HarrisWatch: Aide, Zen Riddler, Quits CampaignRhyan Metzler, the Harris campaign aide who reported a fallen tree despite no one else having heard or seen it come down, left soon after questions were raised about the incident.
The backstory: on Thursday, Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL) held a rally for her struggling Senate campaign in an airport hangar — a building which dwarfed the meager 40-person crowd that showed up.
When asked why about the rally’s size, “Harris blamed the paltry turnout . . . on a last-minute location change caused by a falling tree,” the Palm Beach Post reported.
Reporters checked with the airport and were told there had been no reports of any trees falling there.
When the inconsistency was noted to the Harris campaign, spokeswoman Jennifer Marks blamed Metzler, the political director, for telling Harris the tree story.
When the Post reached Metzler by phone, “He said the tree incident was ‘not necessarily’ the reason for his quitting. He hung up when asked for further reasons,” the paper reported.
