{"id":321727,"date":"2010-02-15T10:00:53","date_gmt":"2010-02-15T15:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/firedoglake.com\/?p=67302"},"modified":"2010-02-15T10:00:53","modified_gmt":"2010-02-15T15:00:53","slug":"nv-sen-reid-saved-by-the-tea-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/321727","title":{"rendered":"NV-Sen: Reid Saved by the Tea Party?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_67303\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"width: 246px\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/tizzie\/6319455\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-67303\" title=\"tea bag used exalted\" src=\"http:\/\/static1.firedoglake.com\/1\/files\/2010\/02\/tea-bag-used-exalted-236x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"236\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">(photo: tizzie)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>At first glance, it seems like Harry Reid is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lasvegassun.com\/news\/2010\/feb\/13\/report-tea-party-field-candidate-battle-harry-reid\/\">catching a huge break<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div class='wbq'>\n<p>Sun columnist Jon Ralston is reporting that the Tea Party has qualified as a third party in Nevada and will have a candidate in the Senate race to battle for the seat held by Majority Leader Harry Reid.<\/p>\n<p>The party has filed a Certificate of Existence but needs to get 1 percent of the electorate to vote for its candidate in November to permanently qualify, according to the report.<\/p>\n<p>Ralston reported that Jon Ashjian will be the Tea Party&#8217;s U.S. Senate candidate on the November ballot. Ashjian still must declare his candidacy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Let&#8217;s break this down a bit.  The Tea Party in Nevada is probably closer to the Ron Paul anti-government, foreign policy isolationist ideal than it is in some other states.  Paul did <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politicallore.com\/politics\/election-2008\/mitt-romney-wins-nevada-ron-paul-is-in-second\/135\">very well<\/a> in the 2008 Republican primary in Nevada, finishing second behind Mitt Romney (and if there wasn&#8217;t a Mormon candidate in Mormon-heavy Nevada, who knows?), and Paul-ites <a href=\"http:\/\/ronpaul2008.typepad.com\/ron_paul_2008\/2008\/04\/paul-supporters.html\">almost captured the Republican Party<\/a> in 2008 before the GOP establishment stepped in.  Heading that GOP establishment was then-state party chair and one of the GOP Senate candidates, <a href=\"http:\/\/tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com\/2009\/11\/lowden-facing-opposition-from-group-of-ron-paul-supporters-in-nevada-gop-senate-primary.php\">Sue Lowden<\/a>, who is bitterly opposed by the Paul faction in the state.<\/p>\n<p>Lowden may not win; Danny Tarkanian, son of famous former UNLV basketball coach, is also running, and the two are <a href=\"http:\/\/polltracker.talkingpointsmemo.com\/contests\/2010-nv-sen-r\/Angle-Lowden-Tarkanian\">running even<\/a>.  But if Lowden pulls it out, and even if she doesn&#8217;t, you could see a significant portion of Nevada Paul-ites switch to the Tea Party candidate just out of spite.  That would make this third-party run different than most, capable of pulling 10-15% of the electorate.  And I don&#8217;t think any of that would come from Reid&#8217;s number, which would make him viable to win with 40-45% of the vote.<\/p>\n<p>Reid has <a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/blogs\/blog-briefing-room\/news\/78823-senate-fundraising-reid-raises-2m-mcmahon-up-to-6m-self-funding\">$8.7 million in the bank<\/a> and is <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.politicalpartytime.org\/2010\/02\/05\/reid-fundraising-sweep-in-california\/\">out fundraising in California<\/a> this weekend.  So he can blitz the state with advertising from now to the election.  Presumably the DSCC will pump a lot of money into that race to try and save the Majority Leader.  Until now, it was probably futile.  But if the Tea Party candidate can attract a legitimate number of votes, Reid actually has a plausible path to victory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"akst_link\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/news.firedoglake.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/share-this\/share-icon-16x16.gif\" alt=\"Share This icon\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/firedoglake.com\/?p=67302&amp;akst_action=share-this\"  title=\"Email, post to del.icio.us, etc.\" id=\"akst_link_67302\" class=\"akst_share_link\" rel=\"noindex nofollow\">&nbsp;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(photo: tizzie) At first glance, it seems like Harry Reid is catching a huge break: Sun columnist Jon Ralston is reporting that the Tea Party has qualified as a third party in Nevada and will have a candidate in the Senate race to battle for the seat held by Majority Leader Harry Reid. The party [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4406,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-321727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4406"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}