Reid-iculous: Why the Senate Majority Leader is Just What Congress Needs

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by Deanna Falcone | March 15th, 2010 at 11:30 am



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If I’ve learned one thing so far this semester while studying in Washington, DC, it’s that politics, and especially Congress, is one giant soap opera. Online publications like Politico and The Hill read like tabloids, constantly brimming with articles about who is talking trash about who, and what new alliances are being forged. A recent star of this attention is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who has been making these headlines on a daily basis. Some would say that is a bad thing, but (I hate to say it), it makes me an even bigger fan.

Harry Reid is the kind of Senator who is blatantly aggressive. Just a few weeks ago, he called out Senator John McCain (R-AZ) for being too partisan. According to Politico, Senator Reid commented further that Senator McCain needed to “get over” his loss in the presidential election. More recently, he criticized the Senate Republicans for crying foul over potential use of reconciliation in passing health care reforms. CBS News quoted him as saying that Republicans “need to stop crying about reconciliation like it has never happened before.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

As Senate Minority Leader, Reid was known for giving then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist a hard time. He is also known, as evidenced by his comment on Senator McCain above, for being brutally frank about his opinions. According to an NPR profile of Reid, he has called former President George W. Bush, “a loser and a liar.”

What people don’t know about Reid is that he is a practicing Mormon. As NPR says, he is pro-life and supports abortion only in cases in which the mother’s life is in danger, or in the case of rape or incest. He is personally against gay marriage and even voted for the Defense of Marriage Act. I find it personally funny that such a Senator is often the direct target of conservative accusations of liberal extremism.

There are some who argue that his abrasive style is harmful to negotiations; that Senate Majority Leader Reid should spend more time uniting the two parties and less time attacking the opposition. However, it is not as though he has not made impressive bipartisan efforts, most notably on the recent jobs bill, with help from a few Senate Republicans who agreed to support the bill after extensive negotiations with Reid and other Democrats. It is important that the Senate Majority Leader can be honest and aggressive, especially in the current atmosphere of severe polarization. By being blunt and forceful, Senator Reid puts pressure on those who are obstructing legislation for political reasons to explain themselves, something that I believe is good for the average voter to know. Combined with his skills in behind-the-scenes negotiating, Senate Majority Leader Reid’s outspoken behavior is the very kind of powerful action and decision-making that I believe many Democrats lack.

Senator Harry Reid is the definition of a strong leader, and we need many more like him in the Democratic Party.