Reid and the rest
Harry Reid.
Really, I kind of wish Harry Reid would’ve stepped into this scandal a year ago, and that this would’ve taken him from his “Senate Majority Leader” seat then. Then we’d be spared him as that.
But that’s just kind of realpolitik. Really? He said it “off the record?” Sure… but to Mark Halperin, which makes such a claim of “off the record” moot because… it’s MARK HALPERIN, one of the most noxious figure in political discourse out there.
In the 2008 Presidential campaign, I caught what was going on here, and I made that explanation of Obama that there’s a whole arena of racial discourse you just have to float through. (I’d have to fish out the blog post.) Harry Reid did what just about everyone and their dog did in the past couple of years, and explain why Barack Obama is not Jesse Jackson, and in doing so got slammed right up to …
… well, the word “negro”, apparently.
He is not Trent Lott, praising a “Segregationist Now!” Presidential bid. He is Joseph Biden, describing Obama as “clean”.
Actually, what’s fascinating me about Harry Reid is that he is the third party Senate leader in four election cycles facing a tough re-election bid. We have Tom Daschle, Mitch Mcconnell, and Harry Reid.  This makes some sense. The job of Senate Party Leader is a cynical job indeed, nakedly transactional without the glories of being inspirational at all, you are exposed. And partisan emnity is tossed right at you. The very thing that have to sell the state voters — and the thing that these three Senators have all fallen back on in waging their re-election fights — “Power” and “Can bring home the Pork” — has the double edged sword of being what irks people off of voting for them — “More Washington claptrap”. It’s a bit of a wonder why this is a pretty recent situation, where these seats were pretty safe before. Something has changed — partisan polarizing, I suppose?
Harry Reid is now the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent. Bryan Dorgan and Chris Dodd pulled their campaign rip chords. It’s interesting. Bryan Dorgan was one of the good guys — as defined by being on the losing end of various lop-sided single-digit votes to what seems to me “common sensical” positions, but apparently we’re so corrupted that they aren’t. The most obvious one, bandied about of late, this vote in 1999. It puts him over there in the “Political fringe”. I suppose he’s too cozy to Ethanol, but if you have to be too cozy to something there are worse things to be than “Big Corn”. (Main problem is probably the opportunity cost that going toward corn based fuels has in harnessing the power of the Sun.) Chris Dodd was too cozy to the Banks. I knew that even as I half jokingly, half not, “endorsed” his pointless presidential bid (well, he was sounding some good notes on Civil Liberties if nothing else). That presidential bid helped do him in, lowered his approval ratings. As well the ethics charge he had been cleared of, though the problem was… his legal acts were about as wearisome — this was how his retirement was received in some corners. Mind you, that is a function of the system — Dorgan was beholden to “Big Corn” because he was from North Dakota. Dodd is from Connecticut.
It’s interesting to watch. The Republican retirements came early; the Democratic retirements come later. Connecticut is saved for the Democrats. North Dakota is lost from the Democrats. Harry Reid will chug along.