Angle wipes out Reid

By all accounts, Sharron Angle beat Harry Reid like a scalded dog last night in
their first debate. Coming after news that Angle raised close to $15 million for
her campaign in the last election, her improbable campaign is looking more and
more like a winner.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the face of the GOP has changed
dramatically since Sarah Palin ran as John McCain’s running mate. The stars of
the party are no longer conservative, bespectacled, balding white guys. The
stars of the party have distinctly more feminine features.

Besides Angle, the hottest Republican candidates (as far as fundraising) are
Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, Linda McMahon, Christine O’Donnell, Nikki Haley,
Kristi Noem and Michele Bachmann. Now, not all of these candidates are my cup
of tea (so to speak), but all of them have created quite a stir with the media
and with contributors. All of them are attractive candidates who are good with
the sound bite. And all of them are painting themselves as outsiders (and in
some cases, way outsiders).

I bet if you did a poll, you would find that the vast majority of these
candidates are polling much better with male voters than female voters. I have
no scientific evidence to back this up, but my hunch is that because they
mostly espouse traditionally conservative values, they don’t poll well with
single women. I bet you they also don’t do as well as they could with married
women.

When John McCain picked Sarah Palin, his campaign strategists salivated over
the idea that then-Alaska governor would bring legions of female voters to the
polls for him. It didn’t work out that way. If possible, the gender gap may
have been even bigger than it was when George W. Bush ran in 2004.

This is a fascinating dynamic. Strong, principled, aggressive, tough and, in
many cases, very wealthy conservative women are running hard and attracting
men, especially supposedly sexist Neanderthal white men, to their campaigns. That
is how they were able to sweep through the primaries. But in almost every
single case, they are running into tougher winds as they run to attract more
female voters in the general election.

In any event, Sharron Angle, who has been called every synonym for crazy that
the Reid campaign could think up, proved last night that she could hang with
the Senate majority leader. Reid, on the other hand, proved that he is not only
out of touch with his constituents, he is also out of touch with the concerns
of most Americans around the country.

If Angle can get one out of every two women in Nevada to vote for her, she will
win with 60 percent of the vote. I bet you even if she gets one out of three,
she will be competitive. My guess is that she wins this election, and that
while Democrats may want to call her cuckoo, come January, they will also have
to call her Sen. Angle.

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