That's one reason

Oh, Politico. How I love your shallow analysis. Your obsessive coverage of all things political, to the exclusion of anything that has even the faintest whiff of policy. Your ineptly hidden conservative bias. You're the "Entertainment Tonight" of politics. Bless you.

My favorite offering of yours just now is this analysis of why Sharron Angle failed to beat Harry Reid, a politician roughly as popular as amoebic dysentery. The culprit? Poor campaigning.

It’s widely recognized that in the marquee 2010 Senate race, Majority Leader Harry Reid ran a nearly flawless, textbook campaign, an operation so extraordinary that it enabled him to defy an almost certain political death.

It turns out he got some inadvertent inside help. Interviews with Nevada and Washington Republicans familiar with the campaign of Reid’s GOP opponent, Sharron Angle, describe a not-ready-for-prime-time effort that was equally astonishing — a model of dysfunction that was as bad as Reid’s campaign was good.

I must admit that I had missed the "widely recognized" praise that the Reid campaign received. In all seriousness, I'm sure his campaign had to be very, very good for his career to have survived. Perhaps it really was "extraordinary," I dunno.

On the flipside, I'm hardly surprised to read that Angle's campaign was a complete mess. I particularly enjoy this anecdote:

In one occasion that was emblematic of the chaos that marked the fall effort, [Angle advisor Terry] Campbell nearly scuttled an appearance by Sen. John McCain while the 2008 GOP presidential nominee was midair on the way to an Angle rally at The Orleans Hotel and Casino.

While McCain was en route to the event, held five days before Election Day, Angle was bombarded with calls from teary tea party activists who begged her not to campaign with the Arizona senator because they contended he was not conservative enough to appear on the same stage with her.

The source of the emotional appeals from some of Angle’s most loyal followers? Campbell himself did the urging, according to multiple sources with first-hand knowledge of the incident. Much to the relief of national Republicans, Angle ignored their pleas, and the McCain event went on without a hitch.

If this is true, it's hilarious. I cherish the idea that a high-ranking campaign advisor would try to scrap an appearance with a marquee GOP politician while said politician was on his way to the event.

But the thing is, the event still actually went off, no matter the drama surrounding it. The public never knew about Campbell's interference, so it's something of a stretch of blame Angle's loss on problems like this.

My theory? Sharron Angle lost because she is a complete lunatic. As distasteful as Nevadans may find Harry Reid, they clearly found the idea of being represented by Ms. "Second Amendment Remedies" even more so. (It probably didn't help to be a blatantly anti-Hispanic race-baiter in a state with a growing Hispanic vote.)

Now, it stands to reason that a cretinous maniac would run a lousy campaign, so there's kind of a "chicken/egg" problem going on here. But I happen to believe that even a lackluster campaign could have defeated Harry Reid with a candidate less patently unhinged than Sharron "No Questions" Angle.