Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Sharron Angle Versus Harry Reid

I found this somewhat interesting. On Sean Hannity's Monday program, he featured Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle. In introducing the candidate, Hannity stated that the recent "polls" showed Angle leading by 11 percent.
Sharron Angle surprised election watchers with her victory last week in the Nevada Republican Senate primary. Now her victory was a testament to the growing power of the Tea Party Movement which is strongly backing her candidacy and a warning sign to Prince Harry Reid.

Now according to the latest polls, Angle leads Reid by 11 percent, 50- 39, in the polls and she has had plenty of time to expand on that lead in the future.
I think Hannity is mistaken, because according to my searches online, there is only a single poll between Angle and Reid - the June 10th poll from Rasmussen Reports, and as we all know, Rasmussen Reports are a conservative-leaning polling group with questionable practices that skew results.  Putting that aside, I think the way Hannity presented this information was interesting - he gave the appearance that numerous polling groups indicated that Reid was in the dumps; Hannity failed to acknowledge that Angle may have had a boost from coming off a primary win.  I am reminded of another boost coming from a primary win... and an announcement of a certain vice-presidential candidate.

After the Republican convention in 2008, the party saw an 8-point jump in favorable ratings, according to a Gallup poll conducted two years agoThe average post-convention bounce is 10 points, but that is far from being indicative of the final mood of the electorate.  While Reid has dropped in popularity among Nevadans, one thing is certain - the GOP is banking on the right-wing of the party to win the general election, and while Nevada may be considered a solid red state, you can't simply win an election ignoring almost half of your constituency, which is exactly what the Tea Party strategy has been.

Now that the primary is over, expect the gloves to come off, and I suspect it won't be pretty.  Reid needs to highlight his more moderate stances.  The same goes for Angle, but it will be a harder sell for Angle - the Tea Party hates compromise.  I expect this race to be close, but I think Reid has a very good chance of winning, which may upset Hannity.

Personally, I'll wait for the rest of the polling community to chime in before I start to tout numbers in support of either candidate, and for those who may look at this post and believe my reference of the 2008 Republican convention to be doing just that, you are wrong.  I referenced the convention to illustrate a point - boosts after nominating conventions don't mean a thing.

Going back to Hannity's program, I thought the exchange between the two was rather interesting.  After some Reid bashing, Angle publicly challenged Reid to come on Hannity's program to debate the issues.  Why would she desire to debate Reid on a station that has recently made news for lying about information regarding herself?  Hannity even said that he would "get out of way as much as [he] can."  What exactly does that mean?


Angle then played the jingo card, asking why Reid "doesn't care about Nevada," as well as the nation.


The worst part of the interview came at the end, when Angle told Hannity that he may not be able to vote for her, but he could give her money, in which Hannity then promoted her website.


Republican and Tea Party candidates are in bed with Fox News, and this is just the latest example of Fox hosts promoting conservative candidates.  If a Democrat were to get on a program and ask for donations, the right would have a fit, claiming liberal bias in the mainstream media, but when it happens with a conservative on Fox News, its okay.  Angle knew that in order to fight Reid, she was going to need some money, so where else to go then the teabag cable channel to plea for donations.

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