First of all, thanks for the welcome, I've been a lurker for years & finally pulled the trigger.
Now, in regards to running against Reid, the odds are heavily against anyone beating Reid in this state. He has a great deal of power in this state w/ the powers to be.
As I stated, Ensign refuses to endorse anyone running against him. I can't figure that one out. I'm a big Ensign fan genarally but his deal w/ Reid is baffling.
It was anything but a lock that Gibbons would have been able to give Reid a good fight & frankly Beers et al probably would have lost to Titus b/c of the control she has down in liberal Vegas.
There's no doubt that Reid has a lot of power, but Nevada is not so rodent a leaning state that he couldn't be dislodged. The fact that Ensign nearly beat him in an awful Republican year (1998) meant that a challenge by Gibbons in a great GOP year (2004) would've spelled the end for Reid. Same with Daschle in SD. We had the prime opportunity to behead the entire 'Rat leadership. John Thune rose to the occasion (despite his great reluctance), but Gibbons put personal ambition ahead. I expect the 'Rats to act like that, but not Republicans. Gibbons would've been considered a hero for taking out the biggest cancer on NV politics, and would've been in a better position (experience-wise) to DC politics as opposed to Carson City politics. Bob Beers was the best bet for the latter. A win-win scenario all around.
"As I stated, Ensign refuses to endorse anyone running against him. I can't figure that one out. I'm a big Ensign fan genarally but his deal w/ Reid is baffling."
Though I'm not happy to hear that, it's not nearly as unusual as you might think. Most Senators, for the sake of comity, don't usually come out and endorse the opponents of their seatmates (in fact, and this is a very odd thing to realize, that Senators of opposite parties often get along far better than those of the same, because same-party Senators often have to jockey and battle against one another for positions of power within their own states and state parties -- for example, in MS, both Trent Lott and Thad Cochran aren't exactly best buds, and in NJ, ex-Sen. Torricelli and current Sen. Lautenberg hated each other. Reid and Ensign aren't going to challenge each other for supremacy within their own parties, while Ensign and Gibbons would have had to fight for the same piece of the pie). Of course, even Ensign's full-throated support wouldn't have helped the nobody that challenged Reid in '04.
"It was anything but a lock that Gibbons would have been able to give Reid a good fight & frankly Beers et al probably would have lost to Titus b/c of the control she has down in liberal Vegas."
I disagree on both. I think Sen. Beers was an excellent and articulate candidate who had a far better idea about what was wrong in CC than Gibbons. If Beers was as much of a stand-out to folks as far away as my state following the primary race, I think he would've prevailed in the general, and neutralized any potential advantage of Titus's, since they both hailed from Vega$ (if anything, by your reckoning, Titus should've done better against Reno-based Gibbons).