Moe Lane

And Harry Reid thinks that he himself is scared. For good reason: when you’re in good shape, you don’t talk like this.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid lashed out at Republicans as the “anti-immigrant party” in an interview aired Sunday on Univision.

[snip]

Talking with the “Al Punto” program, the Nevada Democrat refused to tell host Jorge Ramos whether he would first bring an energy or an immigration bill to the floor.

“Both of those issues, we need a Republican,” Reid said.

At times testy, he avoided taking any responsibility for his failure to move either piece of legislation.

(Via The DC Caller) As an intimation of DOOM this article is most excellent.  You got your bluster, you got your lies**, you got your defensiveness – and, best of all, you got your Politico writing up this entire exercise in would-be pandering with a skeptical air.  The truth is of course that the Democrats have the votes to pass anything that they please… but they’re scared of the popular reaction to an immigration bill that shows the same lack of engagement that the GOP that the health care fiasco had.  Unfortunately – for Reid – a bill that would be good for Democrats will be downright awful for him, seeing as he’s trying to do the aforementioned pandering.  Of course, if he cared about others more than for his own hide, he wouldn’t be trying to wound his own party in order to keep himself in office for just six more years…

Moe Lane (more…)

Oops.

And so (I suspect) ends the sad, vaguely sordid, and rather bizarre tale of Scott Ashjian. You should have vetted your spoiler candidate better, Harry:

A Nevada asphalt contractor who faces a legal challenge to his Tea Party of Nevada candidacy for U.S. Senate was hit Friday with felony theft and bad check charges in Las Vegas that allege he bounced a $5,000 business check last year.

Scott Ashjian is one of a record 22 candidates, including 12 Republicans, running for the seat held by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is seeking a fifth term.

Bernie Zadrowski, head of the Clark County district attorney’s office bad check unit, said he would seek an arrest warrant Monday in Las Vegas Justice Court. Ashjian could face up to 14 years in state prison if convicted.

Via Hot Air Headlines. The actual Tea Party folks have already been pretty adamant about pointing out that they don’t know this guy, but there’s nothing like a bad-check felony arrest to torpedo an election bid.  Which means that the major Republican candidates can get back to the happy task of determining who is the most conservative of all (and thus worthy of the honor of beating Harry Reid like a drum), and that Harry Reid can get back to creating the tradition that Democratic Senate Majority Leaders always end their terms by losing a re-election bid…

Moe Lane

PS: Of course, there’s always the possibility that the Ashjian thing was really a convoluted cry for help on Reid’s part.  You know, a subconscious wish to fail or something like that.  It’d explain the lack of vetting, at least.

Crossposted to RedState.

I have a list. Lists, really.

Via Hot Air Headlines comes your feel-good news of the morning:

During his whirlwind visit to Las Vegas two weeks ago, President Barack Obama mentioned U.S. Sen. Harry Reid by name four dozen times, gave him a big hug and talked him up as if he was a long-lost brother.

[snip]

A larger percentage of voters surveyed (17 percent) said they would be less likely to vote for Reid following the president’s visit than said they would be more likely to vote for him (7 percent). Seventy-five percent said Obama’s visit would have no effect on how they vote.

The administration is claiming – now – that the President wasn’t in Nevada to stump for Reid (he certainly wasn’t there to apologize to Nevadans for slamming Las Vegas again), mostly because the administration has far too many people in it who discount the average intelligence of the average American voter.  Meanwhile, they found a political science guy* willing to claim that this isn’t as bad as it looks, because it’s only likely voters that got surveyed, and the President was trying to shore up Reid’s support among registered voters.

No, really.

At any rate, if President Obama feels up to it I’d personally like him to extend his tour.  Could he actively support and stump for every Democrat on this, this, and this list?  Particularly the ones particularly at-risk.  That’d be a help, thanks.

Moe Lane
(more…)

Allahpundit’s worried and Jim Geraghty’s… not… over this report that a fake “Tea Party” candidate (I’m not going to pretend that Ashjian’s anything but that, sorry) could win the election in Nevada for Harry Reid (who has a 58% disapproval rating in the poll from said article).  The scenarios involve a 9% to 11% showing for said third-party candidate, when put up against Lowden and/or Tarkanian…

Why, yes.  That is precisely the path of victory that the polls showed in NJ last year when they showed Christie losing.  Ask former Governor Corzine how well Daggett’s eventual numbers worked out for him.  And no, individual third-party candidates typically don’t take 10% of the vote in Nevada.  In fact, collectively third-party candidates don’t take 10% of the vote, either.  Usually, they’re lucky to break 6%.

In other words: if this is the Democrats’ strategy, then I might as well start in on declaring DOOM for them now and save time.

Moe Lane

PS: It’s way too soon for DOOM, of course.

He had a fundraiser in New Orleans that he rather badly needed to do, and never mind the rhetoric on how important it is to pass health care rationing.

The GOP mocked him, as was only fitting. The GOP is, in fact, using it as local campaign fodder; and so Senator Reid doesn’t get to go to New Orleans.  He’s quite upset about it, too*: it’s unclear to whether it’s from being done unto as he has done, or simply because Reid needs all the help that he can get.

Moe Lane

*I don’t know: is he about to cry?  I think that Reid looks likes he’s about to cry.

Crossposted to RedState.

(via @BrianFaughnan) I don’t actually have an opinion on whether Porter should, or whether he can jump back in at this point: but the fact that he’s seriously considering trying for the Republican nomination again says volumes about how weak Senator Reid is right now.  You’d think that a former boxer and (current) Senate Majority Leader wouldn’t have had such a glass jaw…

Crossposted to RedState.

I don’t have a subscription, so I can’t give their reasoning precisely why – but I understand it has something to do with the fact that Reid now trails a ham sandwich in the polls.

You know,iIt’d be funny if somebody lost their race next year because the DSCC had to give Reid money to help his campaign out.  It’d be funnier if Reid lost his race next year because the DSCC didn’t give him any money to help his campaign out.  It’d be funniest of all if both things happened.

Crossposted to RedState.

Admittedly, attempting to do so has been done so many times in this country…

…that someone surveying the situation might be forgiven in thinking that it’s implicitly permitted: but no, we don’t actually want election fraud to happen. When it does – like it did in Pennsylvania – and we can catch them at it, we put the people who did it on trial.

And then, apparently, we have the ACLU wander in and pick the wrong side to defend (via No Sheeples Here).  They’ve decided that paying people to commit election fraud is constitutional:

PITTSBURGH — The community organizing and voter registration group Acorn filed a federal lawsuit here Wednesday claiming that a state statute that is being used to prosecute some of its former employees is unconstitutional.

[snip]

Acorn hopes the lawsuit will prevent criminal prosecution of its local leaders and office, which have been under investigation by Mr. Zappala’s office for eight months, said Witold Walczak, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, which is representing Acorn.

See also the American Spectator, which in another article notes the real estate links between the NYT and ACORN.  Just in case anyone was wondering why the sympathetic tone.

(more…)

Admittedly, Ensign’s taken one heck of a drop, but he’s still at least more liked than disliked.

Favorable / Unfavorable
Sen. Ensign (R): 39 / 37 (May 12-14: 53 / 18)
Sen. Reid (D): 34 / 46

Job Approval/Disapproval
Reid: 43 / 55
Ensign: 48 / 45

Jim Geraghty thinks that Reid should try having an affair; I will not be cruel and write the first three things that come to mind*. I will however, note that the Presidential numbers:

Favorable / Unfavorable
Pres. Obama: 49 / 32
Job Approval/Disapproval
Obama: 47% Excellent/Good, 50% Fair/Poor

…seem a bit weak for somebody who won Nevada 55/43.

Moe Lane

*But not the fourth: “Nobody needs shoes that bad.”

Crossposted to RedState.

So.  Back in February the President went to Elkhart, Indiana and made a speech where, as Deceiver.com helpfully reminds us, he included this part:

You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers’ dime. There’s got to be some accountability and some responsibility, and that’s something that I intend to impose as president of the United States.

Earlier this week, the President took a trip to Las Vegas on the taxpayers’ dime.  His privilege.  He went there to raise money for the wildly unpopular Senator Harry Reid.  Likewise, his privilege. He did this even though the current Governor is quite upset at the President for helping to lose his state about 131 million in revenue so far this year – and upset from afar, because the President didn’t meet with either him or the (Democratic) mayor of Las Vegas.  Once again, the President’s privilege – hey, do you know the etymology of the word ‘privilege?’

It’s Latin: it means ‘private law.’

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

The Online Left have the Senate Majority Leader that they deserve.

(Via AoSHQ): In 1988, I was a Democrat. I came from a long line of Democrats; we were a good union household, the old blue-collar generation pushing the new generation into white collar. When it came to political heroes, it was FDR, Truman, JFK all the way: my parents voted for Carter, and grumbled about Reagan throughout his term. 1988 was my first election, and I went right down to the polling place and proudly voted for Dukakis/Bentsen. In short, I was a Democratic voter in a Democratic family in a Democratic state in a Democratic region who voted for two Democrats.

And if my Democratic parents had ever caught me calling a Republican First Lady crude names, even by implication, I would have gotten whacked on the ear*.

Speaking Bluntly
Mark Hemingway

[snip]

Three pages in, after lamely trying to establish his bipartisan bona fides by talking up George H. W. Bush, Reid shares this charming anecdote about his early days in the Senate: “[Former Texas senator and vice-presidential candidate Lloyd] Bentsen went on and on effusively about what a quality man President-elect [H. W.] Bush was. Then he paused and said, ‘But watch out for his wife; she’s a b[*]tch.’ I have never had anything against Mrs. Bush, but guided by Bentsen’s crude advice, I’ve always said that our forty-third president is more his mother than his dad.”

Which I guess makes me different from Harry Reid.

Thank God.

Moe Lane

*In fact, my mom would probably still do it. And I’d sit there and take it, too. That’s because I was raised to respect women.

Crossposted to RedState.

Somewhere in Nevada, a Republican has just decided to run for Senator. We do not know his or her name, but whoever it is, he or she worries Senator Harry Reid right now:

CARSON CITY — Nearly half of Nevadans have had enough of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as the powerful Democrat heads into his re-election campaign, a new Las Vegas Review-Journal poll finds.

About a third of the state’s voters would re-elect Reid if the 2010 election were held today, according to the poll, but 45 percent say they would definitely vote to replace him. Seventeen percent would consider another candidate.

The findings are echoed by another poll question about Reid’s popularity that finds the four-term incumbent to be a polarizing figure in his home state.

Half of Nevada voters had an unfavorable view of Reid, while 38 percent had a favorable view and 11 percent a neutral opinion.

More via Chris Cillizza, who is actually going to some trouble to shoot down the most likely objections to this poll.

The article goes on to quote Reid’s campaign manager as saying “The only poll that really matters is on Election Day.” This common sentence in Politician translates to “we’re doomed, but we’re not going to give you the satisfaction of seeing us wince,” and is one of the reasons why there’ll probably be a serious challenger or challengers by this time next week. Getting below 50% favorable is a sign of alarm for a politician; having a 50% unfavorable rating is a harbinger of upcoming disaster. He can still win, but there won’t be a repeat of 2004′s easy win for him. Put another way, the Democrats don’t want to have to fight for that particular seat, but at this point they don’t have a choice…

Crossposted at RedState.