The fix is in already, according to Fox News

The Republicans stand to make huge gains in both the House and Senate tonight, but, just in case something goes wrong, Fox News has already gone to the "vote fixing" well:



If you didn't watch it, voters in Nevada (the ones that call Fox News, anyway) are apparently complaining about their touch-screen ballots, claiming that they only displayed incumbent Deomocrat Harry Reid's name (while his opponent, Republican favourite Sharron Angle, did not appear), or, that Harry Reid's name was already checked off.

So community organizers from the now-defunct ACORN are still up to their dastardly old tricks, it would appear. Unless Ms. Angle actually wins, of course. Then the vote went fine.

Sharron Angle, doing her best to look crazy before election night

This small item was released by the AP earlier today:

Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle's campaign is banning two Las Vegas television stations from covering the candidate's election night party as punishment for asking questions without permission.

Journalists from the local CBS and NBC news affiliates surprised Angle at McCarran International Airport on Friday to ask her questions about national security and unemployment. Video footage shows the GOP Senate candidate telling the reporters she will answer questions once she is elected.

The local CBS affiliate actually ran a story about Ms. Angle trying to dodge them at the airport, which you can take a look at below:



Ms. Angle has become rather infamous for avoiding the media, declining interviews, and generally keeping herself insulated behind her handlers. In this clip a news anchor for a Reno NBC affiliate makes an on-air plea for Ms. Angle to drop by for a chat just days after she won the Republican nomination:



And here we see her refusing to answer questions from reporters at a press conference in Las Vegas:



So here's the thing -- Ms. Angle doesn't like speaking to the media. This is surely common knowledge to Nevada voters. So a lot of the support she may have lost over this issue has already been locked into the polls. She's made her choices, and here we are.

But when you're in a tight race, do you really want to come out looking so crazy the weekend before the election? The footage of her fleeing from reporters at the airport is bad enough. But you could argue, perhaps, that she was in a situation that she could only partially control. But then she comes and says that journalists from two news affiliates aren't invited to her election night party? She resorts to the behaviour of an eight-year-old?

This is just the kind of wacky story that can grow and fester as pre-election tension peaks. Not exactly a smart move, Ms. Angle.

Race to the bottom in Nevada

The race for Harry Reid's Nevada Senate seat has become a battle between two sides that seem particularly adept at self-sabotage.

Incumbent Reid's popularity has been slipping for some time, and he is a primary target of Republican criticism (and, it should be noted, a good amount of Democratic criticism). So, really, the Republicans should have had this one locked a while ago. But the Tea Party influence in the state resulted in an unexpected victory for former Nevada State Assembly member Sharron Angle.

Ms. Angle supports the typical far-right Tea Party policy position, including the abolition and/or privatization of numerous federal departments and programs. That alone makes many voters uncomfortable. But she is also a supporter of Scientology, has claimed that Sharia law operates in Dearborn, Michigan, and has also hinted that she supports a return to Prohibition. Yikes.

So you might think that Mr. Reid had this one locked up, right? But he has been doing plenty of blundering of his own. First came his poor performance in a recent debate, in which he rambled on rather incoherently and Ms. Angle kept telling him to "man up". Watch some of the fun below:



But Mr. Reid has found a way to top himself by claiming that he alone staved off a worldwide economic depression:

The Nevada Democrat, whose poll numbers are see-sawing against rival Republican Senate nominee Sharron Angle, told MSNBC's Ed Schultz on Thursday night that voters in his state don't feel reassured when Reid tells them of his global achievement because they've fallen so far down the economic food chain.

"We were at the top and we've fallen very hard. So people have been hurting, and I understand that, and it doesn't give them comfort or solace for me to tell them, you know, but for me we'd be in a worldwide depression. They want to know what I've done for them, and that's why it's important for me, any chance I get, to say that my number one job is to create jobs," Reid said, blasting Angle for saying it's not the role of government to create jobs.

The Atlantic Wire has a nice summary of how the fallout from these remarks is currently playing out. Needless to say, Republicans are having a field day.

Really, it's hard to support either of these candidates. Pity the poor voters in Nevada.