Harry Reid Has Lucked Out

The Tea Party movement may have just saved Harry Reid's bacon, writes Dana Milbank. The Senate majority leader was widely seen as a dead man walking not so long ago, but now Nevada's Republican Party has chosen Sharron Angle—whose policies include bringing more nuclear waste to the state, dismantling Medicare, and abolishing the Energy Department—to oppose him, Milbank writes in the Washington Post.

More than half the state still has an unfavorable view of Reid, but he'll have a much easier ride than expected if the focus stays on some of the wackier policies Angle has floated, which include outlawing alcohol. There was a change in the atmosphere on the Senate floor yesterday, Milbank observes. Senators who had been vying to replace Reid as majority leader joined a procession of lawmakers approaching him to "hear his wisdom, gain his favor or plead for help," Milbank writes. "Majority Leader Lazarus was back." (More Harry Reid stories.)