The Smell of Fear Wafts Over Reid World

(Chuck Muth) – As the odds of Harry Reid going down next Tuesday go up incrementally every hour, the anti-Angle brigades are getting more and more desperate in looking for that silver lining behind the Demcorats’ electoral dark cloud.

The latest example can be found in LVRJ columnist John L. Smith’s commentary on the race this morning. He writes that Angle doesn’t have “the full support of the state Republican Party,” noting that “hundreds of high-profile members have signed on with Republicans for Reid.”

He also maintains that “Nevada’s Republican Party faces an identity crisis,” but not just any ol’ identity crisis, but a “bloody identity crisis” as the tea party movement forces the GOP further to the right.

So you see, despite the fact that Obama’s numbers are in the crapper, that Democrats are about to lose the House, possibly the Senate, and probably Harry Reid….it’s the Republicans who are in trouble?

I think in clinical circles that’s called “denial.”

But there’s more….

Clearly, these desperate times for Harry Reid call for desperate arguments for keeping the man in power. How desperate? Well, the argument is no longer about Harry Reid but his New York counter-part, Sen. Chuck Schumer.

Last Friday, Nevada Republican state Sen. Dean Rhoads inked a letter to the Elko Daily Free Press endorsing Democrat Reid. Not exactly surprising since Rhoads is pretty much a monkey-see-monkey-do clone of Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio.

At the heart of his argument against replacing Reid with Angle is the fear of replacing Reid with Schumer as Democrat majority (or minority) leader in the Senate. Schumer, Rhoads wrote, would be bad for Nevada’s mining and ranching industries.

This is pretty much the same argument the NRA (National Rifle Association) was peddling a couple months ago when it was unclear whether or not it would endorse Reid this year: Schumer would be decidedly more anti-Second Amendment than Reid.

And over the weekend, “political scientist” Erik Herzik told the Reno Gazette-Journal that Schumer has no real reason to help Nevada stop Yucca Mountain. “I don’t think Schumer is going to care,” Herzik said.

Then today comes a column in the Las Vegas Sun by Tom Breitling – claiming to be “pro-business” and “conservative” – who announced with much pomp and flourish that he, too, is voting for Reid because “it’s possible…that Chuck Schumer of New York would become the Senate majority leader” and be bad for Nevada’s gaming industry.

So this is the desperate closing argument for the Reidites: “Vote for Harry; he’s not as bad as Chuck”?

Folks, you better start gettting used to the idea of “Senator” Sharron Angle. It’s all over but the final counting of the ballots. And the more desperate the Reid arguments get in the final days, the bigger the margin of victory will be.

Reserving the right to change my mind tomorrow, my prediction: Angle 47, Reid, 44.