(Mark Noonan) – According to the Review-Journal, you’d better be – in a recent poll Reid trails Lowden by a mere 3 points, Tarkanian by 1 point and leads Angle by 3. The margin of error in the poll if plus or minus 4 points – which means that Reid could beat any of the three.
A month ago the three main GOP candidates were ahead of Reid by 13, 10 and 8, respectively.
If you want a bit of cold comfort for your Republican heart, you can dwell on the fact that the earlier poll was by the fabulously accurate Rasmussen and was of likely voters as opposed to the R-J’s registered voters. You can do that, and be all shocked by defeat in November, too. Better to face reality. Our Republican candidates are faltering while Reid is solidifying his base.
Reid was never going to be easy to beat. He has his claws deeply in to this State and all sorts of powers – including a lot of allegedly GOP powers – will either pull for him or maintain a benevolent neutrality. He’s a hard campaigner and highly experienced in winning difficult races. Fighting Reid is a political battle like no other and it seems that our main GOP candidates believe that the only contest is who wins the Republican nomination.
A bit of advice to our Republican candidates: stop being so naive.
Your task, Republicans, is not to beat each other, it is to beat Harry Reid. What this means is that you are supposed to be doing one thing only: stating the case for why you are best to go up against the most formidable political opponent anyone can imagine. Digging up dirt on each other and launching fratricidal attack ads and push-polls is to do Reid’s job for him.
And now we can see it in the polls. Candidates who were once crushing Reid in the are now essentially tied with him.
All is not lost, of course. The good news in the R-J poll is that Reid, an incumbent Senator running for re-election, is way below 50% in support. Normally, this means the incumbent is as close to political toast as you can get. But Reid isn’t normal.
Well, he’s normal in the sense of a Democrat politician – he’s a corrupt wheeler-dealer who cares only about himself and his power and wealth. But he’s not normal in the sense that he’s always been able to pull the rose of victory out of the nettle of difficulty. The Republican campaign must be fought as if we’re five points behind two weeks before election day.
What must be done, right now, is for Angle, Lowden and Tarkanian to cease fire on each other and simply make the case for themselves. The Republican electorate has already started early voting and soon we will have a nominee. The instant we have one, the defeated must rally ’round and present a united front to Harry Reid. And then we – the party and the rank-and-file – have to go after Reid relentlessly, never letting even a day go by without making an attack on him.
While we’re doing that, the candidate has to be out offering a message of hope and renewal. An end to the old ways of politics. An end, that is, to the corrupt ways of Reid and a restoration of government to the people of our State and country.
We do this, we can win. If we keep tearing at each other and then have the defeated sit it out in a funk, then Harry Reid will be re-elected in November.
It’s our choice. What will we do?
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