After the "primary bounce", TEA Party Candidate Sharron Angle still leads Reid.

While a lot of people wished to "spin" the fact that Sharron Angle opened the general election season well ahead of Senate Majority leader Harry Reid as a post-primary "bounce", in reality, it appears her lead is quite firm.  The most recent Rasmussen poll gives her a 7 point lead over the longtime Nevada politician.

Harry Reid has been troubled politically ever since his bitter and divisive comments concerning then President George W. Bush, calling him a "liar" among other things.  He compounded his troubles when he stated that the Iraq war "is lost", and that Barack Obama was well suited to run for President because he was a "light skinned" and had no "negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."

Reid long ago became enamored with the aura of Washington, D.C. politics and has lost touch with the citizens of Nevada.  As someone who actually voted for Reid when I lived in Nevada 20 years ago, I've seen his image go from one of sensible conservative values, to one of hard-line leftist rancor.

While Reid has moved left, his constituency has remained firmly planted in the middle.  Nevada, once a hard line conservative/libertarian state full of miners, ranchers, and the free-wheeling gambling industry, has become saturated with displaced Californians fleeing high real estate prices, exploding crime rates, and government over-regulation.

With Nevada's unemployment rate currently the highest in the nation at 14%, and Reid's only answer to the situation appearing to be his full support for Obama's economic policies, which have done absolutely nothing to shore up skyrocketing joblessness, it would appear that Reid is destined to join his fellow unemployed come November, albeit with a much better severance package.  President Obama's repeated use of derogatory comments to describe Las Vegas, and Reid's lackluster response, haven't helped Reid's image back home either.

A recent CBS news article has Reid's favorable rating at a dismal 8%, which is lower than that of Nancy Pelosi, and his unfavorable rating at 23%.

On the other hand, Sharron Angle, as the TEA Party's candidate, was once considered to be the weakest candidate to face Reid.  However, her strength as a candidate has surprised many.  Despite attempts to paint Angle as an extremist, she's been able to portray herself as someone with common-sense limited government ideals that play well with rural Nevadans, and her pro-business stance encourages Las Vegans who want to work, but cannot find jobs in today's stifling climate of job-killing government regulation.

Harry Reid has come to represent the big government status-quo in Washington, and the failed policies of the past, and Sharron Angle represents a positive future with people who increasingly see the growth of government power as the one threat most responsible for killing the "American Dream".

As a side note, Rory Reid, who is running for Nevada Governor, and happens to be Harry Reid's son, has dropped the use of his last name from his official campaign website.  This hasn't seemed to shore up his campaign much, as the most recent Rasmussen poll has Brian Sandoval ahead of Rory Reid by 22 points in the Nevada Governor's race.