Facebook
Fark
Digg
Reddit
StumbleHarry Reid: Election results show Americans want bipartisanship
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid listens to a question from a reporter during a news conference at Vdara Wednesday, November 3, 2010.
Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2010 | 1:49 p.m.
The Senate race between Harry Reid and Sharron Angle was characterized by some of the most vitriolic, negative, mudslinging campaigning that took place during a 2010 midterms, marked by bitter divisions across the country. But by the morning after his win, Reid seemed to have forgotten all of that, boiling his promise for the future down to a single concept: bipartisanship.
"I think the main message that we should have received last night ... is that the people of Nevada and the American people want us to work together," he said.
Addressing a roomful of reporters at the Vdara hotel at CityCenter, which became the backdrop of choice for his campaign, Reid delivered short political eulogies for his colleagues who lost their seats to Republicans, and a sigh of relief over those who squeaked out wins, but mainly focused on laying out his agenda -- in general, bordering-on-vague, terms -- and strategy for governing.
"Now it's time to get back to work, do what is needed to re-right the economy and create jobs," he said. "I'm hopeful and confident that when the dust settles that the Republicans will no longer want to stop everything and we'll work together."
There's nothing particularly remarkable about a politician talking bipartisanship the day after winning an election.
But in the coming Congress, a compromise-driven approach is an ingrained prescription for getting anything done. It takes two houses of Congress to pass laws, and while Reid's Democrats maintained their dominance of the Senate, the House is going to be led by Republicans -- with several tea partiers in their ranks.
"There is a message out there, and the message is that people are struggling," Reid said. "It is difficult. And there's no place that's more difficult than Nevada."
Discussion: 24 comments so far…
Comments are moderated by Las Vegas Sun editors. Our goal is not to limit the discussion, but rather to elevate it. Comments should be relevant and contain no abusive language. Comments that are off-topic, vulgar, profane or include personal attacks will be removed. Full comments policy. Additionally, we now display comments from trusted commenters by default. Those wishing to become a trusted commenter need to verify their identity or sign in with Facebook Connect to tie their Facebook account to their Las Vegas Sun account. For more on this change, read our story about how it works and why we did it.
Only trusted comments are displayed on this page. Untrusted comments have expired from this story.
Post a comment
Most Popular
- Viewed
- Discussed
- E-mailed
- Photos: Olivia Culpo, 20, of Rhode Island is crowned 2012 Miss USA at Planet Hollywood
- US Navy hopes stealth ship answers a rising China
- Learning about Electric Daisy Carnival fans will help Las Vegas court them
- On the horizon: A quick look at projects poised to shape downtown
- Clark PG Kentrell Washington heading to Hofstra basketball
Everything Under the Sun
Blogs
The Kats Report
Joe Pesci remembers his own honeymoon in Vegas -- meeting the Rat Pack
Las Vegas Philharmonic says search for new music director to begin 'immediately' (1 Comment)
With Shenandoah project stalled, Wayne Newton hits back legally (7 Comments)
Where does a Playmate play when she turns 21? Vegas! (3 Comments)
Ice Ice Billy
The road to six-toed cats and Mayor Bubba
The Kats Report
David Itkin tells L.V. Philharmonic officials he's on his way out (14 Comments)
Diamond Dave sells it well as Van Halen pours out the power at MGM Grand (2 Comments)
- Locally owned and independent since 1950; Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, best news website in the nation & DuPont Award for broadcast journalism
It's a little hard to be bi-partisan when just last week conservatives were told by the President to sit in the back of the bus.
Where was his/their bi-partisan then?
What a loser for the State of Nevada.. He is the true meaning of "Power Corrupts". Another term of a Senator that is a "do nothing" and makes pay for being a "tool bag" on the senate payroll....Boooo to Reid and all that he stands for.. Oh yea, he stands for the Obam-ination plan...
"I'm hopeful and confident that when the dust settles that the Republicans will no longer want to stop everything and we'll work together." - Reid
You have to do your part, too, Harry. Stop trying to ram unwanted legislation thru on top of critical bills. Get back to basics and genuine compromise.
Obama's political fate is now in *your* hands.
Tony, you're full of baloney. This guy is the epidemy of stupidity. He can be held up as the poster child for "the dumbest State". Take your plans for the United Socialist States of America and go blow some weed. Maybe you'll have an epiphany.
re electing Reid showed that Nevada is just as ignorant as America thinks we are, stupidest city in America as we were just awarded recently.
That is O.K. all you freeloaders, the free ride is over. NO MORE EXTENDED BENEFITS.
The Dems had the house and senate since Jan. 2007, plus the oval office since Jan. 2009. The repubs could not have stopped anything even if they wanted to. At least now gridlock will help substantially.
Just keep an eye on the lameduck session.
P.S. I really like Marco Rubio from Florida.
Someone should march this old fool down to the local barbershop for a seious haircut.
Harry Reid is a great Senator. Nevada chose very wisely returning him to office.
Imagine, both the two largest employers in Nevada, and its employees recognize his value. Not often that happens.
Imagine the damage that would be caused if he did not get returned to office. Can you say nuclear waste less than a hundred miles from Las Vegas? Thanks to Reid, we are on track to keep that at bay.
How about the mining industry? How about green energy? The list goes no. Reid is good for Nevada.
Unlike the right wing media would like you believe, Reid is well liked and that is why he was re-elected. It had nothing to do with the lessor of two evils. There was one evil, and she is back in her cave now.
Congratulations Senator Harry!
The Republicans held the White House and Both branches of congress from January 2001 - January 2007 and almost destroyed this country. How quickly and conviently the crazy people forget the damage they inflicted on this country, by giving huge tax breaks to the rich and driving this country so far into debt that it will take a century to dig out of. Their dismal record on Job creation is also evidence that by mortgaging your childrens future so that the rich can be richer was a bad strategy that did not create any jobs. So lets hope that the republicans can come up with some better ideas this time and thank god we have Harry Reid standing up for us in the Senate!!!
So it's taken over four years for Harry to realize that the Dems can't just lock the doors on the Repubs and expect bipartisan behavior between parties. It is truely amazing that it took the Dems to lose the majority in the House to realize what is going on. Now they will try and blame the Repubs for their lack of bipartsanship.
The way our economy is going we should be saying no-no-no instead of the Dems yes-yes-yes. Cut the crazy spending like there's no tomorrow. Let us use some of what's left of the stimulus to pay for bills that have been passed by congress and stop puting the cost of these bills onto our childrens' backs and our grandchildrens backs.
Just remember Harry you are now under the microscope and now YOU have to realize that you can't have it only your way.
The best part about this scenario is this will slow down our country's demise orchestrated by the wealthy Corporations successfully outsourcing the United States citizens work to 3rd world countries for the fraction of labor cost.
We have to thank the Bush Administration for making it possible for these mega corps to be able to outsource the production our products which have been a mainstay to the survival of our middle class in our country. Yet our own government allowed these Corporate giants to take our jobs overseas. They have made it easy for these corporations to import their product and not have to pay a penny in import taxes... as long as these companies have at least 1 office in the U.S. they are recognized as being an American Corporation and import taxes do not apply.
It is amazing with all the cheap labor these Corps are using overseas we the people don't reap any rewards when we go out to buy these goods for our families. Everything costs the same if not a little bit more than before the outsourcing.
This does not show a government of the people for the people.
Where are we headed?
I'm ready to learn a new agenda. Bring it on!
Just today, calls for bipartisanship and compromise were rejected by republican Orrin Hatch.
Funny that the Angle crowd, who wanted to elect one of the most far-right, inflexible politicos in recent memory, are clamoring for bipartisanship now.
Harry was reelected. Nevada voters approve of his work.
"The repubs could not have stopped anything even if they wanted to."
Revisionist history. Is this why Jim DeMint from the republican MINORITY was blocking ALL legislation?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheat-sheet...
Is that why DeMint blocked subpoena power for BP investigators?
"On the Senate floor, Republican Jim DeMint blocked a move to bring up a Democrat-sponsored bill that would have granted subpoena power to the White House oil spill commission. A similar measure passed the House last week by a vote of 420-1. A spokesman for DeMint said the South Carolina senator himself does not object to giving the commission subpoena power, but was acting on behalf of "members of the Republican conference." "
Thomas, you have no idea what you're talking about.
We really don't need Congress. Bernanke is having the Fed buy Bonds. If we upset the international monetary system, everything will collapse. So China, Europe and Japan will call the shots. Other than a bunch of broke consumers with no money, and a over-stretched military, the USA has nothing. Like a individual racked up on credit cards, the USA is trapped.
Republicans have no interest in Bipartisanship. They are only interested in power and they will use their majority in the house to cause gridlock and possibly a power play to shut the government down. Also you better be ready for a whole bunch of supoenas to fly. They are gonna want to investigate everything just for a political show, since they have no real plan they have to fill up their schedules.
The day the democrats took over was not January 22nd 2009 it was actually January 3rd 2007 the day the Democrats took over the House of Representatives and the Senate, the start of the 110th Congress. The Democratic Party controlled a majority in both chambers for the first time since the end of the 103rd Congress in 1995.
For those who are listening to the liberals propagating the fallacy that everything is "Bush's Fault", think about this:
January 3rd, 2007 was the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress:
At the time:
The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77
The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5%
The Unemployment rate was 4.6%
George Bush's Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB CREATION!
Remember the day...
January 3rd, 2007 was the day that Barney Frank took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee.
The economic meltdown that happened 15 months later was in what part of the economy?
BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES!!!
THANK YOU DEMOCRATS for taking us from 13,000 DOW, 3.5 GDP and 4.6% Unemployment... to this CRISIS by (among MANY other things) dumping 5-6 TRILLION Dollars of toxic loans on the economy from YOUR Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac FIASCOS! (BTW: Bush asked Congress 17 TIMES to stop Fannie & Freddie - starting in 2001 because it was financially risky for the US economy).
And who took the THIRD highest pay-off from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac????
OBAMA
And who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie???
OBAMA and the Democratic Congress
So when someone tries to blame Bush...
REMEMBER JANUARY 3rd, 2007.... THE DAY THE DEMOCRATSTOOK OVER!" Bush may have been in the car but the Democrats were in charge of the gas pedal and steering wheel they were driving.
Set the record straight on Bush!
Mr. Reid, I voted for you. I'm a yellow dog democrat. I voted for you in spite of my observations of the number of times you let this quest for "bipartisanship" that you and my president share march you down a path where you let republicans decimate meaningful parts of significant legislation in order to bring it to a vote. I think you think that if you include some of their madness in the legislation, or take out segments of the legislation that the money givers and takers don't like, they will support it. Mr. Reid, have you yet noticed that after they play their "weaken the legislation" cards, they still vote AGAINST the legislation. Wake up man. And now, you have misread the intent of the voters. Voters want bipartisanship is a crock, and I believe that deep down inside you, you know that to be true. Speaking for myself and myself alone, I often wonder what happened to that part of the preamble to the constitution that said, "promote the general Welfare". It said promote the "GENERAL" welfare, not promote the "CORPORATE" welfare.
This guy is unbelievable.
The Democrats get trounced and instead of seeing it as a rejection of the Liberals idiotic policies he spins it into complete drivel and claims....."a vote for bipartisanship". Wow!!!!!
This proves that the Liberals suffer from a mental disease.
Sharron Angle lost the day she won the primary. The Democrats did a great job of marginalizing a marginal person. Whoopee, what's next, Obama will declare his policies are just misunderstood.
Your might call the Republicans obstructionist, but the true villains are the destructionist Libs.
what a bunch of whining reactionaries! you guys sound like the CIA when kennedy wanted to improve relations w/ cuba and the soviet union.
Casino Emails leaked!
http://watchdogmedia.org/national/Harrah...
As usual, Harry Reids definition of "Bipartisanship" is: Republicans rolling over on their bellies and caving in to whatever Democrats demand they cave in to.
The haters got OWNED in Nevada! Looks like Sen. Harry Reid will be around for six more LONG (wonderful) years!
It appears the Latinos came out to vote against Angle after her racist ads. The whole thing backfired on her and where is she now? "Who cares" is right!
Next time the Children of the Tea need to endorse a more sane candidate in Nevada.
HA the right wingers FAILED. The fact that they didn't take over BOTH the Senate and the House can only be looked at as a failure. And the lies and deflection and talking points you see from the right in this thread simply didn't work. Yet the right wingers spewing this stuff keep doing it anyway. Stupid is as stupid does.
___________
Yeah and Angle was the crazy, out of touch one. I believe Obama used the word "shellacking".
I think this about covers it:
http://townhall.com/columnists/MichelleM...
Harry,...its great that you won because Angle is NUTS,...however moving forward,...dump the bipartisan nonsense. It hasn't worked nor will it in the future with the corporate owned Republican party. Boehner isn't working with you, Obama or any Democrat because they hate Americans and this country. His only concern is money, power and extending any olive branch is a complete waste of time and energy.
The Democrats,...Our President, and you yourself need to fight and have a spine,...anything less is failure
Comment removed by moderator. Repetitive comment.
Fellow Conservatives, I don't have to add a thing. You have said it all and well. Thank you.
You missed the message harry....America has said that they wants jobs, no more spending and no more new taxes....We do not want your health care monster. It should be repealed and done again...This time with both parties giving input not just one...No more bail outs and no more stupid stimulus packages...Oh yeah, the arrogance that you, pelosi and obama had toward the American people was outright disgusting....Remember one thing the people are not finished, this was just a start...
@ Camelot- Your crackin' me up! Your from red neck U.S.A and you have the gonads to discuss Nevada voters! LOL So let's make a deal you keep your fellow redneck's to yourself over ther' yonder, and we will keep Nevada to ourselves. Your ignorance is cliche', its not Reid's fault that unemployment is 15%, ppl like to forget that this is a global recession, and frankly Las Vegas has been a one trick pony as far as the casinos bringing in all the revenue. That is changing and you just wait and see sugar plum just how well we come back from this! xoxo
The teapots will go against the established order, cause a financial crisis and then they will be taken to their nursery and given a spanking by a few of the adult Republicans. The teapots will be as irrelevant as Perot.
Rasmussen polls (a GOP outfit) and Mason-Dixon (LVRJ / GOP outfit) consistently showed Sen. Reid trailing, even as much as 5% is a late Ras poll.
Sen. Reid had this to say:
"We've got to do something about these misleading polls. Some public surveys showed me losing."
____
Clearly some right-wing pollsters are trying to sway elections toward the GOP.
Like Fixed News which calls itself a legitimate news organization, Rasmussen and MD are tools for the republicans.
Reid is already defiantly telling republicans he won't extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich.
So exactly what kind of people are typically the kind of High Rollers our city desperately needs to revive tourism? Why spend their money in Las Vegas when Harry Reid is going to confiscate their wages up front.
This is exactly why he shouldn't be representing Nevada, especially Las Vegas! He's a cheerleader for Obama's politics of envy, he doesn't care about his own constituents.
Even the last PPP poll (a Democratic outfit) showed Angle ahead by 1 point. And they had showed Reid up by 3 in the poll prior to that.
If anything, it shows a failure in methodology. And for that, we can all say thank you that they don't seem to call cell phones.
FireCapWife @ 3:18
"George Bush's Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB CREATION!"
_________
Still trying to beat the dead horse that was Bush's Lost Decade, huh? It's a waste of time. The whole world knows Bush was a massive, miserable failure, second only to another GOPer, Hoover.
Your posts here won't change history or W's sad, sad legacy.
Bull!
Results in NV show 4 things:
1. Obama pulled out every trick in the book including using his wife to get Hapless Harry reelected.
2. Reid took money and support from unions who forced workers to vote for him through lies, innuendo, extortion of employers and promises of payback. Again.
3. The Tea Party picked a poor candidate. Angle put her foot in her mouth almost as often as Joe Biden. Her late race gaffs with the Latino and Asian commercial and comments broke the camels back. She was painful to watch. Any number of better offerings might have won.
4. The local media was and is biased, did a hit job on Angle while protecting Reid. Including the Sun. While every possible negative was overblown and spun against her Reid was handled like a new born, protected and defended. Neutral conveyors of facts the Sun and others are not.
Almost 60% of folks polled said Reid needed to go and did not have their confidence. They just couldn't find an alternative they could live with.
BRASS,
And your point is? Almost every single person who voted for Angle will agree with you, as will probably half the people who voted for Reid (though few will admit it out loud.)
This election is over and we just have to deal with it til 2012.
I urge you (and others who are not happy about the choice we had to make) to look at the Modern Whigs. http://www.modernwhig.org
its getting old of blaming everything on reid when you have other people to add to the list. you know who they are but you wont even mention their name. as long as you have that attitude nothing will get done because thats the way you want it.
ksand, "Harry was reelected. Nevada voters approve of his work."
You can't have it both ways. Either Sharron was nuts as you posted ad nauseum or your statement above is true. I held my nose and voted for Angle while others held their butt cheeks and voted for Harry.
Las Vegas voted to keep Reid there Senator.The voters expect perks for Vegas. His power is nothing now. They made a mistake rewarding a Ubama follower.Communist countries are disasters.
Harry its ok to be old but I dont accept stupid,you stole the election with your shenanigans with the unions and minipulation of minorities,but now your hands are tied you won nothing. You are the one who cut medicare not anyone else you are the one who pushed Obamas policies,the rest of the country figured it out .Half the people in NV figured it out,if only you figured it out.
The teapots will go against the established order, cause a financial crisis and then they will be taken to their nursery and given a spanking by a few of the adult Republicans. The teapots will be as irrelevant as Perot.
*****
Shhhhhhhh, mred. Please don't let them know they are going to mean nothing against the "established order" of the Republican party. They believe they will have a complete say in things.
This is a quote from the AP in the local paper today:
"Barely an hour after Obama invited congressional Republicans to post election talks to work together on major issues, the Senate's GOP leader had a blunt message: His party's main goal is denying Obama re-election."
So the next two years NOTHING is going to be done that was promised by all the Republican (and Tea Party) candidates to the voters. The next two years is going to be filled with mud slinging and infighting just so they can parade their own candidate infront of the world in 2012. Yeah, maybe it will be Sara Palin - then Obama will definitely get relected.
The whole Country will suffer since those who were elected will not be doing their jobs.
To bad we won't get it. The people are the very last ones the Republicans listen to.
This is NOT the Republican Party of yesteryear - Eisenhower Republicans are long gone! The Republican Party of today are Domestic Terrorist - and we should NOT compromise with ANY terrorists! We are at war - here at home! Use the full power of a war-time President and stop these traitors in their tracks - NOW!
President Obama has and Senator Reid have extended the olive branch of compromise and peace, again - and it should be the last time! Now, that the Republicans have made it very clear they have no intention of compromise - I say President Obama should cram that olive branch down the throats of the Republicans and Harry should stick his olive branch where the sun doesn't shine way up in the Senate Republicans!
As for the House? President Obama has two weapons the Bully Pulpit and his Veto Pen - and he should start using BOTH immediately!