Harry Reid versus Sharron Angle: Here's the difference

Let’s talk about the Nevada Senate race and what it suggests about the future of Nevada and the state of the union in 2010. In one corner stands Harry Reid, with his efforts to save 8,000 Nevada jobs at the CityCenter of Las Vegas. In the other corner stands Sharron Angle, who opposes Reid's efforts to save those jobs and would have them disappear because she believes it is not the job of a senator to save those jobs for the state.

This matter raises several issues at the heart of the 2010 campaign in Nevada and across the nation.

First, Harry Reid is the single most influential senator in the nation, with more clout to save jobs for Nevadans than other senator has to save jobs in his or her home state. By contrast, Sharron Angle would probably be the least influential senator, not only because she would have zero seniority, but because she has such strange and weird views that other senators, including many Republicans, would not take her seriously.

Second, Harry Reid is the ultimate workhorse, working long and cruel hours at the meat-and-potatoes business of being a senator, while Sharron Angle is some variation of the classic show-horse, more interested in weird opining about her various views on arcane matters than doing the hard work of being a senator.

Third, and most important, Harry Reid views the job of senator as protecting and defending his constituents from the cruelty of greed run amok, while Sharron Angle believes that greed is good, and that the people need no protection from what she believes is the magic of the pure marketplace.

So: Harry Reid battled to protect Nevadans from what would have been the dangers of Yucca Mountain, while Angle would favored letting those dangers threaten the people, because in her worldview, if it was profitable to endanger Nevadans, it is the profit that rules, and Nevadans be damned in the magic of her marketplace.

And: While Harry Reid battles to lower the number of foreclosures, Angle battles to increase foreclosures, if that is what the magic of the banking marketplace demands because Angle puts bankers’ profits ahead of Nevada homeowners’, while Reid battles for homeowners against the new Grapes of Wrath-style system of banking.

When Nevadans are gouged by credit card interest rate hikes, Reid battles for consumers while Angle battles for banks to gouge consumers, because in her worldview the profits come before the people, while in Reid's worldview, the job of a senator is to fight for the people.

While Nevada military families join military families throughout the nation in making the great sacrifice in time of war, Harry Reid stands up and fights for veterans and military families, supporting veterans centers and programs for veterans’ healthcare, while Angle prefers her philosophical opining about whatever she is thinking on a given day, and proclaims her extreme view that people should be left at the mercy of a world of laissez-faire.

It is a choice between the most influential senator and an opponent who would be the least influential senator.

It is a choice between a workhorse and a show-horse, between a doer and a talker.

It is a choice between a senator who fights for people and jobs, versus a lightweight ideologue who does not believe a senator should fight for people or jobs.

It is a choice between a majority leader who gets things done versus an opponent who has views about everything, but believes in doing nothing.

It is a choice between the most visible senator in the nation, fighting his fights for his constituents at the center of the arena, versus a challenger whose record shows no achievement, and whose views are so nutty that her handlers have to muzzle her mouth, while Harry Reid keeps fighting for more jobs and fewer foreclosures and better healthcare and more veterans centers for Nevadans.

It is hard being Harry Reid. It is easy being Sharron Angle. It is always much harder to be fighting for people at the center of the arena than talking silly talk at the fringes, and uttering sweet nothings like Sharron Angle, while the serious battles are left to serious people, like Harry Reid.