SUBMITTED BY NEVADA STATE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
By Phoebe Sweet
From Leno to the LA Times, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sue Lowden and her “Chickens for Checkups” proposal–to have Americans barter for their health care using “a chicken” or offering to paint their doctor’s house–has garnered her more attention than anything she’s done thus far in the campaign. And while cable news networks and bloggers have a field day discussing how out-of-touch Lowden is, two much more substantial (and less comedic) developments are changing the dynamic of the U.S. Senate race entirely:
1. The embattled Lowden is now facing serious credibility questions about her campaign and her electability from her most loyal Republican allies.
2. Sen. Harry Reid’s base is rallying behind him–now more so than ever–due to the “extraordinary profile in courage” of his leadership on health care reform.
Chuck Muth is the leading conservative voice in Nevada, and until yesterday, Muth had been an unabashed shill for Sue Lowden’s campaign. Yet as the controversy over Lowden’s bartering remarks has continued unabated, Muth wrote candidly about Lowden’s “out-of-control mess” and suggested Team Lowden and its self-funding leader “might not quite be ready for prime time.” And another leading conservative voice, commentator Elizabeth Crum, piled on about how poorly Lowden and her people had botched what arguably could have been an isolated incident. And Muth unloaded again this morning, concluding his piece in brutally blunt terms: “Time to send out an SOS.”
What’s been called her “Macaca moment” and its botched handling could not have come at a worse time for candidate Lowden. Beyond the national ridicule she can’t seem to escape, Lowden has also recently been hemorrhaging support from critical conservative Republicans–losing out to Sharron Angle on key endorsements from Gun Owners of America, the Tea Party Express and the Nevada Republican Assembly.
By contrast, the entire ordeal has refocused and heightened a level of praise and Democratic support for Reid’s leadership on the health care reform bill. Last night on MSNBC, Reid leadership was praised as “the most extraordinary profile in courage” that commentator Lawrence O’Donnell had ever seen. Prominent TPM editor Josh Marshall heaped even more praise this morning on Reid and his leadership on health care:
- “The Senate is where it happened. And Reid was central to the entire thing. That is an historic accomplishment. … So on the one side you have Harry Reid, a key architect of comprehensive Health Care Reform, the product of decades of activism, in all its messiness and policy complexity. And on the other you have Sue Lowden, who thinks bartering livestock and other commodities for health care services from doctors is a way to rein in spiraling health care costs.”
