I stand by my criticism of Harry Reid's leadership of the Democrats' 59-seat Senate majority these last two years. His absolute willingness to let the Republican minority block just about everything that came their way is, in my opinion, largely to blame for the current unemployment numbers. However...
BrooklynBadBoy has a point:
The best campaign this cycle...was run by Senator Harry Reid.I can't deny his argument. Reid's will probably go down as the best campaign of the season; and I can't deny the plain and simple fact that had many more Democratic incumbents ran "old school, hardball, ward boss" campaigns, Tuesday's bloodbath might not have been so bad.
No matter what, the Reid campaign always made Angle some form of "extreme." Crazy. Nutjob. Mental case. You name it. Angle never could get away from it as she tried to turn the subject to the economy and Reid, but Angle's stance on jobs just kept killing her. Time after time after time, Reid was on the attack. It was unrelenting. Instead of making the election about himself or the economy, he made it all about his opponent. His barrage was unrelenting and he really began to hammer her in the final days.
Reid's frontal assault on GOP racism isn't textbook DLC "be like a Republican" stuff or even textbook Obama "let's all get along" stuff. It is old school, hardball, walkin-around money, ward boss "whose side are you on?" kill-the-enemy Democratic politics. I love it. God help me, I love it.
Reid didn't try to play moderate. He went in for the base. He ran on jobs, Social Security and tolerance. He didn't have a weak message of "Angle would be obstructionist, and that's not very nice." He said Angle was FRICKIN CRAZY, MY OPPONENT BELONGS IN BELLEVUE, not the Senate. When he needed Obama...he brought him right in. When he needed the First Lady, he brought her right in. No apologies and no avoiding pictures. Reid was right up in Angle's face the moment she won the primary. I wish other Democrats had run with such moxie.
