Chickens, Tom Cruise, and the Nevada Senate Race

One of the more amusing U.S. Senate primary races taking place Tuesday is a GOP grudge match in Nevada -- the winner of which will go up against Senate majority leader Harry Reid in November.

Former state GOP chair Sue Lowden was once the obvious front-runner to challenge Reid, but Tea Party favorite and former state assemblywoman Sharron Angle has now surpassed Lowden in the polls.

Both women are entrenched conservatives, but Angle is more right-wing. Though Lowden advocated for Nevada's ban on same-sex marriage, she doesn't support the Defense of Marriage Act (not because she claims a deep love for gays, but because she thinks marriage is a state issue). Like many Republicans, Lowden isn't a fan of health care reform -- she famously gave interviews where she said people should barter for their health care, using the example that people once paid their physicians with chickens.

Angle doesn't mention anything about gay rights issues on her website, but this is a woman who once insinuated that prohibition had its benefits (she now says she doesn't support a ban on alcohol). While serving in the Nevada legislature, Angle supported a drug-treatment therapy for inmates that involved saunas and massages -- some have noted the treatment's similarity to a Scientology remedy. Lowden has run an advertisement that reenacts just such a massage and flashes a picture of Tom Cruise. Angle is a Southern Baptist and denies any ties to Scientology.

There's a third contender in the GOP race, former University of Nevada, Las Vegas, point guard and current businessman Danny Tarkanian. Unlike Lowden and Angle, Tarkanian has escaped serious gaffes and blunders, but he's previously run for office several times and has always come up short. Angle is now ahead in the polls, with Tarkanian and Lowden vying for second place.

Nevada is also picking its Republican candidate for the governor's office, with Jim Gibbons, the philandering current governor, currently down in the polls. Gibbons vetoed a 2009 bill that legalized domestic partnerships in the state, but the legislature managed to override it after a gay boycott of the state looked imminent. Gibbons, once called the worst governor in America, has been accused of several misdeeds, including sexually assaulting a woman in a Las Vegas parking garage.

Former U.S. district court judge Brian Sandoval leads Gibbons in the polls by a double-digit margin.