SHERMAN FREDERICK: When Harry met Nancy

In 50-plus months, Nevada voters will march to the polls and replace Sen. Harry Reid, thus ending one of the longer, more powerful political runs in state history.

When it happens, political wiseguys will remember that Sen. Reid's undoing came early in his last term when he became a big shot in the Democratic Party and quickly morphed into someone Nevada voters did not recognize -- his political girlfriend in the House, uber-liberal Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California.

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Then, I see some other fella on C-SPAN and "Meet the Press." This other guy walks and talks like a lily-livered coward on terrorism, a crass political player on Social Security, a mute on abortion and family issues and Ted Kennedy on taxation.

I don't like that guy. And, I believe, most Nevadans are with me on that.

Nevadans who see Sen. Reid exercise his position as the Democratic leader of the Senate don't see the hardscrabble conservative Mormon from Searchlight. They see a political transvestite who forsakes his home state to kowtow to the wildly liberal wing of the Democratic Party. When Harry meets Nancy on the national stage, they seem indistinguishable. Not because she's him, but because him's she. I know that's not proper grammar, but it is a correct assessment from a Nevada perspective.

You can already color Reid the hue of burnt toast in rural Nevada. Harry has never done well in the cow counties, even when he wasn't slipping into Nancy's clothes and make-up.

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"Landslide Harry" is used to close races. Races that can be decided by a few thousand, and even a few hundred votes. But those were races before Harry became the top Democratic dog in the U.S. Senate. Before he disappeared as a conservative Democrat from Nevada. Before he started eyeing Nancy Pelosi's wardrobe.

Nevadans elected the Harry I've hiked the desert with in blue jeans and dusty work boots. But on national TV they see a guy in a capri and sandals.

Not pretty.

And, more to the point, not electable in Nevada.