Harry Reid for Majority Leader Nevada, Senators

The conservative Stanford Review commenting on the GOP 2008 presidential field pays a tribute to Harry Reid’s abilities.

…it appears less and less likely that Frist can capture the GOP nomination. Time and again, he has shown signs of ineffective leadership, allowing Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to run circles around him. Novak reports that Reid has become the most powerful Senate leader since LBJ.

Harry is the most effective leader in recent memory. My memory goes back to Everett McKinley Dirksen (R-IL), likewise a powerful Minority Leader. (Democrats now hold both Senate seats in Illinois.)

Harry is clearly the most influential Nevadan ever to serve in Congress.

While Republican Mitt Romney gets a lot of press attention, and deservedly so, Harry is one of the most influential Latter-day Saints in public life.

All this with Harry’s determined, but soft-spoken manner and a job that is a cross between being an outnumbered general and a herder of cats.

What we need to do is make Harry the Majority Leader. We can do this. The country needs this. In some ways gaining control of the Senate will be harder than winning a majority in the House because we have more ground to make up, but with the Senate, at least we don’t have to worry about redistricting. The number and shape of the states is pretty well fixed. That is another reason for a fifty-state strategy. If we only contest twenty or so blue states, we can conceivably win the presidency, but we can never win the Senate that way. We need be competitive in fifty states not only to win the Senate, but to create a deeply-rooted fifty-state democracy.

As for the West, the thirteen states in or west of the Mountain Time Zone send 26 of the 100 Senators to D.C. This year there are four Democratic seats to defend in the West, while the GOP needs to defend five. The seat most likely to change hands is in Montana (from R to D), but the election is still months away, and nothing is a sure thing until the votes are counted.

Right now a pick up of three Senate seats nationwide is very realistic. However, if the stars are in proper alignment, Senate control could change hands. Six seats changing hands would make the Senate 50 D and 49 R with one independent. Carrying, say, Arizona and Nevada in addition to Montana would go a long way to making that happen. To be sure, our Senate candidates in Utah and Wyoming have a challenge, but even in Bushlandia, people are feeling the pinch of gas prices and rising interest rates, and by contesting every state we improve our chances of winning the Senate, and not just as a one time shot this year. And the way the Senate works, the Majority Leader often needs to have the confidence of sixty Senators. Harry Reid is the perfect man for that job.

Leo Brown | June 17, 2006 | Comment on This Post (4 so far) Permalink: Harry Reid for Majority Leader Nevada, Senators

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