A lot of pundits were all but writing obituaries for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as polls in his home state of Nevada consistently showed him trailing badly behind nearly any Republican opponent, but things started to turn around a couple months ago, with the embattled Senator slowly clawing his way back into a dead heat.
What changed? Well of course, Republican frontrunner Sue “Chickengate” Lowden very publicly self-destructed in a series of ethical and intellectual fiascos. But one’s opponent’s mistakes aren’t on their own enough to assure an advantage.
No, one has to be in a position to aggressively capitalize on such mistakes… frame them effectively, disseminate the message broadly and draw a contrast that resonates with voters. And it is at least interesting to note that Sen. Reid’s rebound in the polls coincides almost exactly with his campaign bringing on the pugnacious Kelly Steele as communications director.
I got to know Steele in 2006 when he led the charge against Mike McGavick on behalf of the Washington State Democratic Party’s coordinated campaign, and later when he served as spokesman for the state Dems during Gov. Chris Gregoire’s bitter rematch with real estate speculator Dino Rossi. I know some journalists and editorialists scoffed at his relentless attacks and sometimes borderline over-the-top rhetoric, but it’s hard to argue with the results. Electoral politics is a brutal, adversarial process, and Steele approaches his task brutally.
And often, with a pretty damn fine sense of humor.
I don’t know how much of the message in Nevada’s Senate race these past few months is due to Steele, but it sure is suggestive of his handiwork, and if Reid completes his political resurrection, it wouldn’t be unfair to canonize Steele in the process. Back here in the Pacific Northwest (Steele had already made a name for himself in OR before coming to WA), a lot of folks already considered Steele a rising star, but if Sen. Reid wins reelection I’d expect his career to go supernova.
I just hope he remembers us little people.
UPDATE:
I forwarded the post to Steele, and… well… he wasn’t pleased. “We have a huge and talented team of professionals,” he replied, “and it’s unfair to call out any one member.”
And I don’t think Steele was just being modest. He actually asked me to pull the post, which as a matter of principle, I just can’t do… and which in itself I guess, somewhat refutes my portrayal of him as a master of the message. (I mean, if he can’t even get a lowly local blogger to pull a post, how good can he be?)
I suggest we start a progressive fund drive to support Rand Paul’s candidacy for President in 2012.
ProgressNow Nevada is a good resource to follow the Nevada primary on Tuesday. They have Chicken Sue media coverage listed at
http://progressnownevada.org/chickensue
They did the video about her original comments at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....r_embedded
‘Haven’t seen such blatant brown-nosing of a source since the late columnist Robert Novak used to extoll the virtues of Jack Kemp.
joel @3,
Well, as a WA state blogger, he’s no longer a source for me. And I guess if I really wanted to brown-nose him, I would have pulled the post as he requested.
You really forward your puff pieces to their subject for approval?
uhhh @5,
Had I forwarded it for his approval, I never would have posted it, would I, since he clearly didn’t approve. Duh. I forwarded him a link after I posted as just a way of saying hello and keeping in touch.
You can ask Joel. I forward him links to posts of mine in which I mention Joel, or criticize something he’s written. Just something I do.
If you do, ‘sure haven’t seen them — because you’d get an e-mail back giving a count of all the first-person references. If “remembering us little people” ain’t brown nosing, what is?
Hey Joel, at least Goldy uses the first-person singular, rather than the “editorial we” (or is it “royal we”?) of a Blethen screed.
Steele didn’t want to draw attention to himself that’s better spent on defining Reid’s opponent, the “chickenlady”.
Whatever happened to Stephanie Zimbalast Jr.?
Joel @7,
Well my sent mail archive recalls a few links I’ve emailed you, but apparently I don’t criticize your columns nearly as much as I thought I did. Bruce Ramsey on the other hand…
Another thing going on in this particular campaign is how nasty the GOP nomination fight has been. Polls here have Lowden and Sharron Angle in pretty much a dead heat, with Danny Tarkanian bringing up the rear. All three candidates have really attacked one another, and their appearances on local interview shows have been at best uncomfortable. Tarkanian’s last appearance was so bad, the only thing missing was a clown suit.
IMHO, the GOP’s only real chance of taking this seat would be if Angle wins the nomination. With the war chest Reid has, Lowden’s campaign would be bombarded by ads about chickens and the legality of Lowden’s campaign RV. And Tarkanian has only his name to run on. That, and the endorsement/kiss of death of the Minuteman Project. Basically, he’s a wannabe. Angle just carries less baggage than the other two.
But plenty of teabags.
Don’t get me wrong, I generally agree with you politically, but you do a lot of (reasonable) grumbling about not being taken seriously, both personally and categorically as a lefty blogger, as an independent news source.
So it just struck me as strange that you would essentially take a glowing review of a political operative and forward it to them, as it strikes me as some sort of push for recognition from that operative.
But when framed as a courtesy thing, I guess I can see more why you’d do it, although I’m not 100% sure I believe that was your goal.
13:
True, but Lowden will likely get slaughtered by the Reid campaign over ‘chicken-gate’ and the RV issue, and if Tarkanian somehow won the primary (which is unlikely) he’d stand no chance whatsoever against Reid. Whoever wins the primary will also have to spend a lot of money to keep up with the Reid campaign, most of which will likely have to come from out-of-state.
And even though a lot of Progressives here and around the country really wouldn’t have a problem with Reid losing, I think the majority will come to the conclusion that replacing the sitting Majority Leader with a comparatively raw rookie (Angle was a three-term State Asselmblywoman, Lowden was a single-term State Senator, and Tarkanian has never held elected office) would be bad for Nevada. Here’s a great commentary illustrating that point:
http://www.newsreview.com/reno/content?oid=1431203
Reid is merely getting a temporary bounce.
Just wait until the Tea Party descends on Nevada late summer/early fall. Harry Reid is the #1 target this November.
Remember what happened to Daschle?
Did you notice the Tea Party activist candidate is now leading the Republican Primary in Nevada?
http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....latestnews
Broadway Joe,
You have Nevada experience. One of my best friends from college grew up in Poulsbo, commercially fished in Alaska, then ended up in Las Vegas as a Ph.D teacher in the equivalent of our Lakeside School. He is a smart guy; he has taught the best, and worst (but rich), of Las Vegas. I love the guy, but his–what he calls libertarianism– sounds a helluva lot like Teabaggerism. He calls my wife now, but not me. What is it about Nevada?
@17: Great! Tea bagger fools will lose in the general election because they say stoopid things and racist things.
@16 Remember what happened in 2008 – you idiots got your sorry butts kicked in. Lost the Senate, the house and the Presidency.
The middle will see the tea baggers as idiots and fools – just like you are.
The thing about ‘baggers is that they are idiots, but they are not useful.
The KLOWN was wrong about Perot when he supported Perot, wrong about Bush when he supported Bush, wrong about McSame, wrong about Lossi.
Wrong about the BIAW’s bogus evidence against the quality of the 2004 election. (Not even Sharkansky bought their bullshit.)
Wrong about using I-912 to punish Gregoire for not deferring to Lossi. Wrong about Suzie Hutchison..
Wrong about being led by the nose daily by a partisan poller.
Wrong about this tea-bagging nonsense “party” of fearful, hateful, resentful sore losers.
Wrong, wrong, wrong!
“Wrong, wrong, wrong!”
That goes hand in hand with his being the dumbest fucktard KLOWN on the entire planet.
@17
Not surprising, but it’s the election that’s held in November that counts and the Tea Party folks are less likely to win that one than the main stream Republicans, not more.
Thanks for the update, Cyn. A few other polls show the same trend for Angle. Which supports my position that she’d be the best candidate for the GOP against Reid. However, it’ll still take a lot of money to unseat him, and if you read my link in #15, you’d see that perhaps unseating Reid may not be the best thing for Nevadans themselves. I still say Reid closes the gap and wins in November.
And as far as Nevada Teepers go, there still just aren’t that many of them. They make a lot of noise, but sound and fury signifying nothing is still just that. Remember what I told you about all the out-of-state plates at their event in Searchlight? Not to mention the Teepers from California I jousted with at last year’s Hot August Nights in Reno…..
18:
I’m not sure. Maybe it’s the heat, maybe the relatively thin atmosphere. Maybe it’s the fact that one of the leading far-right donors in Nevada is the owner of the Moonlight Bunny Ranch. There’s also just a screaming-out-loud lack of political sophistication here, perhaps moreso than in the rest of the country. I have a friend who’s an exceptional metal drummer in the Carson/Tahoe area, and works as a mailman on the CA side of the Lake. When he complained about how his CA tax return was very, very late, and I suggested that the State of California was holding onto his refund in order to collect intereston it, he just lashed out at me with a bizarre rant that even the trolls around here would think was nuts. Something about us standing in line to collect bread and water rations from the gov’t. He must’ve watched Red Dawn last night……
@25.
I love Carson City.
That said, he’d made the mistake of trying to talk politics with me before, and I swatted his positions down so easily, it was like Verne Troyer playing hoops with Manute Bol. And he just got angrier and angrier with me, until I just told him that I didn’t want to talk politics with him beause I didn’t want to lose the friendship. That, and he just was that politically naive. He started out with the Teepers, but got turned off by the TPX money-grabbing tour. He’s still out there on the Xtian-right fringe, and still lobbing up the occasional shot. I don’t even bother rebutting him, because it’s just too easy.
I guess that whatever it is, it just sucks up your IQ and common sense all at once and fills the open space with bromides and boogeymen….
26:
I’m in Carson City right now, and have to go set my drums up downstairs in the Carson Station’s cabaret, once I get dressed….
Overshare?
Broadway Joe @ 24–
Reid is D-O-N-E.
The Tea Party is a national movement.
I don’t know what your take is on the number of Tea partiers in Nevada…but if Angle is ahead in the polls, it’s no small number.
And as a National Movement, Tea Partiers from across the country will descend on Nevada late-summer to get Harry our. Just like SEIU busses in protestors, that’s what will happen here.
The MSM gives the Tea party almost zero coverage…fine. But from the recent elections in Mass/NJ/Va plus the primary in Kentucky and the dumping of Bennett in Utah, underestimating the breadth of the Tea Party would be a huge mistake for the ObaMao regime.
“The MSM gives the Tea party almost zero coverage”
Cyn, what planet are you on? I can’t go about more than 15 to 20 minutes on any news channel without hearing Teeper this, Teeper that. And of course, FNC is Teeper Central. I won’t doubt that the Teepers are nationwide, but when the movement consists of less than one percent of the population, how seriously does it really need to be taken? And how much of the Teeper apparatus is there to line their pockets rather then actually elect candidates that want to change the system?
One last aside, from another race. When I checked the polls for the Nevada GOP Senate primary, I came across this blurb from Quinnipiac about the Connecticut Senate race:
“The May 27 Connecticut poll found Blumenthal pins McMahon by 25 points in Connecticut; most voters say Vietnam issue doesn’t impact vote.”
Well, that’s what you get when the GOP candidate is Linda McMahon, CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. Who wants to bet that Jesse Ventura will campaign for Blumenthal regardless of the Vietnam flap, and that the WWE’s bitter rivals Total Nonstop Action (TNA) Wrestling will make fun of it on their telecasts every chance they get?
Broadway Joe,
You’re right, the Tea Party movement gets coverage out of connection with their numbers, as a percent of population.
But big social changes are often heralded by a motivated minority. The American Revolution, Civil War, and Civil Rights movement in the 60’s were all started by a vocal and believing minority.
Anyway, an assumption that the mainstream media is in the business of journalism, unbiased reporting of important social, cultural, political or world events, is ludicrous. From Glen Beck on the right to Rachel Madow on the left, with the alphabet networks in the middle they are all entertainers wihtout any interest in journalism.
That’s why I like the BBC.
Re 32
Yeah, the BBC still practices journalism.
NPR used to be in the journalism business. I obviously didn’t agree with much of the editorial content, but they covered things in sufficient detail to make their bias possible to overlook. Oh well, everything ends sometime, I guess.
@31 “The American Revolution, Civil War, and Civil Rights movement in the 60’s were all started by a vocal and believing minority.”
So were lynchings. Considering the teabagger racism, that’s the more obvious comparison.
And the BBC is so strict in maintaining absolute objectivity and neutrality, several BBC execs got canned when they refused to air a telethon (IIRC) fundraising for victims of the recent Israeli incursion into Gaza. They felt that being a part of it would equate to taking a side in the issue. Regardless of how you feel about that situation, that’s a brave stand to make.
I’d like to believe that we could have a truly neutral government news service like the BBC, but even if it was truly and transparently neutral and objective, I think we all know that the side that wasn’t in power at any particular moment would complain bitterly that the service was biased against them.