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Reid strong-arms Latin Chamber

A funny thing happened to the Las Vegas Latin Chamber of Commerce on its way to a co-endorsement of Republican Mark Hutchison for lieutenant governor. That funny thing was Harry Reid.

According to Nevada’s largest newspaper — one of the precious few members of the media in Nevada that doesn’t fall to bended knee for Sen. Reid — the political action committee of the Latin Chamber in Las Vegas was prepared to co-endorse both the Republican and the Democrat in the race.

But when Harry Reid heard about it, he made a flurry of phone calls to quash the idea.

Here’s the back story.

Sen. Reid personally recruited little-known Nevada Assemblywoman Lucy Flores to run for the job. He wants a Democrat in that position so as to give popular Gov. Brian Sandoval (who would be in the middle of his second term) second thoughts about taking on Reid in 2016.

But Flores faces a tough battle. The Republican in the race is Sen. Mark Hutchison who is strongly backed by Sandoval and has already bested a strong bid in the GOP primary from Sue Lowden.

If the Latin Chamber co-endorsed Flores and Hutchison, well, it would have been very embarrassing for Sen. Reid — thus the last-minute arm-twisting.

Truth is the Latin Chamber initially played its cards right — the smart move would have been to co-endorse.

Flores — though Hispanic — would not be the most friendly candidate to business and she’s a long-shot to prevail anyway.

But anyone paying attending will know the truth. If it were not for the arm-twisting by Reid, the Latin Chamber would have, without a doubt, co-endorsed the Republican in the race.

PS: For governor, the Latin Chamber backs … drum roll please … Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval. It will be interesting to see who the Latin Chamber backs in 2016 if Reid faces a challenge from Sandoval.

PPS: I get the feeling that Reid’s campaign theme song in 2016 will be — “They’re coming to take me away, ha-ha …”. Let’s all sing along.

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