Will the Tea Party hand Harry Reid a re-election victory?

  In Nevada the Tea Party has qualified to appear on the ballot later this year. The Tea Party is planning on nominating Jon Ashjian as their candidate for Harry Reid’s senate seat this fall.

  The Tea Party movement is growing stronger, to the point where the Tea Party is now able to field candidates in some of the upcoming elections. While once the movement was laughed at and ridiculed by the left, the movement has grown to the extent that candidates are now running based on the ideals of the Tea Party movement.

  To tell you the truth, the Tea Party movement has gained more traction than I thought it would when it first began at the protests last April 15th. I thought that after the initial protests the people would fall back into their routines and forget about the issues that drew them all together. But I was wrong, the movement has intensified, the movement is real. The people are angry at where our government is leading us and they have not abandoned the Tea Party movement, in fact just the opposite has happened, they have become engaged in a manner that I haven’t seen the American people engaged in before. And it is culminating with people who are associated with the Tea Party actually taking the steps necessary to run for office and defeat those that they were protesting against.

  This is great news, but it could come with a price. The addition of a third party in the Nevada senate race could be all that it takes to hand the unpopular Harry Reid a victory in his re-election bid. If the anti-Reid vote is split between the Republican candidate and the Tea Party candidate, the door could be open for Harry Reid to walk back in to the United States senate next year after his re-election looked doubtful.

  How ironic would it be that the very movement that has fought so long and so hard against Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama– among others– would be the movement that secured Harry Reid a victory from the jaws of defeat?

  If this is the end result of the Tea Party movement in Nevada it would be unfortunate, but there is always collateral damage in any battle and this battle is no different. If the Tea Party movement is able to claim enough victories in the upcoming elections– and the movement is already of to a great start– it will not matter if they are not able to catch the big prize because they will have politically neutered Harry Reid.

  If a re-elected Harry Reid is powerless because he has lost enough senate votes than the movement will have succeeded, even if their presence actually helped to re-elect him.

  Harry Reid’s victory may be a loss for the Tea Party, but not for the movement as a whole. It would be nice to bring down Harry Reid, but while Harry Reid might escape the Tea Party’s vengeance he is more of a figurehead than anything else if the movement is able to claim enough victims in the House and Senate.

  Harry Reid’s defeat would be so satisfying, and I am going to be disappointed if he manages to pull it out because of the Tea Party, but we must remember that the goals of the Tea Party are higher than just one man. There is more at stake here than just one man.  Harry Reid may win the battle, but the Tea Part has to win the war.