Everyone loves to hate Sen. Harry Reid, and it had looked for a while like this year's reelection bid would do him in. But with Republicans likely nominating a wacky Tea Party-er in today's primary, old Harry may survive!

Many folks on the left left regard Harry Reid as a "spineless" majority leader, as always conceding his hand to bad-faith Republican demands, in exchange for nothing. On the right, he is considered a Marxist or Socialist anti-American thug in the pocket of liars everywhere.

Everyone is right! Or perhaps he's just an elderly pro-life Mormon administrator trying to move the president's top legislative priorities through the arcana of Senate rules and near-constant threats of blockage from each individual Democratic senator, with zero sympathetic Republicans available to pluck for cover on a difficult vote. So he's "okay," but naturally everyone's going to hate him! He's a Washington Deal Maker.

And now he may be around for another six years, making even more Washington Deals, because check out the probable, surging victor in tonight's Republican primary, Sharron Angle! Angle is the "official" (as these things go) Tea Party favorite, and has only recently moved to the top of the polls (replacing more establishment-friendly Sue Lowden, who kind of ruined everything some weeks back by famously offering chicken-bartering with one's doctor as an alternative health care financing mechanism to that of Harry Reid's health care reform bill.)

Sharron Angle wants to eliminate the Department of Education, which isn't the most radical suggestion, but is still a somewhat radical suggestion. She also has suggested that Americans should vote Democrats out of Congress to prevent a national armed insurrection, from... her supporters? She considers the United Nations a threat to the United States and wants us out of it immediately, before its leftists force us to do such-and-such. She thinks highly radioactive nuclear waste should allowed to be stored in Yucca Mountain, which is kind of a third-rail in all of Nevada politics. Are you getting the picture of a strict libertarian here? Well, she has no problems legislating aspects of the religion Christianity into American laws, many of them.

Even the "very spineless" Harry Reid may be able to cook up a victorious campaign against such a candidate. Then again, everyone in Nevada is pissed off with the status quo, and deservedly so. A mind-boggling collapse from the real estate bubble, worst in the country, with about 70 percent of mortgages underwater. 70 percent. Think about that statistic for a while. Why would you vote for anyone? Because this is America! But little else.

[Image via Getty]