida's ballots. Several counties are engaged in hand recounts that could take a week or more, an exercise that would be futile if a judge does not overturn Harris's ruling. A ruling on that is expected today.
''I wouldn't want to characterize the move, but she is a longstanding supporter of Governor Bush. I think this has to be taken in that context,'' Christopher said.
Gore spokesman Chris Lehane was less polite, calling the decision a ''blatantly political, partisan act designed to frustrate the will of the people.... She is obviously a close political ally of the Bush campaign, a crony of Jeb Bush, and she seems to be acting as a lackey for the Bush campaign.''
Florida Republicans view Harris and her actions very differently.
''She is a Republican, but she is not overly partisan,'' said Tom Slade, a former state senator and former chairman of the state Republican Party.
Marc Dunbar, a Tallahassee lawyer who worked for Harris's predecessor as secretary of state, said, ''You don't get elected statewide in Florida by just being a pretty face. She's very thorough and conscientious in her decision-making. Her staff and advisers are not built off the Bush family. They go back to her family's political past, which predates Jeb Bush being in office.''
Aides know her as someone who checks e-mail at midnight and regularly works until 3 a.m.
A fourth-generation Floridian, Harris, 43, comes from a political family, but politics wasn't the first thing in her life.
The daughter of George Harris, president of the Citrus and Chemical Bank in Lakeland, Fla., and a former state legislator, she received a bachelor's degree from Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Ga., before receiving a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University in 1998.
Harris, who is married to Anders Ebbeson, who runs a Swedish company that makes equipment for recreational vehicles and yachts, was a marketing executive with IBM before launching a real estate career in Sarasota, on Florida's Gulf Coast. Her net worth is now estimated at $6 million. In 1994, she was elected to the state Senate, where she served until 1998 before beating the incumbent Republican secretary of state, Sandra Mortham.
It was in that role that Harris became a world traveler. Local news reports say she has spent over $100,000 on her travels since taking office. She has been as far as Sydney, Australia, to set up a state pavilion for the Summer Olympics. A report last month in the St. Petersburg Times noted that she billed the state for a $485-per-night hotel room in Manhattan.
Aides defended the spending, saying Harris often shared a room with an aide and used expensive hotels for amenities such as fax service or access to conference rooms.
Earlier this year, she displayed her support for George Bush by assisting with his state campaign effort. She also traveled to New Hampshire with 140 Floridians, hand-delivering Florida oranges and strawberries to primary voters there. She also served as a Bush delegate at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia.
Just last month, she endured criticism after her office spent $30,000 making a get-out-the-vote commercial featuring retired General Norman M. Schwarzkopf, a Floridian and prominent Bush supporter. Aides defended the commercial, pointing to Schwarzkopf's celebrity as a Persian Gulf War hero.
While Harris did not run to replace US Senator Connie Mack, several political analysts expect her to run for state agricultural commissioner in 2002 - if another opportunity doesn't present itself first.
Johnson reported from Tallahassee, Kornblut from Austin, Texas.
