Sen. Harry Reid is GOP target in 2010 election

[Auburn85 438]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/articl...JNAOjQD96482VG0

By ERICA WERNER and KATHLEEN HENNESSEY

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is among Republicans' biggest targets in 2010, but a GOP takedown is hardly a guarantee.

As Reid, 69, prepares to seek a fifth term, analysts say the Senate's leading Democratic voice has turned off some voters in libertarian-leaning Nevada and undercut his slogan from campaigns past: "Harry Reid, Independent like Nevada."

Last week, the National Republican Senatorial Committee began airing its first critical ad against Reid, lambasting him as a "super-spending partisan." Committee spokesman Brian Walsh promised that Reid would have "a very competitive race on his hands."

But for all the Republicans' tough talk, Reid, one of Capitol Hill's wiliest politicians, has ensured that he'll be difficult, if not impossible, to beat.

Reid was responsible for bringing early presidential caucuses to Nevada, a move that gave Nevada Democrats a 100,000-voter advantage over a weakened state GOP. Just a year ago, Democrats were fewer than 5,000 voters ahead of Republicans.

The immediate beneficiary was President Barack Obama, who won the state last November, but the new voters are sure to help Reid as well.

Currently, Reid has no Republican opponent — thanks, in part, to his own maneuvering.

Reid helped defeat former Nevada GOP Rep. Jon Porter in 2008, leaving one potential 2010 challenger in a weakened position to launch a campaign. Before that loss, Porter was softened up by an energetic 2006 challenge from Reid's then-30-year-old press secretary, Tessa Hafen, who ran at Reid's urging.

Another potential GOP challenger, state Sen. Joe Heck, also went down to defeat last year in a relentlessly negative campaign mounted by the Nevada Democratic Party, which is loyal to Reid.

Nevada's Republican lieutenant governor, Brian Krolicki, was indicted by the Democratic state attorney general shortly after announcing he might run against Reid. Krolicki claimed Reid was behind felony charges related to his handling of a state college savings program when he was state treasurer, something Reid strongly denied.

Then there was the case of U.S. Attorney Greg Brower, a former GOP assemblyman who also was on some lists of possible candidates. Earlier this month, Obama's transition team surprised some by asking Brower, appointed by President George W. Bush, to stay on. Reid had requested that Brower keep his job.

Republicans in Washington and Nevada insist there's plenty of time for a strong candidate to emerge. They hope to unite behind someone soon.

That person will have to start raising money immediately. Reid already has raised $3.3 million — nearly half the total he spent in his last re-election race in 2004.

The Republican challenger won't be able to depend on a flood of campaign cash from the state's key gambling and mining industries. Reid is cozy with both.

"He's always a jump ahead of the competition," observed Ted Jelen, a political scientist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Anyone who opposes Reid will have difficulty raising money within Nevada, said longtime GOP consultant and gambling industry insider Sig Rogich, who plans to vote for Reid.

Nevada Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons is so unpopular due to scandals and budget deficits that he'll probably be opposed in the GOP primary next year — a contest that is sure to draw GOP time and money from the Senate race. One of Reid's sons, Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid, is a likely Democratic gubernatorial candidate.

Still, Reid's approval numbers have hovered around 50 percent. "It doesn't take rocket science to know when somebody, at least their numbers, are vulnerable," says Nevada's junior senator, Republican John Ensign.

Ensign declined to identify possible GOP opponents. But it was Ensign's own razor-thin, 428-vote Senate loss to Reid in 1998 that ensured Reid would never again take victory for granted.

Since becoming Senate Democratic leader in 2004 and then majority leader in 2006, Reid has worked to avoid the fate of his predecessor, Tom Daschle, who was defeated in his home state of South Dakota in 2004.

Even while playing his national role sometimes to excess — he once called Bush a "loser" — Reid has been careful to pay attention to Nevada issues. He has tried to kill a planned nuclear waste dump outside Las Vegas by sapping it of funding. He has introduced key land bills that have enabled growth and has promised plenty of help for Nevada in the stimulus bill Congress is crafting.

"There isn't anything that comes out of here that I don't have my hand in," Reid said last week on a conference call with reporters and state officials.

Reid recently hired campaign manager Brandon Hall, who helped engineer Democrat Mark Begich's triumph over longtime Republican Sen. Ted Stevens in Alaska last year. Reid's team is already getting outside help: the Service Employees International Union used its first television ad of the 2010 cycle to defend Reid as a champion of the middle class after the National Republican Senatorial Committee went after him on the air last week.

Kathleen Hennessey reported from Las Vegas.

[Justin5 20]

I'll be rooting for the GOP on this one. The Dems need a legit leader in the Senate (similar to how Rahm was in the House, and Hoyer currently is).

[autigeremt 7,543]

Reid is a backstabbing, lying, two bit politician. He will win.