Reid’s sneaky ‘Tea Party’ candidate … and other Monday morning musings

Good Monday morning, readers striving for completeness. We have a busy week ahead.

Health care 'reform'

Nationally, the Obama Administration and our own Sen. Harry Reid will take another stab at national health care. This time it's supposedly going to all be on tee-vee.

The Complete Las Vegan supports Democrats taking a second bite at the apple on health care "reform." It is still America, after all. And besides, for the Democratic Party what else more important is going on? Not job creation, that's for sure.

Anyway, see President Barack Obama spin his health care summit story in the video below.

Republicans and moderate Democrats must avoid setting up this important issue as a crisis requiring last-minute desperate compromise.

Let's move forward only on the parts of "reform" both sides can agree upon.

I'm afraid the president (who will issue his "reform" proposal this week at long last) will want to use that as a source document to be negotiated. Instead, legislators should use it as a document from which to go through idea by idea and adopt only those that achieve bipartisan consensus. In other words, let's seek agreement, not compromise ...

Financial wizard legislators

Meanwhile, back at the ranch in Nevada, legislators will gather in beautiful downtown Carson City to fix a $887 million shortfall in a budget that legislators less than a year ago unwisely rammed down the throats of Nevadans, overriding a gubernatorial veto. The idea that these same genius solons can, in any measure, fix what ails Nevada's budget in a special session is simply not realistic. Most Nevada legislators can barely figure out an 18 percent tip on a lunch bill, much less balance the state's budget. The best that can happen is that we'll cover the shortfall with as little bloodshed in employment as possible and then move on to the 2011 regular session.

And that full session, my friends, is shaping up to be one ugly session. Nevada in 2011 may face an upside down financial picture as large as $3 billion. We may have a new governor who, depending upon who we choose, actually thinks the current Democrat-controlled legislature is on the right track -- double-down on spending, reform nothing and tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, and tax ...

Can Obama save Reid? 'No' and 'duh'

Can President Barack Obama save Reid from political doom? That was the question pondered by Alex Koppelman of Salon.com, who wrote about the president's most recent visit to Las Vegas in which Obama gushed much praise on Sen. Harry Reid. You can read Koppelman's full piece here. But the bottom line is this: "... the president's appearance might give Reid and his supporters some brief moments of cheer. But they're unlikely to provide much more than that. At this point in the campaign, the majority leader looks all but doomed to defeat; he's trailing both of his potential Republican opponents in the polls, and has been for months. An appearance by the president can certainly get donors' wallets to open up a bit wider, but Reid has plenty of money, and it's not doing much for him so far."

Sneaky Sen. Reid

And finally, don't fail to read this morning's story in the Las Vegas Review-Journal on this so-called Tea Party candidate who is allegedly going to run against Harry Reid.

Repped by a Democrat, a Las Vegas businessman no one has heard of has found the statewide organization to potentially get the "Tea Party" on the ballot and run as its standard bearer.

C'mon, man! You buying that?

Nationally, the Tea Party movement has avoided party status and candidates. Except Nevada? You gotta believe the Reid campaign, or some form thereof, is behind this tactic.

And frankly, it's a brilliant tactic. If Reid can get the Tea Party name on the ballot, it will absolutely shift some votes away from the Republican candidate, who in a head-to-head matchup right now beats Reid hands down.

Look, Reid has more money than God for this race. But because almost everyone in Nevada has made up their minds about Reid, that money isn't going to move the needle for him much.

That money is going to be used primarily to move the needle away from his Republican opponent. After the primary, Reid will unleash a negative campaign the likes of which has never been seen in this state. And, if a few million dollars can also be used for sneaky campaign tricks like propping up phony campaigns or sponsoring faux news sites (paging Erin Neff, there's an envelope for you at the front desk), well that's just old-fashioned addition by subtraction.

But even if reporters sniff out the Reid connection to this so-called Tea Party, getting the party to appear on the ballot will be a coup for the struggling Reid campaign.