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February 12, 2012

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Reid’s reelection has X-factor: Reidisms

By Jon Ralston (contact)

Friday, Aug. 14, 2009 | 2 a.m.

So a few days after I write about the Senate majority leader’s mastery of political black arts, the kind of stuff not taught in candidate school or Hogwarts, he reminds me of a wild card in his reelection bid that cannot be discounted: Harry Reid’s mouth.

Reid’s strengths — relentless and ruthless campaigner, engorged campaign war chest, solidly Democratic state — are as well-known as his weaknesses — Reid fatigue in the state, his lack of charisma, the recession.

But covering him for as long as I have (23 years), I sometimes forget just how regularly he can be intemperate or unpredictable with his utterances, part of the reason his staff surely cringes whenever he is doing an interview. BlackBerrys at the ready, they surely are poised to send the same message to one another: “You are not going to believe what he said now!”

It would fill up this entire column to give a roster of Reid’s greatest hits. But most people remember “The war is lost” and “(George W.) Bush is a loser” as two incendiary and pointless remarks by the highest-ranking Democrat on Capitol Hill. (My favorite Reidism came during his 1998 campaign with then-Rep. John Ensign when Reid, obviously irate that the upstart was trying to take him out, derisively wondered during a debate about Ensign’s profession, saying a veterinarian “shouldn’t be interpreting the Constitution.”)

This week it took national reporter Jill Lawrence only 19 minutes — that’s how long she spent in a car with Reid during the National Clean Energy Summit — to collect enough Reidisms for a career.

Lawrence, former national correspondent for USA Today and now a columnist for PoliticsDaily, reminded the world of just how flippant Reid can be. Sometimes, it seems, the majority leader gets too relaxed, shutting off his self-editing mechanism and offering up “he said what?” moments.

In one column, Lawrence demonstrated that no matter which second- or third-tier candidate decides to run against Reid, no matter how much money the incumbent has, Reid will always make his own life more difficult (and drive his staff and supporters insane). To wit:

• One day after closing out the energy summit by referring to some town-hall protesters as “evilmongers,” which surely caused the staff BlackBerrys to whir, Reid couldn’t help but use it again with Lawrence:

“It was an original with me. I maybe could have been less descriptive,” Reid told the columnist. “I doubt that you’ll hear it from me again.” But, Lawrence wrote: “A few minutes later he couldn’t resist a sardonic little joke. ‘I feel I haven’t done anything to embarrass them,’ Reid said of his children. ‘Except maybe call somebody an evilmonger.’ ”

He can’t help himself, so he doesn’t help himself.

• When Lawrence asked Reid about Sue Lowden, the GOP chairwoman mulling a bid against him, Reid again was irrepressible: “I like Sue Lowden. Her husband and I are close friends. She couldn’t get elected to the state Senate. She was against mammograms for women.”

Lowden indeed could get elected to the state Senate — she did in 1992. What Reid meant is that she couldn’t get reelected as the Culinary Union defeated her with a progenitor of the campaigns used in 2008 to oust state Sens. Joe Heck and Bob Beers, twisting an insurance mandate vote to blacken her reputation.

Why Reid would intentionally stick his thumb in Lowden’s eye is a question only he can answer, but it surely made his campaign staffers wince.

• The most priceless part of the Lawrence interview, though, was when Reid the Elder was asked about Reid the Younger’s gubernatorial candidacy. To wit:

“ ‘My son is going to fall or succeed on his own,’ he said. ‘He can run on his own laurels. He doesn’t need all my baggage to be worried about.’ Would they campaign together? ‘I don’t see us campaigning together,’ Reid said, adding deadpan, ‘I don’t want to try to get elected based on how good my son is.’ ”

And the piece de resistance from Lawrence: “There’s no doubt he’s in, right? I asked his dad, and got this curious response: ‘He’s announced he’s running, as far as I know,’ Reid said, turning to an aide. ‘Rory’s running, isn’t he?’ ”

Ah, the price of a wry sense of humor and playing dumb when everyone knows you’re not dumb: You sound silly.

Loose lips can indeed sink ships, even when you are an ocean liner racing a dinghy. And if you take on enough water, no matter how big you are, you will sink.

No wonder so many partisans are drooling or fearing that the SS Reid may be the SS Titanic.

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