Lowden needs to give campaign doctors flock of chickens

Behold Sue Lowden. She's plucky. She's clucky. She's poultry in motion.

And she insists on making the GOP U.S. Senate primary competitive. I'll have to remember to thank her for that. Not just for giving us a chance to reel off an endless string of puns in the wake of her daffy chicken-barter comment, but also for helping to make the primary, well, interesting.

So interesting I suspect the rest of the nation is wondering what rare strain of crazy has seeped into our drinking water. It's getting so interesting lately high-profile Lowden supporter Reno Mayor Bob Cashell recently dubbed her "Suicidal Sue" and suggested challenger Sharron Angle was more likely to win the chance to challenge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in November.

Just a few weeks ago, the stylish Lowden appeared headed for an easy win. But then began her Chicken Run.

Lowden laid an ostrich egg when she told a Mesquite audience patients should "barter" with their physicians for medical care. Instead of amending a stupid statement that made her appear out of touch, she kept on clucking.

"You know, before we all started having health care, in the olden days our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor, they would say, 'I'll paint your house,'" she later told "Nevada Newsmakers." "I mean, that's the old days of what people would do to get health care with your doctors. Doctors are very sympathetic people. I'm not backing down from that system."

Forget for a moment her remark was muddle-headed in the extreme. It provided more than a cackle for Reid's struggling campaign. The chicken-barter shtick was a golden egg that went viral and painted a comic portrait of a front-runner whose candidacy now seems like a headless Rhode Island red.

She insisted on diving into a bucket of wings and beaks and late-night one-liners. All that chicken gave the favorite a terrible case of Suemonella. The poultry personification has reached the point where Secretary of State Ross Miller has actually banned the wearing of chicken suits within 100 feet of a polling place.

Now that's hilarious.

A Review-Journal poll in early April placed Lowden at 45 percent, well ahead of Danny Tarkanian at 27 percent and Sharron Angle at 5 percent. This week, those numbers were 30 percent for Lowden, 29 for Angle, and 23 for Tarkanian.

During the Chicken Run, Lowden's popularity has sagged faster than a Shady Acres bikini contest. Her campaign manager, Robert Uithoven, has placed the blame on Reid and Tarkanian. I guess the guy doesn't own a mirror.

Fact is, most of Lowden's wounds are self-inflicted. Reid and Tarkanian are using what they've been given.

The campaign's mishandling of the "donation" of an expensive RV for Lowden's rural road trips adds tar to all those feathers. Lowden has called Tarkanian "desperate" for questioning whether the RV has exceeded campaign contribution limits, but her inaccurate statement opened the door.

Of course, this is the same candidate who said she feared American commercial airline travel despite unprecedented industry safety and the microscopic risk of a terrorist incident. Yikes.

Still, some pundits say Lowden has more mainstream appeal and will make a more competitive candidate against Reid. But increasingly that sounds more like wishful thinking than well-reasoned perspective.

Lowden may indeed be able to beat Reid. Until very recently, GOP wags insisted a ham on rye -- even John Chachas -- could defeat him.

The latest poll shows Lowden slightly superior to her primary competition in a head-to-head race against Reid, 42-39, but within the survey's 4 percent margin of error. Add another 10 percent undecided and that's 14 percent -- enough wiggle room to parallel park a Peterbilt.

If Lowden doesn't stop the Chicken Run soon, she may discover victory has flown the coop.

John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295. He also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/smith.