Harry Reid versus Sharron Angle: Here’s the difference

Let’s talk about the Nevada Senate race and what it suggests about the future
of Nevada and the state of the union in 2010. In one corner stands Harry Reid,
with his efforts to save 8,000 Nevada jobs at the CityCenter of Las Vegas. In
the other corner stands Sharron Angle, who opposes Reid’s efforts to save those
jobs and would have them disappear because she believes it is not the job of a
senator to save those jobs for the state.

This matter raises several issues at the heart of the 2010 campaign in Nevada
and across the nation.

First, Harry Reid is the single most influential senator in the nation, with
more clout to save jobs for Nevadans than other senator has to save jobs in his
or her home state. By contrast, Sharron Angle would probably be the least
influential senator, not only because she would have zero seniority, but
because she has such strange and weird views that other senators, including
many Republicans, would not take her seriously.

Second, Harry Reid is the ultimate workhorse, working long and cruel hours at
the meat-and-potatoes business of being a senator, while Sharron Angle is some
variation of the classic show-horse, more interested in weird opining about her
various views on arcane matters than doing the hard work of being a senator.

Third, and most important, Harry Reid views the job of senator as protecting
and defending his constituents from the cruelty of greed run amok, while
Sharron Angle believes that greed is good, and that the people need no
protection from what she believes is the magic of the pure marketplace.

So: Harry Reid battled to protect Nevadans from what would have been the dangers
of Yucca Mountain, while Angle would favored letting those dangers threaten the
people, because in her worldview, if it was profitable to endanger Nevadans, it
is the profit that rules, and Nevadans be damned in the magic of her
marketplace.

And: While Harry Reid battles to lower the number of foreclosures, Angle
battles to increase foreclosures, if that is what the magic of the banking
marketplace demands because Angle puts bankers’ profits ahead of Nevada
homeowners’, while Reid battles for homeowners against the new Grapes of
Wrath-style system of banking.

When Nevadans are gouged by credit card interest rate hikes, Reid battles for
consumers while Angle battles for banks to gouge consumers, because in her
worldview the profits come before the people, while in Reid’s worldview, the
job of a senator is to fight for the people.

While Nevada military families join military families throughout the nation in
making the great sacrifice in time of war, Harry Reid stands up and fights for
veterans and military families, supporting veterans centers and programs for
veterans’ healthcare, while Angle prefers her philosophical opining about
whatever she is thinking on a given day, and proclaims her extreme view that
people should be left at the mercy of a world of laissez-faire.

It is a choice between the most influential senator and an opponent who would be
the least influential senator.

It is a choice between a workhorse and a show-horse, between a doer and a
talker.

It is a choice between a senator who fights for people and jobs, versus a
lightweight ideologue who does not believe a senator should fight for people or
jobs.

It is a choice between a majority leader who gets things done versus an
opponent who has views about everything, but believes in doing nothing.

It is a choice between the most visible senator in the nation, fighting his
fights for his constituents at the center of the arena, versus a challenger
whose record shows no achievement, and whose views are so nutty that her
handlers have to muzzle her mouth, while Harry Reid keeps fighting for more
jobs and fewer foreclosures and better healthcare and more veterans centers for
Nevadans.

It is hard being Harry Reid. It is easy being Sharron Angle. It is always much
harder to be fighting for people at the center of the arena than talking silly
talk at the fringes, and uttering sweet nothings like Sharron Angle, while the
serious battles are left to serious people, like Harry Reid.