24Liberty.com: 24 Races For Liberty, Part XVII: NV Senate Incumbent Harry Reid

Harry Reid is the Senior US Senator representing the great State of Nevada, and is seeking re-election to what would be his 5th term. If Reid is successful, he will be 77 years old at the completion of that term in office. Reid is the poster-child for “Career Politicians,” having had some role in Public Service for over 40 years.

Harry Reid has been on the wrong side of so many issues for so long that reviewing his voting record would be a waste of time and bandwidth; Harry Reid is, perhaps, the largest part of the problem with Washington DC these days, and if ever a politician needed to be put out to pasture it would be him. It was done with Tom Daschle, and it needs to be done again in the case of the current Senate Majority Leader.

Liberty.Com and Americans for New Leadership are sponsoring the Dump Reid project, and anyone wishing to donate to that effort is encouraged to go there and do so.

What is especially entertaining about this race to replace Reid is the number of DEMOCRATS who are seeking to oust him. Nevada’s June 8th Democrat primary resulted in Reid getting 75% of the vote, but more importantly in that race was that the runner up got 10%…and the runner up was “None of These Candidates” which is telling of the state of mind of folks in Nevada these days regarding Reid.

There were six Republicans looking to get the nod to face Reid in the General in November, and in a big surprise Tea Party-backed Sharron Angle held off the favored Sue Lowden by 14 points to take the night. Given where we are with this race, two weeks out, I am excited about the prospects for bouncing Reid out of office, so let’s take a closer look at the details of this race.

First, to DC Political Report’s list of polls which tells us that Angle is at least close…if not soundly ahead of Reid. That’s shocking when you consider she came from nowhere…and he’s been in that seat for over 20 years. And our old friends at CQ Politics (calling this a “Toss Up”) enlighten us:

As a leader of the party in power, in a down year for Democrats, and in a state with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, Reid is in trouble.

The Majority Leader has to be concerned that a flawed and underfunded Republican candidate can still be running even with him in the polls with just a month to go.

While Reid’s numbers have improved over the last few months, he’s been unable to shake former state Assemblywoman Sharron Angle.

The Reid campaign has been on the air for months with negative ad after negative ad portraying Angle as far too extreme for the state. One even went beyond “extreme” and referred to Angle as “dangerous.”

He’s received countless endorsements from Republicans, and Angle has gotten a treasure trove of unfavorable press coverage. Yet most polling has shown Reid in the mid-40s and Angle within the margin of error. Going into Election Day, that is not a good place for the four-term incumbent to be.

I’d offer that “not a good place to be” is in the eye of the beholder…but I digress.

The WaPo Senate race map (which, by the way, has this one listed as a “Race to Watch”) indicates Reid is well ahead of Angle in dollars…though she pulled in a whopping $14 MILLION in the 3rd quarter which likely brings her much closer to Reid in the final days…yet our Wiki Senate race page indicates this race is a pure “Tossup” across the board.

Angle just might pull this one off. If debates are any indicator, as our own Ron Futtrell reported recently, Reid is on his heels here:

Last night Reid with his 24 years of experience in the US Senate squared off against his Republican challenger Sharron Angle. Reid looked dazed and confused at times, Angle, a relative political novice and grandmother looked confident and poised. Reid would never look at Angle—except for at their introduction, not once that I saw did he look over to even give a glance to his opponent. She addressed Reid, looked at him often and told him exactly what she thought and what the people of Nevada thought. Like the debate of 50 years ago, if you watched it on TV I’m sure you got one impression, for the few who may have listened here on radio in Nevada you may have gotten another impression. Either way, Sharron was impressive.

Reid couldn’t get out of the way of his own notes. Referring to them often and losing his place in the papers. Sharron spoke from her heart.

As for the substance, the two could not be more clearly divided. Angle made it clear that this is a battle between larger, more intrusive government and smaller government dedicated to liberty for the people. At times she got specific and direct. “Man up Harry Reid, we have a problem with Social Security,” quipped Angle at one point. Reid played the typically evasive lifelong politician who could not defend his foolish comments of the past, like, “this war is lost,” when talking about a pre-surge Iraq while soldiers were still fighting and dying in the battlefield.

Angle is right; this is a battle between larger, more intrusive government and smaller government dedicated to liberty for the people…and Reid is losing that battle…and come November 3, he just might find himself making plans for a new gig come January 2011.

As always, Angle’s DONATE page should be your next stop; this one’s gonna come down to the wire, and she’ll need all the help we can muster to get her across the finish line before Reid.

If ever there was a time to say again, loud and clear, that every vote counts…this is certainly it…not the least of which will be on November 2, 2010 when all the votes are cast to send Reid off to his long-overdue retirement back home in Searchlight…

[Note: This article originates at Liberty.Com]