Las Vegas Review-Journal - Steve Sebelius Slash Politics

One-time Republican Senate front-runner Sue Lowden, who began the race with 25 percent of the vote, peaked at 47 percent only to tumble to third place in the most recent poll, blamed Harry Reid for her troubles today.

Lowden was quoted by the Nevada News Bureau saying that campaign incidents such as bartergate were exaggerated by Reid to harm her campaign.

First, that’s a little thing called “politics,” of which Reid is a formidable practitioner.

But second, that’s just plain wrong.

Yes, Reid’s campaign — in the form of its wholly owned subsidiary, the Nevada State Democratic Party — did send a staffer with a goat to Lowden’s campaign headquarters as a prank.

But it was Lowden herself — speaking on Nevada Newsmakers April 19 — who really dug in a bunker on Mt. Barter, declaring that in the olden days our grandparents took chickens to doctors.

From there, it was off to the races, with national mockery that ranged from Keith Olbermann to Jay Leno.

It was shortly after bartergate began in earnest that Lowden sank in the polls:  She was at 45 percent in April, according to the Review-Journal poll, but fell to 30 percent in a poll published May 13, a drop of 15 points. She fell another 7 percent from May 28 to June 6, the R-J poll indicates.

Meanwhile, her conservative, Tea Party Express-endorsed rival Sharron Angle, who posted a mere 5 percent in April, skyrocketed to 29 percent in late May and is now in first place with 32 percent, the R-J poll says. That’s due largely to her backing by the Tea Party Express — not to mention the money that came with it, and an associated endorsement from the Club for Growth.

But no analysis of Angle’s rise and Lowden’s fall is complete without a healthy dose of blame going not to Harry Reid, but to Sue Lowden herself.

Tags: Harry Reid, Sharron Angle, Sue Lowden

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