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Harry situation: What if Reid loses?
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Race
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| Contributor | COSDem |
| Last Edited | COSDem Sep 30, 2009 01:23pm |
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| Category | Speculative |
| News Date | Wednesday, September 30, 2009 07:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | It’s a question few in the Senate will ask aloud but one that’s creeping into the chamber’s collective consciousness: What happens to Democrats if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid really does get knocked off in the 2010 midterm elections?
Most of his fellow Democrats believe the Nevadan will pull out a win, avoiding the humiliation of ousted Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota in 2004. But privately, they’re looking ahead with some trepidation, imagining a Reid-less Senate that could be more chaotic and even more partisan than it is today.
“You’ve got people who ask, ‘What does Harry actually do around here?’ I say, ‘Just wait till he’s gone. You’ll see just what he did; how he held things together,’” says a Democratic insider with ties to the leader. “On the surface, it appears that all these guys have friendly relationships. But under the surface, there are people who really don’t like each other in the conference, and Harry keeps a lid on all of that.”
For all the griping about Reid’s reluctance to impose his will on the raucous health care debate, even his critics concede that he runs a no-drama conference and has mostly kept the party’s right and left flanks from open warfare.
The two men who would almost certainly battle to succeed Reid — Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Chuck Schumer of New York — are both more liberal and more forcefully partisan figures who would alter the Senate’s equilibrium in significant and unpredictable ways.
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