Columnist Jon Ralston: Reid’s gone from underdog to Senate top dog

Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2000 | 9:36 a.m.

Jon Ralston, who publishes the Ralston Report, writes a column for the Sun on Sundays and Wednesdays. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or through e-mail at ralston@vegas.com.

In 1986 Harry Reid ran for the U.S. Senate by portraying himself in TV commercials as a poor David trying not to be crushed by a Washington, D.C., Goliath.

Forget that Reid, a congressman at the time, lived in Washington. It was about symbolism: The Capitol Hill power brokers were determined to keep Paul Laxalt's Senate seat in Republican hands and would spend whatever money they had to do so. Reid's campaign worked; he is now a U.S. senator.

And 14 years later David has morphed into Goliath as Reid is reveling in the trappings of Capitol Hill power as the Senate's minority whip. Now, thanks to a near-seven-figure political slush fund, he can do not just in Nevada, but in other states, what the national Republicans tried to do to him when he first ran: Pour hundreds of thousands of dollars of undisclosed soft money into states to try to affect the outcome of races.

The political action committee, called the Searchlight Leadership Fund after the small town where Reid grew up, is the campaign that didn't fail -- an acquisition of money and thus, power, that has moved Reid to a new plateau.

Reid has the money, the muscle and is trying to assemble a network to achieve hegemony over the state's political system. By using his new pot of cash -- much of it from an event last year featuring boxing promoter Don King -- Reid also can earn the heartfelt love and gratitude of colleagues whose campaign funds he enriches.

All of this surely is wonderful for the senior senator, and will help the state if Reid employs his influence to enhance his porkmeister and bill-killing skills. But Reid soon will find he must leave his David days behind and accept the role of Goliath -- he has become what he once railed against, the consummate Washington insider. All of the rest is a veneer, any words to the contrary are the tools of a poseur. In a tally provided by staffers, they estimated Reid raised and committed $2.2 million last year for himself, his leadership PAC, Democratic senators and candidates and the state party.

Remember, this is the same man who almost exactly two years ago, on the eve of his re-election bid against Rep. John Ensign, declared to the Associated Press that campaign finance reform was his "top priority." A year earlier Reid told the Sun, "We're going to harp, cajole, do anything we can to keep attention on (campaign finance reform)." His voice, methinks, may be somewhat muted on the subject now.

The question for Reid is whether he will now try to use his money the same way his predecessor, Sen. Laxalt, harnessed the GOP fund-raising machine to try to protect his seat 14 years ago. Can Reid channel some of that money to the underfunded Ed Bernstein for Senate campaign? Or will the new Nevada and Capitol Hill anointer consider that a bad investment considering he probably talks to his new best friend John Ensign more frequently these days than Ed what's-his-name? What's a Goliath to do?

Reid, sounding very different from the 1986 -- and even the campaign 1998 -- version, now also can stonewall questions about who filled the seven-figure war chest of the PAC not bound by normal rules. His spokesman simply declares: "We're not required to do it." And, the Reidites say, the donors must be guaranteed privacy.

Why? What do they -- and Reid -- have to conceal? How do we know that the Nuclear Energy Institute isn't funding the account? Or Brown and Williamson? Or anyone else whose interests might be inimical to those of the state Reid represents?

Don't fret, they say, there's no nuclear power industry money here. Well, then show us the money. If they don't, we won't know.

What we do know is that Harry Reid has now risen to the level of a political boss that has not been seen in this state since the days of Pat McCarran. But let not a word escape his lips ever again about campaign finance reform. Yes, David is dead. Long live Goliath.