Gloomy Harry

Sen. Harry Reid lurches toward tonight’s Election Day finish line, more unpopular than ever with Nevadans, unable to make a convincing case for voters to return him to Washington.

Last week, in a survey conducted for the Review-Journal and 8NewsNow, Mason-Dixon Polling & Research reported that 56 percent of Nevada voters have an unfavorable opinion of the Senate majority leader. The figure has been climbing steadily since summer.

The gloomy Sen. Reid can’t fall back on a warm and charming personality. He can’t run away from his record, pretend he’s not an incumbent and try to hide his party affiliation, as so many down-ticket Democrats have done — Sen. Reid owns the toxic Obama agenda, and he’s practically married to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

So Sen. Reid and his loyal subjects carry on with collapsing circular arguments — primarily attacking his chief opponent, Republican challenger Sharron Angle.

The senator’s campaign derides Ms. Angle’s fiscally conservative positions as not only “extreme” but “crazy” and “dangerous.” Then Sen. Reid’s supporters point out that Ms. Angle, if elected, would be a senatorial back-bencher, unable to accomplish anything for the state’s interests.

How, exactly, can Ms. Angle be dangerous and politically impotent at the same time? Sen. Reid certainly won’t say.

Conversely, Sen. Reid’s cheerleaders point out that he’s so powerful Nevadans would be stupid to replace him with Ms. Angle. No one can do more to create jobs and serve up pork. Sen. Reid himself says it’s his job to create jobs.

Yet Nevada continues to have the nation’s highest unemployment rate, and Nevada not only ranks last among the 50 states in federal tax dollars returned per capita, but last in “stimulus” funding as well. And let’s not forget that although Sen. Reid claimed to have single-handedly rescued the world from an economic depression, he blames Nevada’s woes on former President Bush and Republicans.

So our job-creating, world-saving, pork-scoring senator can’t create jobs, lift Nevadans’ standard of living or bring home the bacon, after all?

And how does raising taxes on the affluent or jacking up power bills with a cap-and-trade boondoggle, as Sen. Reid intends to do, give Americans the discretionary income to fill the Strip’s upscale hotel rooms and casinos with tourists?

Ms. Angle will vote against the agenda Sen. Reid has rammed down our throats. She will say no to unsustainable federal spending. That’s what Nevada needs.