Reid Remains Positive Despite Polls
By Raymond Pratt
www.beatreid.com
Thursday April 15, 2010
Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) has been using some special creative math recently to predict the outcome of this year’s mid-term election. By factoring in Nevada’s elusive, election-spoiling voter option NOTA (which stands for “None Of The Above”), Harry stated on Monday that if the election were to be held then, he would win. In Nevada, Harry Reid’s home state, voters can enter “None of the Above” on ballots where they don’t wish to vote for any other candidate. Nevada is the only state that allows this option. Back in 1998, Harry Reid beat John Ensign by a scant 1/10th of 1 percent (47.9%-47.8%), with the NOTA option coming in third at 1.8 percent.
Despite the fact that the influence of NOTA would most likely affect both parties equally, Reid remains confident. Last week, when Reid formally announced his re-election campaign, he told a Nevada Newspaper “If the election were held today, I’d win. Do the math.” It’s possible that Reid’s special math is based more on theoretical quantities than real numbers.
The greatest threat against Reid, according to recent polls, is former Nevada State Senator Sue Lowden, who is currently 8 points ahead of the Senate Majority Leader. But Reid may be banking on another potential spoiler, Jon Scott Ashjian, the candidate of Nevada’s newly-created official Tea Party. Ashjian would be a volatile and risky candidate for the Republican party, for sure, but he may not be around to run in November. Mainly because he is facing felony charges for writing bad checks and might just wind up being a ward of the state at election time.
With Scott Ashjian out of the picture, Reid is left facing Lowden along with Danny Tarkanian. With Ashjian in the mix, Reid and Tarkanian tie at 39-39, according to a Las Vegas review Journal poll. But Ashijan’s absence gives Tarkanian a sizable bump. Additionally, although not included in the review Journal poll, Reid is also behind former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle, who according the most recent Rasmussen Reports is ahead of Reid by 11 points.
Harry Reid is undoubtedly very powerful in Washington despite his unpopularity at home in Nevada. The Las Vegas Sun called it a “political paradox,” and it became widely apparent during a 13-city tour of Nevada designed to initiate Harry Reid’s bid for re-election. According to the Sun,
When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s campaign tour stopped at a Minden coffee shop last week, he met rancher Nancy Park, who leaned toward him and said: “I respectfully disagree with what you’re doing for Nevada.”
At a Fernley pizza parlor, Robert Diffenderfer, 73, a veteran and biker, simply refused to shake the senator’s extended hand.
According to the Sun, the Reid caravan encountered protestors at numerous locations along its travels. One protestor’s sign referred to Harry Reid’s campaign as the “Throw Nevada Under The Bus Tour.”
Senator Reid is suffering from the same fate that has plagued a number of powerful politicians in Washington. The minority leadership roll he attained after Tom Daschle was voted out of office in 2004, and then the subsequent majority leadership in 2005, marked a distinct decline in Reid’s popularity. Reid has tried to maintain the image of a local boy who still comes home to Searchlight to kick the rocks around and grab a cup of coffee at the local café. But while Nevada suffers from the scourge of 10 percent unemployment and bares the brunt of the recession, Reid lives it up in Washington at the Ritz-Carlton.
And despite being in the position to do great things for the state, Nevada ranks 50th in the union per-capita in the money it received from Washington. The Reid camp states that this is because the state government is required to match many of the funds that come from the federal government in order to receive them. Because they are simply too cheap to do so, the money remains in Washington.
Harry Reid has never been more vulnerable than he is today. If he really wishes to kick back and take in bucolic Nevada vistas and sip coffee in Searchlight cafes, why not give him a permanent vacation? Vote Reid out of office in this year’s mid-term election. Together we can, and will beat Reid.
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