How the race has turned sour for Sharron Angle

By Jon Ralston
Las Vegas Sun
Sunday, July 18, 2010

Sharron Angle is dead, one in an occasional series:

With Angle’s hot air balloon leaking helium about as rapidly as oil left that Gulf well — 45 days and counting and the GOP Senate nominee still has not plugged it — the question is whether she can survive the fall to earth.

At least three polls I know of show Angle trailing Harry Reid, including Friday’s Mason-Dixon survey that has the Senate majority leader ahead, 44-37, outside the margin of error. Even if you don’t believe one of the polls, the trend is inescapable and the race’s dynamic is fundamentally altered.

Coming up on the 100-day mark until the election — and only three months until early voting starts — Reid remains manifestly unpopular, with more than half of those surveyed indicating they will not vote for him. But his strategy of driving people away from Angle and into either a “none of the above” posture or a oh-how-it-pains-me-to-vote-for-him stance has worked to perfection.

Make no mistake: I doubt the Reid folks are unfurling a “Mission Accomplished” banner in their headquarters. There may be one that says, “It’s about Angle, stupid.” Or: “Duct tape his mouth, stupid.”

(More here.)