How can we tell that Harry Reid’s brand in Nevada has become box-office poison?  Even his son has had to distance himself from Dad.  The LA Times quotes Rory Reid in his quest to convince voters to support him for governor:

“He’s my father,” Rory said of Harry. “Not my political mentor.”

So much for family loyalty.  Sounds like it’s every man for himself in Nevada, even if one of them has to mislead voters:

The seeming aloofness belies what is, by all accounts, a close and loving relationship between the two. They speak often, about politics of course, but even more about movies, sports and the senator’s grandchildren, according to the younger Reid. ….

If that means distancing themselves in ways that are sometimes absurd — Rory omitting his surname from his first TV ad, Harry declining to publicly congratulate his son the night he was nominated (“He’s running his campaign; I’m running mine”) — each knows any close association would probably hurt them both.

“You’re going to have a very hard time convincing Nevadans to elect a pair of Reids in November,” said Michael Green, who grew up in Las Vegas and teaches history at the College of Southern Nevada. “They’re not the Kennedys, and this is not Massachusetts.”

Does anyone buy the notion of a firewall between the father and son on politics?  Apparently not, if one looks at the polling.  Neither father nor son is gaining much traction, although Reid père has moved ahead by subtraction from Angle’s momentum.  Reid fils isn’t doing terribly well, either, thanks to the family brand.

Rory can run from Harry, and Harry can run from Rory, but in the end they’re both Reids, and they’re both Demoocrats in a year where it’s difficult to be either, let alone both.  Pretending otherwise only undermines their credibility even further.