Political civility derailed for a day

Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2007 | 7:23 a.m.

WASHINGTON - Bipartisanship can be such a fragile thing.

One day after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid journeyed to Kentucky, the home state of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell , for a polite, academic talk on bipartisanship, a very unpolite, partisan thing happened.

As McConnell was leaving the venue, a reporter asked if he would consider venturing to Nevada to campaign against Reid when the Democrat is up for re election.

It was a fair question. Democrats have been pummeling the minority leader with television ads in advance of the 2008 election. Even though Reid had been civil during the visit, the partisan warfare was never too far from the surface.

McConnell offered a hurried response as he climbed in his car: "We'll see what happens." The door slammed shut.

Gasp! In that brief moment, with those four little words, the goodwill that had been generated between Reid and McConnell - really, between the Democratic and Republican parties - had the potential to be shattered.

Was the stately Southern gentleman seriously considering committing the Senate taboo of going to another senator's state to mudsling?

The comment generated ripples through Washington on Tuesday.

This is the Senate, a place where rules (written or not) run the chamber, and manners matter like perhaps nowhere else in America.

In 2004, when then- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Republican, campaigned against the Senate minority leader, Democrat Tom Daschle, it "raised a lot of eyebrows," Associate Senate Historian Don Ritchie said.

"Senators for the most part don't campaign against other senators," Ritchie said. The Frist move "really was out of step."

Such are the nuances of what is permissible in the stately Senate. You can raise money to defeat your peers and speak nastily against their positions. But you don't go on the stump. When Reid was asked whether he would go after McConnell, he told Congressional Quarterly he would not campaign against the Republican.

So what was unfolding in Louisville this week?

In the end, the drama was short -lived.

By midafternoon Tuesday, McConnell was telling reporters it was all just a misunderstanding.

The Republican leader explained that he had misunderstood the question - he thought he was being asked if he would be willing to go to Nevada to deliver a talk as Reid had done that morning at the University of Louisville.

As for campaigning against Reid, McConnell said: "No, no, I don't have any plans to do that."

Even so, one senior Democratic aide said Tuesday that it "wasn't very surprising to read McConnell's quote because Republicans have a history of this sort of behavior."

The aide took a "trust, but verify," approach to the leader's explanation, adding, "We'll have to wait and see what happens in a couple of years."

As for Reid, he was looking forward to more bipartisanship.

Reid's spokesman Jon Summers said that just as Reid and Nevada Republican Sen. John Ensign refrain from campaigning against each other and "work together on behalf of Nevada, Sen. McConnell's decision will make it easier for he and Sen. Reid to work together on behalf of the American people."