Some Republicans surprised that Angle could be standard-bearer

A friend is a diehard Republican, the kind of guy who keeps photographs of Ronald Reagan and Dick Cheney on his office wall.

While I don't doubt he loves his children and grandkids, the pictures of his political heroes are larger than his family portraits. While he claims to have other interests, I suspect he lives, breathes, eats and sleeps Republican Party politics.

He's always been quick with a GOP quip and gets chills when the Democrats take a tumble. Over the years, he rarely completed a conversation without quoting his sainted Reagan. A favorite phrase popularized by the Great Communicator: "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican."

I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard my friend say that, but he hasn't uttered that line in months -- not since the rise of the Tea Party movement and the tightening of the Sharron Angle-Harry Reid U.S. Senate race.

Majority Leader Reid faces the toughest campaign of his career against a highly unlikely opponent. A co-founder of the Nevada Independent American Party who changed her registration to Republican to increase her political viability, Angle has been a ghost in the mainstream media. She also has failed to forward a detailed plan to help Nevada rise from its economic quagmire. She has created a long list of campaign issues simply by opening her mouth.

But the Republican nominee can say without fear of correction that she's not Harry Reid -- and that counts for a lot these days.

In 2010, Reid is a guy almost no one wants to be. The state that once perennially led the nation in growth is mired in recession with a 14.4 percent unemployment rate and a jobless rate in the construction trades four times that high. Add to that Nevada's nationally embarrassing home mortgage crisis, and Reid couldn't have picked a worse time to be running for re-election.

Angle is smartly taking full advantage of the state's mess, and the latest Review-Journal-sponsored Mason-Dixon Polling & Research survey shows her 2 points ahead of Reid, 47 percent to 45 percent, but still within the margin of error. If the economy remains at Reid's feet, Angle is in the driver's seat.

I have to wonder where Angle would be if she actually had the full support of the state Republican Party; hundreds of high-profile members have signed on with Republicans for Reid in the year of the Tea Party. While Angle has been busy appealing to hard-core conservatives, she has alienated some mainstream Republicans. Reid has taken advantage of this break by grooming Republican support and playing up his Washington clout.

Some Reid Republicans, such as state Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio, have been called Angle haters. Others have been chided as Republicans in Name Only. Still others are being marginalized because of their government business connections. They need Reid in high office for their companies to survive.

Week after week the GOP defections have come, and still Angle holds her ground in the polls. Nevada's Republican Party faces an identity crisis with some voters idolizing the Tea Party craze while others are dreaming of business as usual.

But no one utters the words "Thou shalt not speak ill of any Republican" anymore. In the age of the Internet and the vicious and often vacuous assaults from both ends of the spectrum, that line seems corny.

The GOP is undergoing a bloody identity crisis as it moves further to the right and prepares to score major victories in November.

Will one of those wins come in Nevada's Senate race?

If Reid can't rally his recession-battered base with his newfound Republican allies, my GOP friend might find himself doing something he wouldn't have thought possible a few months ago -- adding Angle's photograph to his office wall.

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.