We haven’t given much coverage to the special election in Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District thus far, which will pit Democrat Kate Marshall, the state treasurer, against Republican Mark Amodei, a former state senator (Tina profiled Amodei in May). The seat became vacant when Governor Brian Sandoval appointed Dean Heller to finish John Ensign’s term in the US Senate. Heller won the seat by a wide margin in the 2010 election, almost 2-1 (63/33) over his Democratic challenger. A recent Magellan poll puts Amodei up by 13 points with the election just three weeks away on September 13th.

Obviously, that puts a great deal of pressure on Marshall to find ways to connect to Republicans. So, without having once brought up the subject of Israel during the campaign, Marshall’s team put out a statement expressing her support for Israel, as the dean of Nevada political analysts Jon Ralston reported — and that’s not all Team Marshall published, either (via the Daily Caller):

You don’t see this too often: A campaign puts out a statement by a candidate on an issue she has never talked about and then helpfully explains the political strategy at play at the end. But that’s what Kate Marshall’s congressional campaign did today, expressing strong support for Israel and then mistakenly leaving in a “background” note about why. It’s priceless[.]

He’s not kidding. Here’s the additional paragraph that someone forgot to redact before sending it to the campaign e-mail distribution list:

Background: Israel has been in the news lately, and will be even more in the news with Beck’s “Rally to Restore Courage” in Jerusalem. In an R district, it will be useful to express support for Israel and demonstrate some foreign policy prowess while it is a timely topic – especially for people who are likely paying attention to Beck’s event.

Er … Marshall’s team is strategizing around a Glenn Beck rally? That’s hilarious. Thanks should go to the staffer who was too incompetent to redact this from the press release, since it exposes Marshall’s expressed support of Israel as a cheap stunt intended to exploit Glenn Beck, of all people. Not only does this demolish the idea that Marshall has “foreign policy prowess,” it also makes her look fake.

Nevada News Bureau has been doing a fine job of keeping up with the special election in NV-02. They covered a controversial ad from Amodei early in the campaign that attacked the Obama administration and the hike in the debt ceiling, which enraged Democrats who are apparently unfamiliar with Barack Obama’s attack on George Bush’s “Bank of China” credit card and his lack of patriotism in adding to the national debt. Amodei had to throw a couple of elbows in the nominating process, but emerged to apparently unify the GOP. The Nevada Supreme Court had to settle the issue of whether the parties could select their own nominees or had to have a “battle royale,” a fight the GOP won.

Meanwhile, here’s a longish clip of the two candidates addressing the same venue. You can come to your own conclusions as to which does better on the stump.

We’ll keep an eye on this special election.

Update: I forgot to put in the Amodei clips from the event — which go on for a while:

Update II: Changed second “incompetent” to “fake,” which is what I’d meant to say originally.