Thursday, November 4, 2010

Probably My Last Election Piece: How Reid Won

I'm out front on The Daily Beast today with an assessment of how Harry Reid won. I like to think it's a colorful view, and it includes remarks from folks like Danny Tarkanian, who lost to Sharron Angle. Here's the top:

How Harry Pulled It Off
By STEVE FRIESS


As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took his victory lap on Wednesday before a state and a nation that had anticipated his humiliating demise, the reasons for his triumph became so obvious that it’s a wonder the outcome was ever in doubt.

Yes, he ran a magnificent, vicious, and effective campaign, one to be studied by political masterminds for generations. But rival Sharron Angle also ran an epically terrible campaign, one that comes with a sidesplitting blooper reel for the DVD.

It’s not simply that Angle was a tragically flawed candidate given to surprising, polarizing, or baffling statements. Under the right circumstances—say, when running against a loathed incumbent who is the chief lieutenant of an unpopular president, and your state’s economy is at all-time lows—Angle’s peculiarities might have been overlooked or charming.

But the uncompromising Tea Party purist seemed to work actively to avoid expanding her base in a way that would ever have resulted in a win in Nevada, ...

Read the rest at TheDailyBeast.Com

2 comments:

Ryan said...

Nice article, but it was almost more interesting to me because it didn't seem to have your voice. I can't put my finger on it, but it didn't seem to have the same voice as what I've come to expect from your writing. I don't mean it in bad way, just noticeably different. Am I alone? Do you have any sense of a difference from your side, as the writer?

THE STRIP PODCAST said...

ryan -

I have a tendency to alter my voice and style to each publication I work for. I will read a lot of the publication before I write to get it into my head. It's sort of the way actors take on accents. But I thought I had my own voice in this one, too -- some jokes and snark and even a reference to some interactions with the Reid folks.