Wednesday, October 27, 2010

The Last Days of Harry Reid

Harry Reid appears finished. Wishful thinking? Not really. Harry has become deeply unpopular in Nevada. His approval numbers hover around 41%, and 76% think his policies either will not help the state or will actively hurt it. What’s more, early voting has been much heavier in Republican areas than Democratic areas, something unusual. Even his campaign people admit (off the record) that Harry has “maxed out” at 47% in the polls, whereas Angle keeps crossing the 50% line. It’s possible Harry can still turn this around, but it’s looking less and less likely. How did Harry come to this?

Harry began the election season hovering around 41% in the polls against whoever the Republican challenger would be. Then the Republicans chose a wild-card, Sharon Angle, a woman who often said things that were easily characterized to a half-awake electorate as bizarre or crazy. Harry played this up by running a vile smear campaign against Angle, in which he described her as “crazy,” “nuts,” and “an extremist.” He also encouraged the media to dig into everything about her that they could, which they happily did -- fixating on her every word, on her political background, and even on her hair.

While this was going on, Harry’s campaign smartly kept Harry out of sight. That let his approval rating rise and Angle’s fall to the point that they were even around 47%. Harry’s party even set up a fake Tea Party candidate to siphon off Angle’s vote.

But Harry was stuck at 47%, and that meant he needed to campaign. In other words, waiting for Angle to destruct was not going to work, Harry had to make a case for why people should vote for him. That’s when things started to go wrong; indeed, according to a Democratic insider, Harry “underwhelmed.”

First, Harry came across as gray and lawyerly, a deadly combination in politics. Secondly, he was gaffe prone, almost in Biden’s league:

• On tourists: “you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol.”

• Describing Barack Obama as being “a light-skinned African-American with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

• Calling Delaware Senate Candidate Chris Coons “my pet.”

• On Hispanics: “I don’t know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican.”

• Describing town-hall participants who were opposed to health care reform as “evil-mongers who use lies, innuendo and rumors.”

• On the economy: “Only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good.”

• On the effects of Ted Kennedy’s death on health care reform: “I think it’s going to help us.”

• On the Iraq war (in 2007): “This war is lost.”

• To the Las Vegas Review-Journal: “I hope you go out of business.”

• Describing the recently deceased Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd as the greatest living Americans he could name.
Harry also claimed that he has been running the government, before he backtracked and admitted that he was only helping. He also informed us that he saved the world from a depression:
“People have been hurting. And I understand that. And it doesn't give them comfort or solace for me to tell them, you know, but for me, we'd be in a worldwide depression.”
Third, everything he did started to haunt him. For example, Harry suddenly found himself defending his decision to stay at the Ritz Carlton on the campaign’s dime when his home was only a short distance away. It didn’t help that the Ritz was a campaign contributor. Harry is now trying to explain why one of his aides tried to cover up an illegal seven-year sham marriage to a Lebanese national who was the subject of an Oklahoma City Joint Terror Task Force investigation. Harry has spent days defending his manhood in response to Angle’s suggestion that he “man up” on the issue of Social Security:
"People in Nevada know me from the street to the ring to the Senate chambers. I've never had to prove my manhood to anyone."
That’s sad. Harry even looked foolish when he held a rally with President Obama at a Las Vegas middle school, because all of Obama’s other rallies had been at colleges. . . the implication being that Harry couldn’t fill any venue larger than a middle school auditorium.

But what really killed Harry was his debate with Angle. Harry worked so hard for months to make Angle sound like a lunatic that people expected her to completely bomb in the debate. In fact, he raised her failure expectations so high that anything short of a total meltdown would probably have seemed like a win. Sadly for Harry, she sounded calm, reasonable, and knowledgeable, and that made Harry’s entire campaign up to that point sound like the slur it was.

And like that, she added 3% to her support. . . and growing.

So when Harry returns to whence he came, probably K Street, he should consider that maybe it wasn’t a good idea to paint Angle as a violent, drooling lunatic. But that’s just the tip of this iceberg. Maybe Harry should ask himself how he lost touch with the public? Maybe, living in a lobbyist-fueled cash bubble for so long made him forget that real people don’t like having the government run their health care, don’t like making 15 million illegals into voters to help Democrats, don’t like thuggish unions, don’t like cowards and defeatists running America’s wars, don’t like politicians bribing different parts of the electorate, and don’t like politicians spending this country into bankruptcy to save their banker friends from their own mistakes.

Maybe in his forced-retirement, Harry will finally see the light? Step into the light Harry.


**** Don't forget to pass around the Election Guide to remind people why they need to vote the Democrats out!****


56 comments:

T_Rav said...

I think Reid will probably be out a week from today, too, but let's not count our chickens just yet. As events yesterday proved, never underestimate the Democrats' ability to tamper with voting machines and bring in ballots filled in by dead people in alphabetical voter. They can always count on that vote.

By the way, any predictions for what will happen on Election Night?

StanH said...

I think one of Angle’s best zingers was when she asked to paraphrase, “On a public servants salary how did you become one of the richest men in the senate?” Of coarse Harry deflected the question by saying, that’s a low blow, and everybody knows I was a successful attorney before I went into public service. Rush did a quick overview on his show and found he practiced for two years as a newbie attorney. Pretty unbelievable huh? It looks today as if he’ll lose, it’s crap like this that will finish him off. I’d still like to know how he became so rich, I can guess.

AndrewPrice said...

T-Rav, I agree that we shouldn't count our chickens, but this seems to be where it's headed. Plus, an article that said: "Let's wait until the election" wouldn't be very interesting! ;-)

Yeah, this voter fraud thing is getting ridiculous. Someone needs to start prosecuting these people. They are destroying the credibility of our entire election system.

Predictions? Hmmm. I'm thinking 70+ House seats and just short of a majority in the Senate. You?

AndrewPrice said...

Stan, I thought that was great too. She really got him a couple times and you could tell that he had no idea how to handle it. She really has shown him up repeatedly. And his defensiveness can't be attractive to voters.

What I think is key evidence here is that the media is actually "looking into" things that they've ignored for years about Reid. That's usually a sign that a leftist is finished.

Pittsburgh Enigma said...

It will be so satisfying to see Harry Reid go down (if it happens.) And it's amazing just how many potential "message sending" races are out there: Obama's Senate seat, Barney Frank, John Dingell (longest serving member of the House), and even the surging Tom Trancredo (Colorado having been turned so blue in recent years that it was used as the blueprint for how to transform other red states to blue states.) I hope most or all of these races go the right way. :-)

AndrewPrice said...

Pitts, I couldn't agree more! Nice use of the word "right"!

I would love to see Harry Reid go down -- that would be the biggest signal of the entire election. But you're right, there are a lot of message races and it would be great if those all went our way.

It's really surprising that Tancredo may win this thing. With two Republicans running against the Democrat, it seemed unlikely. But it looks like Maes is collapsing completely. So we'll see. I'm hopeful.

And I'm hopeful Colorado goes back to red. When I grew up out here, it was red to the core, but that changed when someone pulled the fire alarm in California. All bad things come from California.

On the minus side, I see that Sestak is catching up to Toomey. Any idea how that will turn out?

Joel Farnham said...

Andrew,

Hopefully this time next week, we will be saying, "Good bye, Harry. I wouldn't say it's been a pleasure. Oh, we need the key to the Senate washroom."

Tennessee Jed said...

I am with T-Rav on the voter fraud. I honestly believe Angle would beat him, but don't know about the fraud. Our side seems to always lose on these things going all the way back to Kennedy/Nixon and more recently in Oregon and Minnesota. All I can do is hope The tea partyers can get enough boots on the ground and outlests like Breitbart can raise enough stink that, for once, they don't get away with election stealing. And don't forget how close the gluttonous, jowly, illegal fundraising, publicity hogging, ass pinching, pig of a man, Al Gore, came to stealing the presidency in 2000.

We are dealing with Chicago style thugs in the great Alinsky/Stalin tradition here.

Notawonk said...

the outright thieving/buying of votes, the seiu being in charge of the machines and all sense of libbie cheating has me nervous. may god's hand not be shortened in this election.

AndrewPrice said...

Joel, That would be great! So sorry Harry, don't let the door hit your Pelosi on the way out...

By the way, I'm planning our election coverage right now. If you have any suggestions, feel free to leave them here as a comment.


Also, don't you sleep? Last I saw, you were leaving comments at almost 4:00 am EST! You should win a "dedicated commenter" award! :-)

AndrewPrice said...

Jed, I agree. I'm disgusted with the level of obvious voter fraud that is being revealed these days and the fact that no one is doing anything about it. A lot of these people, from ACORN to SEIU to dozens of Democratic officials all should be rotting in jail right now.

I agree about Gore, that was a total attempt to steal the election and you saw it with them only doing recounts in Democratic areas and with the Democratic officials picking and choosing what they would add to the vote count. It was the same thing in Minnesota where they just kept finding ballots until they had enough to hand the race to that comedian.

That said, I am getting the feeling that this election swing will be big enough that Harry won't be able to cheat enough. But we'll see. We won't know that until next week.

AndrewPrice said...

Pitts, I have to retract what I just said -- it looks like Toomey is ahead by 7 points!!! Excellent. Now it's a good day!

AndrewPrice said...

Patti, I agree. It makes me nervous and it makes me angry. This is America and we are not supposed to allow voter fraud, and the left is making a mockery of that.

It's time for election reform -- it's time to take this out of the hands of the corrupt and to arrest those who commit voter fraud!

Pittsburgh Enigma said...

Andrew: On the Toomey/Sestak race, polls have definitely tightened, but those few polls that showed Sestak ahead have mostly been discredited. According to Jim Demint's Senate Conservatives Fund, the allocation of funds to Toomey's campaign is only slightly higher than expected winners Marco Rubio and Mike Lee. You can see what the allocations are by entering an amount (say $100) into the "Easy" box and pressing the "Easy" button. Since Demint does not have Toomey high on the donation priority list, I would assume that their internal polls are showing that he's not in much trouble.

On a lighter note, speaking of Sestak, does the word "Sleestak" come to mind for anyone else? "Sleestak" were the ugly prehistoric reptilian humanoids that were in the old Saturday morning kid's show "Land of the Lost." (Google "sleestak" to see pictures of this.) Joe Sleestak. Or maybe, Joe Sleazestak.

Unknown said...

Andrew: There are so many reprehensible leftist insider Democrats running this time, it's hard to single out the one or two to focus on. But I think your choice of Reid is probably at the top somewhere. He's the prototypical arthritic, crypto-socialist, getting rich on a Senator's salary, inertia-keeps-me-here kind of pol who derserves to be booted out of his comfortable palace.

AndrewPrice said...

Pitts, Hilarious! Actually, what comes to mind when I hear "Sestak" is "sh~t sack" or "sh!t stack." :-)

Good catch on the DeMint funding evidence, because you're right that his funding decisions will be based on internal polls (which are much more accurate). That's why I suspect all the Democratic whining (see yesterday's article) is so significant -- because I think they're reacting to internal polls that show things are much worse than they think.

Right after I wrote the thing about Sestak and Toomey being even, I saw that Rassmussen has Toomey with a 7% lead -- then I realized that the poll that had them even was one of the PPP polls that always favor the Democrat no matter how badly they need to fake their data.

BevfromNYC said...

It was reported widely that Joy Behar of "The View" famed went off on Angle yesterday. Called her a b***h repeatedly and damned her to hell. Though I am not quite sure how damning someone to hell works when you are an atheist. But anyway, it probably put 1/2 point on Angle's lead.

Gee, if this is the level of sanity and civility we can expect, I can't wait for the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert Return to Sanity rally this weekend in DC to see how many MORE points we can add!

BevfromNYC said...

Oh, and on HuffPo it has only been in the last day that they have even bothered to publish their poll watch for the House. They've had the Senate and Governor poll statistics for weeks. And even at that their House averages that they are using are much more even than any polls I have seen anywhere. HuffPo has 213 (Rep) to 197 (Dems). I haven't seen that on ANY polls I've been following.

Realclearpolitics is already at 225(Rep) to 178 (D) as an average.

AndrewPrice said...

Lawhawk, In a punchbowl of turds, Harry Reid is one of the turdiest. I will derive great joy from him being tossed out!

Pelosi is a different matter. I want to see her sit there in permanent minority until she finally decides to quit.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, I hadn't heard that, but how obnoxious!! Could you imagine if the "Republican" on the show (Hassleback) had said that about Obama or some Democrat?

There would be calls for a boycott and demands for heads to roll. It would be considered the greatest thought crime of the century and they would have fired her before she finished the sentence. Yet, somehow this is acceptable when a leftist does it?

And you're right, a rant by a Hollywood leftist is always good for a couple additional points of support with the general public.

I seriously hope that people stop watching that show.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, I'm not seeing anyone now who isn't calling for about a 60 seat swing. This is going to be a great election.... and we're planning to cover it! :-)

By the way, did you see that Obama told people they should attend the Jon Stewart rally? It won't help. He's going to draw a few thousand people, and we probably won't even hear about it in the media except when they present it as having been a joke the whole time.

CrispyRice said...

Great article, Andrew! Nice summary of Harry's greatest quotes, LOL!

AndrewPrice said...

Thanks Crispy! I think that quotes like this should be recorded somewhere easy for everyone to find.

In fact, I've been thinking about creating a long list of Democratic frauds an Democratic gaffes. . . although, that sounds like a lot of work.

BevfromNYC said...

Andrew: I predict there will be "tens of thousands" of people at the rally on Saturday. Actually there will probably be alot of people and people that should otherwise be in their home districts getting out the vote.

They only have enough port-o-potties for 100K though. They had trouble getting those because the Marine Corps Marathon is on Sunday and had already rented all the ones in the area. And the Marine Corps refused to share!

Writer X said...

Of all the losses next week, this one will be one of the sweetest! I have moved my champagne to the refrigerator. Getting ready...

To not see Harry Reid's scowl again will be one of the best things to happen this year. Come on, Nevada!

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, You are correct -- there will be "tens of thousands" even if it's only 4 guys and a dog.

Good for the Marines!

I actually don't think there will be a lot of people. This is a very poorly timed rally and they've kept trying to play it both ways -- both as a serious rally and also as a joke at the same time, just in case they don't get much turn out.

So I think they are unlikely to get political people because they are home doing their thing. They won't get the activists because they don't see this as serious. Also, between football and baseball, and Halloween the following night, and school being back in session (and no teachers unions giving time off for this one), I suspect that few people will turn out. Also, I don't see any evidence that the left is planning to ship people in, which is the only way they seem to be able to get people to do anything these days.

Not to mention that neither Stewart nor Colbert actually have very large audiences.

So I suspect it will be a very small rally and they will pretend the whole thing was meant to be a joke.

AndrewPrice said...

Writer X, LOL! You are always well prepared! I should go get some champagne or at least a box of cookies or something.

(FYI, I finally got my hands on a Snickerdoodle -- very nice!!)

I agree about Reid, he is the one guy I really would like to never see again. Even Pelosi has her charm, in a horror story sort of way, but Reid is just pure unpleasantness distilled.

Tennessee Jed said...

Bev - Bravo!!! the irony of the aetheist "damning that bitch" to hell is just unbelievable. I have all kinds of pet names for Beyhar I can't share on a family blog.

AndrewPrice said...

Jed, I run into that very problem quite a bit! LOL!

Unknown said...

Andrew: I'm with you on Pelosi. I know she'll be suffering, since she undoubtedly will be re-elected, but with that much Botox we probably won't be able to see the misery on her face.

Joel Farnham said...

Andrew,

Lately, I have been sleeping about 2 hours at a time.

Looks like if this election goes the way we think it will go, Nancy will quit as well.

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docid=news-000003755885&topic=Feature

That would be a bonus. :-)

Tam said...

Bev, I also saw that Angle raised roughly $137 mil. after being damned to hell. It appears Behar's "endorsement" had the opposite of the intended effect. Unless of course you consider congress to be hell, in which case, right on! That appears where she is going.

Tam said...

Sorry, that should be $137 thousand, not million....still, Thanks joy!

AndrewPrice said...

Joel, What a great country that the rest of us can possibly have a voice in getting rid of Pelosi. That would be pretty sweet if she quit. :-)

On the sleep issue, I went through that for about 6 months. That's when I learned how bad late, late, late night television really could be. . . nothing but infomertials! Ugh.

AndrewPrice said...

Tam, I'm not sure there is much difference between Congress and hell, except that you probably meet a better class of people in hell. . . and they have fewer interns. ;-)

Glad to hear about the fund raising. I hope Behar is at home kicking herself right now. . . or paying someone to kick her. . .someone strong. . . ex-NFL kicker perhaps.

Joel Farnham said...

Andrew,

Could it be the reason Obama AND Hillary have cheesed it because they think will be arrested after the election?

I mean look at it. Voter fraud, bank fraud (BofA loaned Dems money on flimsy credit), flouting the Constitution and being generally nasty... well maybe not the last. Could it be they are afraid of their own shadows?

AndrewPrice said...

Joel, The problem is that the only people who could come after them are under the control of Eric Holder. I think this is just a classic move by politicians who know they are facing disasters -- they want to disappear from the cameras for a few days and let the press attack everyone else. In the meantime, their people will send out trial balloons left and right to see what floats. Then they come back and act like they had no idea there was an election and it doesn't matter because nothing's changed. That's how they always do it.

Writer X said...

Andrew,

Your first snickerdoodle? I assure you it won't be your last. :-)

AndrewPrice said...

Writer X, Very true! There were really good -- kind of the best of cinnamon cookies combined with the best of sugar cookies. Hmmmm...

T_Rav said...

Andrew, I'm thinking by this point that we'll have a floor of 60 seats in the House (gained, that is) and a minimum of 7 seats gained in the Senate. However, based on some stuff I'm looking at on other sites, I don't think it's unreasonable at all to push the House estimate upward to 80 or 90 seats. Also, there's some scuttlebutt going around that O'Donnell in Delaware has really narrowed the race and MIGHT even be leading in a few internal polls. I can't speak for the veracity of these claims, but if that turns out to be true on Election Night, we're looking at a total meltdown by the Democrats and almost guaranteed control of the Senate as well (maybe even by a two- or three-seat margin).

AndrewPrice said...

T_Rav, If O'Donnell wins in Delaware, it's going to be a devastating night for the Democrats. Then we would easily win the Senate. Right now I think we lose in Delaware, Connecticut and California -- not sure about Washington state.

Regarding the House, early on, Micheal Barone pointed out reasons why the election should (in theory) produce a 110 seat swing for Republicans. His reasoning was very good and I don't rule that out at all. Indeed, I see that as a very real possibility. But that would require everything to go right, and I'm never prepared to assume that. So all I can say with any comfort at this point is that it will be 70+. Beyond that, I would just be guessing. But I am really, really, really hoping for 100+. That would be the mother of all messages from the electorate.

T_Rav said...

Andrew, my suggestion is that we watch and see what happens with Barney Frank's seat (no pun intended), the MA-4. Not only would a victory in that district be just too sweet to fathom, we should know that one relatively early unless it really goes down to the wire. If Sean Bielat, who's giving ol' Barney his toughest fight in years, gets the upset, then hold on to your freaking hat. Under those circumstances, I'd say 90 seats or more is definitely likely, and in that case we'd almost have to take back the Senate, too. Polls close in 144 hours...

P.S. The new Time poll has Angle up 49-45. If they're saying that, I don't want to think what the real numbers are.

AndrewPrice said...

T_Rav, I think Frank's seat (no pun indeed!) could be a major signal of what's going to happen. If he actually loses, then this is going to be a truly historic night, with 90+ seats easily being in the cards. Let's hope!!

I just saw the Time poll. As you note, that means the internal polls must be horrible! :-)


By the way, I just got called by the DNC for an opinion poll.

The way they ran the poll, it was biased toward the Democrats because they always came first, followed by the independents, and then (after a long pause) the Republican.

I told them I was a 30 year old female Democrat who voted for Obama and I'm now supporting the Republicans in Colorado... heh heh heh. I wouldn't have lied to a reputable place like Rasmussen, but this was the DNC and if they're going to lie to me, I will lie to them.

T_Rav said...

Well played, sir. Well played.

AndrewPrice said...

Thanks you! I enjoyed it! :-)

Ed said...

I can't stand Harry Reid. I never had a real problem with him until he became majority leader, but now I can't stand the guy. I am honestly praying that he loses and I sent money to Angle this week.

Ed said...

Also, I saw that NBC is saying as many as 100 Democrats could be in trouble. If that happens, I'm sending Nancy Pelosi a thank you card!

AndrewPrice said...

Ed, Good for you sending money to Angle! I will be so thrilled if she wins!

I'd heard something about NBC saying 100 Democrats, but I didn't see the report. I'd take 100 seats!

BevfromNYC said...

FYI - In a show of real class (and a little dig too), Sharon Angle sent Joy Behar a bouquet of flowers and card thanking Behar for the $150K added to her war chest. Remember Behar repeated called her a bitch and damned her to hell on The View on Wednesday. Well, Behar doubled down on crazy by getting even more irate that Angle would do such a horrible thing! Didn't she know that illegal aliens had to pick those flowers? Bahbwa Waahlters admonished Behar for damning Angle to hell, but apparently repeatedly calling a female public figure a bitch is okay by her.

I would link to the clip, but I almost had a stroke and I won't inflict that on anyone.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, Thanks for the update... unbelievable! There was a time that using that word would have gotten you shunned from polite company and fired from any broadcasting job, but I guess it depends on who the subject of the attack is doesn't it?

And for her not to recognize how wrong she is and to instead double down on being a... well, b~tch, just shows you how psychopathic that woman is.

Good for Angle, showing that she's a much better person than Behar and also poking her in the process! :-) I am really liking Angle a lot these days!

As an aside, let me also point out to Behar the Lunatic, that they don't grow flowers in the US -- those flowers came from South America.

BevfromNYC said...

Yes, Andrew and further to that, an American small business owner (the florist) and employees ordered the flower from SA, responded to the order from Angle, designed, executed and delivered them to the studio...in NYC. Oops!

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, I'm positively horrified to hear that! ;-)

Behar has a twisted view of the world in which she wants to believe that people are exploited by people she doesn't like. That's all this is. If she was more of an environmentalist, she would probably have complained that the water used to water the plants is killing dolphins by draining their oceans.

**rolls eyes ***

Ed said...

Bev & Andrew, Is this on youtube?

AndrewPrice said...

Ed, Here it is. As Bev indicates, it's painful to watch. . . so much stupidity and hate in such a confined location will make your brain hurt.

Don't Click Here

Individualist said...

Andrew

Great Article, I cannot wait to be R(e)id of Harry.. pun intended

the funniest thing about Behar's meltdown was at the end when she said "I'd like to see her come to the Bronx and say that". I guess Behar is a Teamster now, or maybe an honarary member of the SEIU.

Here is Florida I am happy that Rubio is likely to win, I am glod Bondi is ahead of Gelber for State Attorney General because Gelber stated if elected he was going to drop the Florida lawsuit against Obamascare which would be tragic.

I early voted today Woo Hoo! The only race I fear for is the Governor's race, I think Scott can still pull out but he is trailing Sink in the polls. We will see how much the liberal add on factor provides.

AndrewPrice said...

Individualist, Good job early voting -- I did that the other day. And let me tell you, it felt good! :-)

I don't know what's going to happen with Scott and Sink, that one seems to be all over the place. But it does look like Rubio is going to win -- fantastic!

Nice pun! LOL! I would love to be rid of Reid too. That guy needs to be put back into whatever grave the union dug him out of. . . the zombie formula is running out of potency.

Behar is an idiot and I'd like to see her say what she said outside of the Bronx or whatever rich part of New York she actually lives in. Maybe she should run for Senate and we'll see how many dozen votes she manages to get?!

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