Angling Toward The End: Angle Leads Lowden in GOP Primary

The current political races in Nevada give every appearance of confirming one of the oldest "saws" in the lexicon of aphorisms: Run to the Base in the Primary, Run to the Middle in the General. The Nevada GOP primary offers yet another test of that well worn proposition. [LV Sun]



The rightest of the righties, candidate Sharron Angle, is leading the GOP primary race to compete with incumbent Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) in November. The question may very well be: Can she complete the second part of the equation? Should she win the primary she does have some options.



Option One:  The Virginia Plan. Republican Robert McDonnell, a well known member of the movement conservative wing of the Virginia GOP ran a "moderate" campaign, carefully avoiding any expression of the ultra-conservative tenets to which he subscribes. Once in office he made headlines by proposing to eliminate civil liberties protections for members of the gay and lesbian communities, by initiating what for all the world looks like a literacy test for those seeking gubernatorial clemency, and by hiring former notorious Nixon Administration "Jew Counter" Fred Malek [NYDN] as his budget adviser.



Option Two: The Money Plan. Angle has collected the assistance of some well endowed ultra-conservative organizations (Club For Growth, Tea Party Express, and Freedom Works) which are funding her current media buys. Her continued support for advancing the agendas of these organizations should keep her coffers full, but at some risk of making independent voters uncomfortable.



Option Three: The Maverick Plan. Angle may have some trouble with the Virginia Plan simply because there is plenty of recorded fodder from her primary race against Congressman Dean Heller (R-NV2). With limited, and perhaps unenthusiastic, support from established Republican leaders in Nevada she'll have some problems implementing the Money Plan. Angle could attempt to eschew running to the middle, continue advocating for corporate and socially conservative causes, and hope to garner enough votes to overcome a Reid campaign if Democratic turnout is low.



Angle's problems are directly related to the numbers. There are 392,405 registered active Republican voters in Nevada. She could reasonably expect to gather the 6,061 registered active Libertarians, and the 44,652 members of the Independent American Party. That's a total of 443,113 votes, if she received every GOP vote.



There are 452,949 registered active Democratic voters in Nevada, and 1,156 registered members of the Green Party, from whom Angle can expect little or no support.



There are 162,173 registered active non-partisan voters in the state. Not all of these citizens can be expected to break one way or the other, meaning that the time honored middle strategy will be essential in a mid-term election in which voter turnouts are notoriously low. Had not the Lowden campaign so spectacularly imploded, it might have made the "electability" argument more capably; and, that proposition is a viable one especially during lower-interest level mid term elections.