Tag: harry reid

Quote of the Day, Oh, Don’t Sell Your Fame Short, Harry Reid edition.

Now isn’t this just precious:

Asked if his leadership style contributed to the Senate losses, Reid told POLITICO: “Does anybody in Nebraska know me? Or Kansas? I don’t think it had much to do with me. I don’t think most people know who I am.”

Trust me, soon-to-be Senate Minority Leader: we’ve been making sure that people in Nebraska and Kansas – and Arkansas and Alaska and North Carolina and South Dakota and Montana and Louisiana and Kentucky and Georgia and West Virginia and Colorado and, oh, so many other places! – know exactly who Harry Reid is, and what he represents. Continue reading Quote of the Day, Oh, Don’t Sell Your Fame Short, Harry Reid edition.

The Democrats are keeping their leadership cadre. …Bless their hearts.

Chris Cillizza is not quite gobsmacked:

Nine days ago, Democrats lost (at least) eight of their seats and their majority in the Senate.  On the House side, the party dipped to at their lowest level — in terms of raw number of seats held — since World War II. How did the party react to this rejection from the American public? By preparing to re-elect every single one of their top Congressional leaders, of course!

…but he can see gobsmacked from where he currently sits.  Basically, the Democrats are not going to change their leadership cadre.  This despite the utter disaster that befell the legislative branch of their party last week, mind you; and it’s not just that the Democrats lost the Senate and got rocked back on their heels in the House. It’s that Democrats in the state legislatures likewise got hammered.  I don’t believe in permanent Republican majorities than I believed in permanent Democratic ones, but one of the major things standing in the way of a new Democratic majority is their leadership cadre.  Robert Tracinski over at the Federalist noted that the Democratic party’s recruitment successes collapsed when it became clear that all those new, shiny Red State Democrats were there to rubber stamp urban liberal Democratic agendas. As long as the people who support that agenda still run the Democratic party, moving the needle again is going to be hard for the Democratic rank-and-file. Continue reading The Democrats are keeping their leadership cadre. …Bless their hearts.

Harry Reid’s Ebolan Roulette.

Specifically, the Surgeon General nomination.  Why is Vivek Murthy’s nomination stalled, again?  Well, as Byron York reminds us it’s primarily because Harry Reid wants it stalled:

It would take just 51 of the Senate’s 55 Democrats to confirm Murthy. But that confirmation has not happened. “There is bipartisan opposition, so Sen. Reid hasn’t even tried to bring him to a vote,” says another senior Senate GOP aide.

Consider this the fallout from Reid’s decision to partially nuke the filibuster (oh, I slay me): Harry Reid wanted the judges, and he figured that getting them was worth the embarrassment of having to occasionally scuttle the President’s more embarrassingly awful executive branch nominees. And Murthy is, indeed, embarrassingly awful: back in 2012 he rather infamously declared guns to be a “public health issue” – which is to say, Dr. Murthy wants to use the regulatory aspects of the State to do an end-run around that pesky Constitution thingy and ban guns that way.  Which is why civil rights groups have made their opposition to Dr. Murthy crystal clear – and why Harry Reid has allowed Murthy’s nomination to languish in the bowels of the Senate*. Continue reading Harry Reid’s Ebolan Roulette.

Mark Pryor (D): Man, we should replace Harry Reid (D) with Chuck Schumer (D)!

Free tip for politicians: stop saying in private what would embarrass you if it was said in public. Because eventually it will be said in public. From an ‘exclusive’ fundraising dinner last month:

During the discussion, an attendee began criticizing [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid [D], telling [Senator Mark] Pryor [D] that the Democratic leader held some responsibility for the low approval rating of Congress.

“Let me just interrupt,” Pryor said, according to an audio recording that was corroborated by an attendee. “I think possibly the best thing that could happen … to this institution, this election cycle would be if [Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell gets beat and Harry Reid gets replaced.”

The rest of Pryor’s comment is drowned out by clapping. A spokesperson for the Pryor campaign did not respond to requests to confirm this statement or questions about his opinion on Reid’s leadership role.

Yeah, I wouldn’t have responded, either. Pryor went on to endorse Schumer as a replacement – well, he also mentioned Mark Begich, but I think that you have to be a Senator to be a Senate Majority Leader – offer some advice on which Republican he’d like to lobby to next year once Pryor is abruptly out of office, and bad-mouth a bunch of people that he’s taken money from.  All in all, a stellar performance.  Stellar!

…And that’s why you want to vote for Tom Cotton next month.  Assuming that you live in Arkansas, of course.

Via Hot Air Headlines.

Moe Lane

Quote of the Day, Harry Reid Hates YOUR Free Speech edition.

On Harry Reid’s blatant attempt to kill the First Amendment:

What we saw in Harry Reid’s Senate this week was an attempt by the ascendant part of the elite, the part that makes its living from abstraction, to vanquish the declining part, the part that makes its living from extraction. And this sorry excuse for a legislative week did more than reveal, in real time, the structure and nature of class struggle in America today. It also occasioned a sentence I never thought I would write. If only Harry Reid listened to the ACLU.

Bolding mine. Strange days, folks.  Strange days, indeed.

Moe Lane

PS: While I appreciate the fact that the ACLU was fuming over this, and rightly so… I should point out: fuming is nice. Getting some of these freedom-hating Senators out of office would be even nicer.

Let us stop playing Harry Reid’s twisted little games.

Background: Harry Reid wants to waste precious Senate time on a Constitutional amendment that would significantly limit the First’s freedom of speech protections (all in the name of fighting Charles and David Koch, who apparently live under Harry Reid’s bed and plan to eat him if the night-light ever burns out).  The Washington Examiner’s Byron York lays out how pointless this is:

The first action Reid has scheduled for next week is a cloture vote on whether to even begin considering the amendment. Republicans could filibuster the measure, which would stop it and allow the Senate to move on to move meaningful matters. But that would allow Democrats to accuse the GOP of obstructionism. So Republicans will likely allow the amendment to go forward.

A long debate will then ensue in which Democrats denounce the Kochs and “corporate money” and Republicans argue the amendment would abridge First Amendment rights. After an extended back-and-forth, there will be another vote, this time on whether to end debate. Again, Republicans don’t need to use the filibuster to stop the measure, because they know it will fail in the final vote.

After more pointless debate, there will be yet another vote to move toward a final vote on the matter. If the amendment goes on to that final vote, and even if all 55 Democrats ultimately support it, it will fall a dozen votes short of passage.

Continue reading Let us stop playing Harry Reid’s twisted little games.

I don’t think Harry Reid will run again.

I think that – as this article notes – Harry Reid is old, sick*, and he’s about to become the Senate Minority Leader in a world where the incoming majority will have a great number of opportunities for malice, and revenge**. I do note that Jon Ralston, the author of said piece, thinks that Reid will not only survive but thrive… but if you read that article, the impression you get is that Harry Reid has a hard crust and a hollowed-out interior.  Break through – or even give a good enough blow to the outside – and he’ll shatter like a piece of punk wood.

Mark my words: when Harry Reid eventually falls it will all happen in the course of one or two weeks. He’s not going to dig in his heels, although there is a small part of me that kind of hopes that he does.  A small and horrible part of me.

Moe Lane

*Take that any way that you like.

**The Senate has always been a place where comity warred with spite.  Spite has been winning, the last few years; and its victims are increasingly eager to return the favor.  And driving Harry Reid from office probably would soothe the Senate’s breast, as it were.

So, Harry Reid had One. Job. at the Nevada Asian Chamber of Commerce.

Did it happen?

No.

The Asian Chamber of Commerce on Thursday endorsed Republican Mark Hutchison for lieutenant governor, spurning U.S. Sen. Harry Reid’s Democratic choice, Lucy Flores, after the senator spoke to the group and praised it as a “significant part of what Nevada is all about.”

[snip]

Reid left the luncheon after his speech and missed the formal endorsement announcements. But organizers had placed before each diner a one-page list of the chosen candidates with their photos included. Flores had RSVP’d for the event the day before, according to the chamber, but was a no-show Thursday.

But… why? Besides the fact that Flores skipped it entirely and Reid bailed early, of course.  It’s a mystery… Continue reading So, Harry Reid had One. Job. at the Nevada Asian Chamber of Commerce.

Everybody Harry Reid’s ever viciously attacked is getting ready for 2016.

They’re coming to get Harry Reid.

Harry Reid’s reelection is more than two years off, but the Koch brothers’ political machine is already methodically laying the groundwork that will be used to try to take him out.

The efforts in recent months have been largely subterranean, but they are unmistakable. A handful of nonprofit groups in the vast political network helmed by allies of the conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch have established or expanded permanent ground operations in Reid’s backyard. Focused on wooing key demographics like Latinos and veterans, they’ve also paid for ads assailing the Senate Democratic leader.

Basically, it boils down to this: nobody loves the Senate Majority Leader, and if Reid runs for re-election in 2016 he’s undoubtedly going to be facing Brian Sandoval, the very popular and term-limited Republican Governor of Nevada. That combination of a horde of enemies and a top-shelf candidate has gotten the Reid machine rattled, although they’d rather chew broken class than admit it.  Since Harry Reid is currently polling remarkably badly against Sandoval, the efforts for 2016 have already taken on the aspect of a hastily-built firewall.  For one thing, Harry Reid has already hamstrung the Democratic candidate for governor and thrown him to the wolves: Continue reading Everybody Harry Reid’s ever viciously attacked is getting ready for 2016.

I’ve already reported on John Walsh being out…

…(specifically, here) but here’s a blast from the past that puts the blame on this where it belongs: squarely on the shoulders of Harry Reid.

From that Politico article:

Former Montana Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger just jumped in the Montana Senate race last week – but he says national Democrats are already trying to push him out.

Foremost among them, according to the Democratic candidate? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

Bohlinger ended up losing; open question how much that was due to Harry Reid wanting a plagiarist in that Senate slot, but I’m guessing that it was at least a factor. It’d be funny if they had to go back to Bohlinger now.  Also futile, but them’s the breaks.  Do your oppo on your own people, too.  Always do your oppo on your own people.