By Jon Ralston (contact)

Sun, Nov 16, 2008 (2 a.m.)

The next major race in Nevada, the one that started the day after the election, will be the most expensive, most watched and most vitriolic contest in state history: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s bid for a fifth term.

National Republicans are plotting to erase Reid from the Club of 100, and last week the first prospective candidate dipped his toes into the water. Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki told the Associated Press he is mulling a bid against Reid, an announcement that surely made Democrats guffaw because of Krolicki’s ensnarement in a financial controversy soon after he left the state treasurer’s office. We can only hope, Democrats surely were whispering.

I guarantee Harry Reid was not among them.

What Reid knows is that with his problematic approval ratings — not Bush-like or Gibbons-like, but upside-down in some polls — any statewide elected official who can get money will have a chance. And Krolicki is not just any statewide elected official. He is an ambitious pol who paid his dues this cycle by fronting for the hapless McCain Nevada effort and who has been getting recruitment calls by would-be Reid-killers.

With Jon Porter and Joe Heck now bereft of elective titles and with painful losses on their resumes, Krolicki will look appealing to the national GOP folks, who are itching to rev up their effort to defeat Reid.

You can be sure Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has Krolicki’s number and is preparing a D.C. red carpet for him. Meanwhile, Team Reid, which plays politics like a UFC match without rules, will be preparing a different kind of welcome for Krolicki.

Reid had Treasurer Kate Marshall’s phone number, and she undoubtedly has passed (or will pass) on her Krolicki file, which includes allegations (some still under investigation) that he sanitized state files, used public money to promote himself and botched contracts with financial folks. By the time Team Reid is done with this stuff, Ken Lay will look like a misdemeanant compared to the lieutenant governor.

Krolicki has to know what challenging the Reid machine means — perhaps he should ask Gov. Jim Gibbons, who flirted with a Senate bid in 2004 before he was scared into the governor’s race the next cycle. (Thanks for that, Sen. Reid! Then again, maybe Reid is some kind of evil wizard who knew Gibbons would be a gubernatorial disaster and would be at the top of the GOP ticket when Reid was up for reelection.)

On paper, Krolicki, who runs strongly in Washoe and rural counties and has done well in Clark, could be a formidable candidate. His numbers two years ago were impressive.

But this is not 2006, this is not your grandfather’s Washoe County and Harry Reid is not Bob Unger, the halfhearted challenger to Krolicki two years ago.

Reid will have $3 million in the bank by the end of the year and has been instrumental in changing the state, including Washoe, from a GOP-leaning place to a Democratic stronghold. Reid is no Barack Obama — cue the guffaws again — but he may be able to harness the new power of the Hispanic vote that helped the president-elect, and that 100,000-plus-registration edge has to count for something.

Reid’s ruthlessness also will come into play during the run-up to his reelection as he uses the power of his majority leader’s perch not just to raise money but also to discourage national donors from giving to Krolicki — or any other Republicans inclined to challenge him. And with a friendly president and Democratic Congress, the porkmeister will be able to deliver whatever he wants to his home state.

Much of the focus will be on Washoe County, too, where Krolicki received about 60 percent in 2006. But even before it turned slightly blue this year, reliably Republican Washoe had saved Reid’s career in the two of his four races that have been competitive. Reid lost by relatively small margins in Washoe to Jim Santini in 1986 and to John Ensign in 1998, and his inroads there cost the GOP those races.

The Republicans remain hopeful that despite the new, blue Nevada and the possibility of a ticket-killer named Gibbons as their standard-bearer, an affliction known as Reid Fatigue could be pervasive and potent enough to defeat the incumbent. More than a quarter-century in Washington, partisan behavior and incendiary statements have caused the disease to grow more acute and, perhaps, more widespread.

I know there are those who still think Reid, sensing that fatigue, will decline to seek reelection in 2010. My guess is before the holidays are done, though, Krolicki will be sent a message that indicates nothing could be further from the truth.