The man who defies description

Thursday, Jan. 4, 2007 | 7:01 a.m.

Washington

WHAT THE MEDIA ARE SAYING ABOUT HARRY

"Reid is low-key, deferential and somewhat sheepish, qualities that make it easy to misread or underestimate him."

Mark Leibovich, The New York Times

"Reid may be the only Senate majority leader who can say he learned to swim at a brothel."

William M. Welch, USA Today

"The consummate pessimist in a political world full of sunny optimism."

Jonathan Weisman, The Washington Post

Harry Reid is dour, unpolished, a walking contradiction with an "Eeyore exterior." Or he is "shrewd and very effective," with a "spine of steel," a brawling political insider who started life as a rural Nevada outsider.

Those are among the descriptions of Reid as reported by the national media in the two months since the Nevada Democrat was elected majority leader of the U.S. Senate, a post he ascends to today as the 110th Congress convenes in Washington.

Reid was a stranger to most Americans before November, despite serving for two years as leader of the Senate's minority party. Postelection polls found that two-thirds of Americans had never heard of him.

But once his party seized control of Congress, Reid's power and profile grew exponentially. He now controls the operation of the Senate and, as the nation's highest elected legislator, he is leader of the loyal opposition to the Republican-controlled executive branch.

Accordingly, the nation's major newspapers and broadcast outlets have busied themselves describing Reid, generally starting with a dose of disillusionment. The press seems a little disappointed that Reid is not a glittery Vegas guy, UCLA political science professor Barbara Sinclair said.

In other words, she quipped, he's no Oscar Goodman. Indeed, Reid "could almost be from Kansas."

The stories on Reid have followed a familiar narrative: The miner's son from Searchlight, who hitchhiked his way to high school and whose hardscrabble childhood helped shape his personal and political beliefs.

There have been plenty of boxer analogies: "An infighter with a sharp jab," a New York Times headline said.

The Washington Post described Reid's reputation as a "brawler who moves with the alacrity he acquired in his days as an amateur boxer."

Time magazine reported his "Eeyore exterior" and nabbed this quintessential quote when Reid was asked whether Democrats were going to win the Senate on Election Night, as Republican seats were falling one by one: "Oh, no, no, no. You have to understand, I'm not a guy that is ever very optimistic."

There have been musings about the curious head-scratchers inherent in Reid: a Mormon representing Sin City. A Democrat who is against abortion.

And the controversies that dogged Reid before the election have followed him since - from a Nevada land deal that, once reported by the Associated Press, led him to amend his financial disclosure forms, to his acceptance of free ringside seats to Las Vegas boxing events.

Washington Post columnist David Broder questioned whether Reid could handle his new role, given his "less than commanding" public presence and his sharp partisan comments - he called President Bush "a liar" over Yucca Mountain and "a loser" for his policies in general.

"The risk for Democrats is that Reid may not be up to the challenge," Broder wrote a week after the election.

More recently, the blogosphere erupted when Reid told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos he would be willing to send more troops to Iraq as part of a strategy toward troop withdrawal. The net-roots worried that their hero had missed the point of the November election.

Reid also came under fire from the Post's editorial writers for his unorthodox plan to kick off the new session with a closed-door meeting of all 100 senators, which Reid sees as a way to set a bipartisan tone outside of the glare of the media. The Post suggested that a better start would be to conduct the Senate's business in public.

Yet despite the occasionally unflattering portrayals, the coverage so far seems to reflect accurately the quiet insider Reid has become, and "that helps him," Sinclair said.

The last thing Reid needs now, as he tries to lead with a slender 51-49 majority in the Senate, is the kind of overblown expectations the media give their darlings, like their current crush on potential presidential contender Barack Obama, Sinclair said. "Nobody could live up to that."

Reid's counterpart, California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, is stealing the show as the first woman speaker of the House. The less swooning over Reid, the better, Sinclair said, so he is not set up "for a big fall."

One element of Reid the media have not captured is the fun he is having.

Reid, completely out of character, has been smiling.

"I'm really happy," Reid told Nevada reporters the week after the election. "I know I'm not a smiley kind of guy This has been so much fun the last week."

He is aware of his image as it has emerged over the weeks and told his fellow Democrats as much.

"I said there are a lot of you out there that are better-looking than I am, smarter, more experienced, but there's nobody out there who will work harder and try harder than I."