Even on a beautiful fall day, Searchlight can be a bleak place, with sun-bleached mobile homes outnumbering houses, buildings in various stages of disrepair, and cars slumped on flat tires. An empty block across the street from Harry Reid Elementary School bears the sign "Cottonwood Lake Homes," which was to have been a gated community -- a pet project of Reid's -- but is now just dust and rocks after its developer went broke. In a nearby block, alongside Harry Reid Road, 12 new houses have been built -- the only ones in town -- but ten of them appear empty, and the sales office is deserted.
Drive around Searchlight and you'll see a few Reid signs -- "Down Here We Spell Senator R-E-I-D" -- but a few more Angle signs. Talk to people in town and you'll find some who praise Reid's work on their behalf, some who seem on the fence just a day before the election, and some who think Harry Reid is the worst person in the world. That appears to be a pretty accurate cross-section of the Nevada electorate.
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