Good news: Eight days from now, Election Day 2026 will finally be here, and all of the heinous political ads will stop for a bit.
Bad news: There are eight days left of heinous political ads.
Things are bad now, but 16 years ago, Nevadans were being bombarded by ads involving arguably the closest-watched race in the nation: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was battling to stay in office against former Assembly Member Sharron Angle—and most polls heading into Election Day showed Angle was leading Reid, despite her fairly scant political resume.
These annoying ads got the attention of the late, great Bruce Van Dyke, who wrote about them in his Notes From the Neon Babylon column in the Oct. 21, 2010, issue.
By now, the pattern is well established. If a Sharron Angle ad appears on the idiot box, it will try to convince you that Harry Reid (1) is personally responsible for your home being worth half of what it was five years ago, (2) enjoys going to strip clubs with Mexican drug lords, and (3) once loaned Mohammed Atta 50 bucks to pay his delinquent flight school tab.
Conversely, if a Reid ad pops up, it will try to persuade you that (1) Sharron Angle is a dangerous person with strange ideas, (2) a bizarre person with weird ideas, or (3) a weird person with dangerous ideas.
Ok, fine. I get it. One question. Whatever happened to ads where the candidate puts forth a message of what he or she would do if elected to the office for which he or she aspires? Whatever happened to messages where the incumbent candidate reminded the viewer of the good, positive things done by the incumbent while in office? Are these types of ads now considered too lame, weak and wimpy to have any effect on a dumbed-down, mainstream electorate that can now only respond to negativity, shock and bombast?
If those types of messages have indeed shown up recently, ads where the candidate is actually talking about himself or herself and not just slagging his or her opponent, I apologize for not noticing. But I’m sorta taking a time-out from local news programs, which have been riddled with this overtoasted twaddle for many weeks. Maybe I’ll return when it’s safe sometime in mid-November. But for now—uh-uh.
I know Angle doesn’t have much going for her in terms of accomplishments she can tout, since she hasn’t held office in a few years. But, Reid. I mean, come on, Harry, can’t you figure out a way to spin a few positives out of your reign as majority leader of the U.S. Senate?
But there are some things on the man’s record that aren’t totally detestable. Such as being a key player in the massive effort to save our Way of Life. You do recall that it was only two years ago that this country was poised to be flushed down a really inconvenient economic toilet? And that the Obama administration, with the help of heinous arch-socialists like Reid and Pelosi, did some things on a national level that managed to stave off a Depression that would have resulted in millions of Americans living in vans down by the river? Did you know that the change in the gross domestic product of the United States in the fourth quarter of ’09 was 5.0 percent? And that the year before, in the last quarter of ’08, the last quarter of Bush/Cheney, it was minus 6.8 percent?
Why don’t the Democrats pound this statistic mercilessly into the ever-numbing skulls of the American people?
The polls were wrong, and Reid beat Angle by about 41,000 votes, or nearly six percentage points.
Reid would serve as Senate majority leader until January 2015, when Republicans took control of the chamber, and elected Mitch McConnell as their leader. Reid served out his Senate term, retiring in 2017, when Catherine Cortez Masto was elected to the Senate seat.
Meanwhile, Angle—who had lost Republican primaries for the U.S. House (to Dean Heller in 2006) and state Senate (to Bill Raggio in 2008) before her loss to Reid—remains on one of the biggest losing streaks in recent Nevada history. After supposedly considering, and deciding against, a presidential run (!) in 2012, she’s lost Republican primaries for the U.S. Senate (2016), the U.S. House (2018), state Senate (2024) and secretary of state (2026).
I so wish Bruce were still around to comment on that.
—Jimmy Boegle
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