Question about the Senate race in Nevada this year...

[Zioneer]

Why couldn't the Nevada Dems find a better candidate than Berkley? Was their current bench such a weak one that they couldn't find anyone better than her?

[Ogre Mage]

They actually have a fairly strong bench.  But AG Catherine Cortez Masto (who was rumored to be Reid's first choice) and SoS Ross Miller deferred to Berkley, perhaps because she had more seniority and was already in Congress.  Nevada Democrats felt she has the first right of refusal.  And her standing within the party was strong enough that the DSCC did not maneuver around her.

Berkley declared in the spring of 2011, the ethics scandal about lobbying for her husband's medical practice did not break until the fall.

In retrospect, I wish Cortez Masto had run for the seat.

[Holmes]

Nevada Democrats always choose piss poor candidates, especially so for federal races. Republicans, on the other hand, and Sharon Angle excluded, usually choose rather strong candidates. Masto and Miller are great candidates for Democrats but it seems they want to stay in-state. Despite his amazing turnout operation, as long as Democratic nominees are seen as having Reid's stink, they'll be pretty crappy candidates, imo.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

They may have been better off had he lost.

[Talleyrand]

They may have been better off had he lost.

They'd lack his machine then... Berkeley would have probably lost by a much greater margin without his assistance...

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

They may have been better off had he lost.

They'd lack his machine then... Berkeley would have probably lost by a much greater margin without his assistance...

His machine has been rather useless though for everyone except himself and then most recently only against a really flawed GOP candidate. Why didn't it produce a Democratic Governor against an upstate, Conservative Republican, whose most recent experience was serving in Tom Delay's House majority, and in a bad year for the GOP like 2006 no less? Reid has been Senator since 1986. Obama's organization is what has transformed Nevada. And frankly, Ross Miller wouldn't need either of them to have stood a better chance than Berkeley.

[Talleyrand]

They may have been better off had he lost.

They'd lack his machine then... Berkeley would have probably lost by a much greater margin without his assistance...

His machine has been rather useless though for everyone except himself and then most recently only against a really flawed GOP candidate. Why didn't it produce a Democratic Governor against an upstate, Conservative Republican, whose most recent experience was serving in Tom Delay's House majority, and in a bad year for the GOP like 2006 no less? Reid has been Senator since 1986. Obama's organization is what has transformed Nevada. And frankly, Ross Miller wouldn't need either of them to have stood a better chance than Berkeley.

For the Jim Gibbons thing, I'm pretty sure Reid started work on his organization in 2005, just after his reelection, so it probably was still under construction at the time. I agree that Obama's team deserves a good bit of credit, but your belief that's it been useless is not true. And I agree Ross Miller would have done at least 2-3 points better than Berkley- she did herself in.

Yes, both Berkley and Titus lost, but in elections which polls showed them headed for huge losses in, the machine brought them within a few thousand votes of victory each. And the machine likely was the factor in victories for statewide officials like Kate Marshall and Kim Wallin in 2010.