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Harry Reid Wins in Nevada, Denying Tea Party the Midterms' Biggest Prize

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LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has a long history of eleventh-hour victories, pulled off one more Tuesday, defying polls and denying the tea party movement its most coveted prize.

"Tonight Nevada chose hope over fear," the 70-year-old Democrat said after strolling gleefully onto the stage at Aria Resort-Casino arm-in-arm with his wife, Landra, wearing a Cheshire grin. "Tonight, Nevada chose to go forward, not backwards."

After he finished his five-minute address, a booming cannon shot confetti that was blue and silver, the state's colors, some upbeat relief for Democrats here and across the nation after a bruising Election Night that saw the Republicans takeover the House and loosen the Democratic grip on the Senate.


Reid, whose approval ratings hovered below 40 percent and whose state is mired in the nation's worst economy, nonetheless won a fifth term by several points over Republican Sharron Angle, whom he did not mention by name in his speech. Angle, for her part, conceded shortly after midnight with a religion-soaked address in which she repeatedly thanked God for her life and her nation.

"Harry Reid carries the Constitution in his pocket, well we're going to hold him to that Constitution," said the 61-year-old former teacher and four-term assemblyman.

The race was one that many had cast as the purest proxy battle between President Barack Obama and the tea party, yet Reid succeeded in making it a contest between his considerable power in Washington D.C. and small-government advocate Sharron Angle's "extreme" positions on issues ranging from Social Security, abortion, immigration and economics.

"He couldn't improve his positives, so he had to defeat his opponent by lining up every establishment interest possible and saying, 'I've been here a long time; you don't like me, but look at the crazy lady who's running against me," said David Damore, political science professor at University of Nevada at Las Vegas.

Reid led 50 percent to 45 percent, with about 80 percent of the vote counted, winning big in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas and represents 66 percent of the state's registered voters. Every major opinion poll in the waning days of the election showed Angle ahead, albeit within the margin of error. Nevada's premier pundit, Jon Ralston, waded against that tide, insisting on Sunday that the polling was flawed and Reid would win. Many national observers were baffled at the prediction.
At the Venetian Resort-Casino, more than 1,000 Republicans gathered hoping to celebrate an Angle victory. Groans and boos percolated in the crowd as the first rush of data showed Reid with a sizable lead, but partisans cheered up as news that Republican Brian Sandoval was far ahead of Harry Reid's son Rory Reid in the race for Nevada governor.

Sandoval, in an unusual move, held his victory party 10 miles away, continuing his efforts throughout the race not to be seen with Angle.

Angle's defeat not only prevented a major Democratic embarrassment -- Reid's loss would have been the second consecutive unseating of a Senate Democratic Leader -- but also denied the tea party movement of bragging rights for winning a so-called "purple" state, one fairly evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans.Tea party favorites won in Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, also swing states, but Nevada was the prize that movement leaders hoped would show their national mainstream clout.

"If Harry Reid pulls this out, it is a blow to the tea party movement, absolutely," Judson Phillips, chairman of the Tea Party Nation, an umbrella group of 30,000 members, told AOL News this summer. "It will hurt the morale, but it's more than that. So much of politics is perception. Right now, the tea party is perceived rightly or wrongly as a kingmaker in politics. If the tea party fails to deliver in Nevada regardless of who is the nominee, there will be a perception that the tea party movement has run its course and its power is fading."

Earlier on Tuesday, Angle's campaign put out a missive predicting victory, crowing: "Sharron Angle was the one that Harry Reid wanted to face, but she was more than he bargained for." Yet she clearly forgot that Reid has made a lifetime habit of winning when all seemed lost. His history of tight elections led him years ago to dub himself "Landslide Harry," losing by 611 votes in his first run for Senate in 1974 and beating then-Rep. John Ensign by 428 votes in 1998 when he won his third term. When he returned to Washington after that race he became the Democratic whip, ascending to Democratic leader in 2004 after Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., lost his re-election bid.

The senator orchestrated a long list of political maneuvers -- ensuring the defeat of a three-term Republican congressman, getting a potential rival a federal judiciary appointment, possibly even having a hand in a specious, later dismissed, indictment of the sitting lieutenant governor -- to clear the field of well-known, popular opponents. Angle was, indeed, the "one Harry Reid wanted to face."

"More than a year ago, I was in Harry Reid's office in Washington and he told me his opponent was going to be Sharron Angle," said U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Las Vegas, who easily was re-elected Tuesday. "I walked out of his office thinking, 'Oh. My. God. This is the beginning of the end. The man has lost it.' She wasn't even registering. She wasn't even an official candidate!"

Damore attributed Reid's victory to those maneuvers, the brutal campaign to make Angle seem extreme and the fact that Reid brought the Democratic caucuses to Nevada in January 2008. That last one, amid the fierce Obama-Clinton primary race, excited Nevadans to register as Democrats to participate.

In nearly a quarter-century in the Senate, Reid has built a solid track record of legislative achievement for Nevada, including all-but-killing Yucca Mountain as a national nuclear waste repository; renegotiating the Colorado River water deal with California; and bringing home billions for an endless list of public works projects. But in a state with a population that has doubled since 1998, many voters lived elsewhere during his political rise and just know him as a craggy-faced, dour septuagenarian who aggressively carries legislative water for a currently unpopular president.

Hence, the effort to marginalize Angle. The constant TV and Internet ads referenced remarks she had made that she wanted to end Social Security and Medicare, that she believed rape victims should be required to have their babies and suggesting that if she lost, the people might be justified in using "Second Amendment remedies." That was widely interpreted as implying she believed someone ought to shoot Reid. She didn't help herself much by telling a group of high school students that she thought they looked Asian or by frequently being seen running away from reporters.

In a strange twist, even many voters who supported Angle, like Republican Mike McClain, 58, of Las Vegas, were uncomfortable with some of her views. He voted for he because "We have the worst unemployment, the worst home foreclosure rate, our economy sucks, and they're spending way too much money." But what about the views he didn't like?

"She'd be the lowest senator in the Senate. Nobody's going to even notice her,"

Hundreds of prominent Republicans endorsed Reid, fearful of losing his clout at a time when the state has a record 14.4 percent unemployment and the highest foreclosure rate in America. Among his GOP supporters were two former first ladies, the mayor of Reno, the Republican leader in the State Senate, entertainer Wayne Newton, baseball great Greg Maddux and a former Republican National Committee chairman who is now the chief lobbyist for the gaming industry.

Bigwigs in the gaming and mining industries in the state also lined up behind Reid. Angle, a fierce religious conservative who said she wouldn't take money from companies that provide health benefits to employees' same-sex partners, took little interest in seeking support from the two top industries but she tore into the state's largest employer, MGM Resorts, for relying on Reid to help secure bank loans that prevented the company from bankruptcy. One major company, Harrah's Entertainment, sent a memo to its employees urging them to vote for Reid.

"Suffice to say, it's a very strange situation that someone who wants to be a representative of the state of Nevada never reached out to the No. 1 industry and even actively attacked Sen. Reid for helping it," said Alan Feldman, spokesman for MGM Resorts International, the state's largest private employer. "I don't get that."

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mje1631

Well I don't understand it! and I am not even going to try. Sad just sad.....how could they!

November 03 2010 at 10:43 AM
rmholb

I'm conservative, but I'll tell you that Angle was her own worst enemy by flaunting her apparent dislike of the gaming "industry." Las Vegas is the life blood of Nevada. There was no way that she could win by ignoring that by outwardly relying on a different "mentality." It wasn't that Reid shouldn't have been "retired," but that a better Republican candidate should have run against him.

November 03 2010 at 10:42 AM
MFDIGITAL1

Reality Check ! The biggest prize of this midterm election is the nationwide generational shift accomplished by the republicans and tea partiers. The people have turned the ship and are heading back to center right control for a decade or more.

November 03 2010 at 10:41 AM
ettu

"Suffice to say, it's a very strange situation that someone who wants to be a representative of the state of Nevada never reached out to the No. 1 industry and even actively attacked Sen. Reid for helping it," said Alan Feldman, spokesman for MGM Resorts International.".............The idea here, Mr Feldman, is to stop pandering to special interests and start serving the American people. Apparently, the majority of voters in Nevada have lived so long under your thumb, they do not yet grasp the concept of open and honest government.

November 03 2010 at 10:41 AM
ebicious

People do what's familiar to them. They know they're going to get screwed by Reed and Boxer but it's familiar. They can count on it. They don't want to take a chance that someone might represent them more effectively because it's the unknown that scares them so bad.

November 03 2010 at 10:36 AM
jncstoafer

In either case, the stock market will go up a little.

November 03 2010 at 10:35 AM
ettu

All of a sudden Reid wants to "work together." If his idea of working together means the non-Liberals are going to be expected to brush under the rug all the down and dirty tactics that have been employed over the past 2 years, he is mistaken. The American people want the under the table and back door/closed door shenanigans exposed, prosecuted, and the perpetrators thrown out. Either clean your own houses, or the voters will do it for you. Hopefully, with the investigative powers now in the hands of a lot of new faces, we will get more "facts" out of DC, and the government will once again become accountable to the citizens of America, and not to the special interest groups.

November 03 2010 at 10:35 AM
streturned

Things are certainly crooked in West Virginia, but Raese bought way more votes than anyone else. He's been trying to win with his checkbook for years, but not even his pockets are deep enough to make West Virginians forget how nauseating he is. He doesn't really live in WV (I used to walk past his house every day, its an eerie ghost of a place). He only wants to be Senator for the sake of having the feather in his cap, he doesn't have any real political views beyond an insatiable hunger for power and prestige. Is Manching corrupt? Yes. Are West Virginia politics crooked? Yes. Did that have any impact on the WV Senate race? Not really, as Manchin was still the 'less' corrupt candidate and ran the 'less' crooked campaign.

November 03 2010 at 10:33 AM
CHABSENTIA

California is finished. The have a twenty billion dollar defict and twenty billion dollars of unfunded Pension liabilities for at least forty billion in deficits. Their proposed budget assumes five billion in Federal Aid. Read Bailout by the taxpayers. The people have stated that they dont want anymore bailouts. The Republicans that took over the House have agreed with them. Pelosi is gone. She cant hepl them. The voters in California keep electing the people who support the Unions.Its State Legislature and now its Governor support them . Fifty percent of its State revenue goes to suport the Public Sector. With no bailouts there will have to be some drastic changes or they will be a Third world Country.

November 03 2010 at 10:32 AM
Gary Astorino

I guess when you can have the Casinos like Harrah's busing employees to voting places and telling them how to vote and thave the machines giving only Harry Reid as the only option to vote for or have them pre checked I guess you do get a slight advantage in winning. Nevada is getting what they paid for. Unemployment should go even higher there.

November 03 2010 at 10:32 AM

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