WILL HARRY REID GET TO RUN AGAINST A SCIENTOLOGY SHILL?

He will if this surge continues:

Fueled by a burst of support from the Tea Party, Sharron Angle has rocketed into a near dead heat with Sue Lowden in the white-hot U.S. Senate Republican primary, according to a new poll commissioned by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Lowden, who had been the Republican front-runner since February, lost support to Angle, the former Reno assemblywoman seen by likely Republican voters as the most conservative candidate in a contest in which three-quarters of Republican voters say they're somewhat or very conservative, the poll showed.

Danny Tarkanian lost ground to Angle, too. She passed him after gaining a bit of political star power and a bunch of financial support from an endorsement by the Tea Party Express, which launched radio and TV ads to help her win the GOP nomination to face U.S. Sen. Harry Reid in the fall.

... Angle has been stacking up endorsements from more than two dozen conservative groups and people, from Gun Owners of America to "Joe the Plumber." ...

In a month, Lowden -- the "Chicken for Checkups" candidate -- has gone from 45% in the polls to 30%. Angle has gone from 5% to 25%. Angle really seems to have the Big Mo.

Which is interesting, because Angle has this in her past:

Lawmakers are fleeing as fast as they can from a proposed trip to Ensenada, Mexico, to see a prison experiment with Scientology ties.

Assemblywoman Sharron Angle, R-Reno, is proposing a pilot program in Nevada, and has secured 35 seats on a Southwest Airlines flight to San Diego on March 1 -- funded by Arizona Scientologist Randy Suggs -- as part of a trip to the prison.

The program in Ensenada was started by Rick Pendery in 1995 and includes techniques called Narcanon and Criminon, drug treatment therapies developed by the late L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology.

Elements of the treatment include massive doses of vitamins and minerals as well as vastly extended sauna sessions.

Angle, the Assembly minority whip, is sponsoring a bill to launch a similar model in Nevada's women's prisons, and ... would seek [President] Bush's community-based, not faith-based, initiative grants. She said she is not a Scientologist....

It's an old story (from 2003), but I can't believe it won't resurface. This could be interesting....