While the GOP leadership is under assault from their imcompetence and corruption, ours continues to get
glowing praise.
There's nothing fancy about Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate. Sartorially, he is a symphony in brown. He hails from a Nevada eye-blink called Searchlight, but isn't at ease in the spotlight. "I would just as soon never have a press conference," he says. An amateur boxer in his youth, the 65-year-old Reid's idea of a good time is to watch reruns of famous bouts on ESPN Classic. A favorite was on the other night: the 1955 epic between Archie Moore and Rocky Marciano. "Moore flattened Rocky early," Reid said. "Had him down, almost out. But by patience and sheer determination Marciano came back, round by round, and won. Both guys were cut and bloody when it was over." [...]
Reid, with 37 years in politics, is prospering partly by doing what shrewd boxers do in the early rounds to survive: let the other guy overreach. Proudly unphilosophical, he thinks the Democratic Party needs no soul-searching. "I believe in simplicity," he says. "Health care, pensions, energy independence--that's my agenda." [...]
While Reid himself is low-key, the allies he organizes throughout the city--polltakers, consultants, liberal lobbyists--are not. He has commissioned virtual "war rooms," which coordinate the use of focus-grouped attack language in ads and speeches on two main issues. The first was Social Security. Now comes the war of words over the Senate's hallowed "filibuster rule," which allows a minority of 41 members to use the privilege of talking endlessly to kill any legislative action--such as a judicial nomination they don't like. Reid's poll-tested line of attack: ending the filibuster rule would destroy the separation of powers envisioned by the Founding Fathers. It's not clear whether Frist has the support--or the nerve--to press for a vote on ending the rule. His own advisers are divided.
There is no such hesitancy in Reid's corner of the ring. He has all 44 Democrats with him, and is trying to lure defectors from the GOP with a coalition that includes some unlikely names, like the Gun Owners of America and the YWCA. If Republicans push a vote and prevail, he says, he'll shut down virtually all business in the Senate by other parliamentary means. He is aware of what happened to Republicans years ago when they did something similar to Bill Clinton over the budget--they made themselves look unpatriotic, and made Clinton look like a hero. "This is a different situation," he says. "There is much more at stake now. I don't want it to happen, but if it does, so be it," he shrugs. He didn't sound like he was spoiling for a fight--only like he expected to be the last man standing.
Dean, Reid and Pelosi, versus Bush, Frist and DeLay. I'll take our guys any day of the week.