You might be asking yourself why any progressive would make such a statement. Well in my humble opinion Harry Reid has failed Democrats in so many ways that if we have a new Leader things will be different. Here is why I believe he has failed.
His political skills in the Senate are too compromising. He never misses and opportunity to really stick it to the Republicans. How?
- Have true filibusters. Make the Repubs. read from the phone book until the wee hours of the morning. A filibuster like this would be broken in 3 days tops.
- There are over 400 bills pending in the Senate. He can blame Repubs all he wants but if he had the balls to do number one the repubs would be more likely to cave.
- He should slam Senator Dement for trying to Hijack the Senate. Again go back to point 1 and make Dement stand on his silly notion that all legislation must pass through his office or it will be filibustered.
- His choice of legislation stinks. There has been nothing on energy, climate change, or environmental policies put forth by the Senate. Why? Because they claim it is dead on arrival or sadly the Dems are in the pockets of the energy corporations along with the Repubs. Well let them debate and filibuster again point 1.
- He never misses a vacation. This is another way to get after the repubs. Refuse to go on vacation until they compromise on legislation they have to stay in session in order to do that. Rarely is this used because the Dems themselves have no balls to stand up. Sharod Brown said that much when the unemployment bill came up he wanted to stay in session and make them vote and if they try to filibuster run it through the entire vacation.
- If we get a new leader the chances of killing or changing the filibuster rule will increase Jan.1.
If Harry Reid wins and we retain the Senate then he should look closely at this list as it is what a bold leader would do. Just look back in the history of the Senate when they use to actually debate instead of pansey voting to end a filibuster.