This is getting nasty

Update: S&G sends its condolences to Sen. Reid after his wife and daughter were severely injured in an automobile accident this afternoon.

Back when Archon Corp. Treasurer Sue Lowden (left) threw her hat into the 2010 U.S. Senate race, I predicted (in a different forum) that the opposition would reach for Archon Corp.’s business practices as a source of ready ammunition. I didn’t know the half of it. The minions of Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) have rummaged through Archon’s OSHA file and declared that — as bluntly paraphrased by Las Vegas Gleaner‘s Hugh Jackson — “the Lowdens … have scant concern for employee safety during the course of their careers as owners of mostly fourth-rate gambling shitholes.” (Helpfully, Reid’s peeps have in many cases linked directly to the citations, so one can decide for oneself.)

However, as Jackson obliquely points out, nobody died as the direct consequence of working at an Archon property … a claim that cannot be made, sadly, for Reid’s new pet project, CityCenter. Heavy TV ad buys by Lowden have raised her profile considerably (although low sampling rates mean Mason-Dixon‘s polls should be approached with caution*), which is now proving to be a double-edged sword. If Reid — who can’t move legislation but is considered a scorched-earth campaigner — is going to the Archon well so early and often in the campaign, there’s no telling how much uglier things will get. But look on the bright side: All these attack and counter-attack ads are a nice little form of economic stimulus, no?

* — Lowden’s opponents may actually benefit from also-ran perception, flying under the radar while the Pioneer Hotel & Gambling Hall co-owner absorbs all the flak.

Correction: A fellow TV watcher caught up with the CityCenter-touting, pro-Reid spot that S&G synopsized earlier this week and informs me that it’s a PAC ad, not an official Reid spot. (It’s the ad that uses Echelon footage to show how Las Vegas has fallen on evil days, with rescue materializing in the form of CityCenter.) That degree of separation might explain the unfortunate and apparently unmotivated “diss” of Boyd Gaming, especially when Sheldon Adelson makes such a logical and inviting target. However, I should have caught the PAC affiliation and didn’t, and there’s no excuse for that.