Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Harry Reid’s ability to resurrect himself

Harry Reid is dead.

Jacob Marley-like dead. Get-the-embalming-fluid-ready dead. No-chance-at-reelection dead.

I don’t know why anyone is even discussing his reelection prospects or why the National Republican Senatorial Committee would spend that pittance in Reno on an ad to try to irritate the walking political corpse. Reid cannot possibly win reelection with his numbers what they are — he is at best 50-50 in his approval/disapproval rating and perhaps slightly worse. And the state is suffering from Reid fatigue after his 40 years of intermittent public service, punctuated during his latest Senate term with intemperate outbursts about presidential and Iraq war losers.

Harry Reid is dead. And the Republicans need only to bury him. If only they could find someone to hold the shovel.

We have been here before. Reid is like the state’s ghost of elections past, present and future, some incorporeal ghoul who often seems ready to fade away but always finds a way to return to haunt the Republicans.

In 1974, poised to ascend to the U.S. Senate, Reid lost by a few hundred votes to Paul Laxalt. The next year he lost in an embarrassing landslide in a race for Las Vegas mayor. Harry Reid was dead.

But Gov. Mike O’Callaghan resurrected his career and he was soon heading the Nevada Gaming Commission, which launched him into the state’s new congressional seat in 1982. But when he ran for Laxalt’s Senate seat in 1986, he was up against a popular former congressman (Jim Santini) and the power of Laxalt and his best friend, President Ronald Reagan, who repeatedly campaigned here. Harry Reid was dead.

But he ran a flawless campaign and won the seat, only to find himself 12 years later up against a talented, telegenic unknown by the name of John Ensign. Reid’s campaign was pedestrian at best and Ensign was a marvel. It was over. Harry Reid was dead.

But, thanks to his electoral performance in the then-GOP stronghold of Washoe County, Reid hung on to win by 400 votes. Which brings us to the here and now.

I am sure many of my national media friends remain amazed that Reid has ascended to the most influential post in the legislative branch of government. How, they wonder and some have asked me, does a guy with so little presence, so little dynamism, so little gravitas do it?

The answer is simple: With Reid, what you see is not what you get.

Unlike most accomplished politicians, he discounts polls and the media, two critical tools to any ascension up the ladder. Without good polling data that you count on and the ability to manipulate the Fourth Estate, you are, well, dead.

Reid is still alive because, despite ignoring the benefits of using polling data and courting the media, he is the most indomitable and relentless pol I have known. And, he is willing to do almost anything to ingratiate himself to his colleagues and to win elections.

Reid’s numbers have been shaky for several years and he has done little to bridge the disconnect many Nevadans feel with the guy who campaigns here once every six years and the one who is the partisan attack dog on Capitol Hill. Reid and his allies can talk all they want about how important it is for a small state to have a senator with Reid’s power — and it is true. But he has become polarizing just as the country became polarized, so his margin for error has narrowed.

So, yes, Harry Reid is dead.

In the spirit of eulogizing fairly, I probably should mention that the state has changed dramatically since Reid last ran. Republicans were 42 percent of registered voters; now they are 36 percent. Washoe has gone from solid red to blue. And last year, of the 241,000 new registered voters in Nevada, 57 percent were Democrats and only 18 percent were Republicans.

I am sure those numbers mean very little, just as the Republicans having to protect the seats of retiring senators in other states surely won’t deplete the NRSC’s ability to combat Reid’s $10 million-plus war chest. Nor does it matter that the Republican Party here would have to upgrade to be described as in disarray and that no credible candidate has stepped forward yet to challenge Reid. Those are minor points.

So I say again: Harry Reid is dead. Now if only the GOP can find someone to entomb him, perhaps he will not do yet again what he has done his entire career, which is miraculously come back to life to horrify state and national Republicans.

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