It’s hard to choose the single most disheartening defeat from yesterday, but seeing Tom Daschle lose in South Dakota has to be right up there. Looking ahead, however, we need a Dem to fill his role as the party leader in the Senate. It may quickly get competitive, but a frontrunner already seems obvious.<\/p>\n
Senate Minority Whip Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who cruised to re-election yesterday, will announce his intentions today<\/a> and get a head start on potential challengers. Indeed, Reid’s staff was making similar announcements<\/a> last night.<\/p>\n Reid wants the job badly and a lot of lawmakers owe him some favors, which certainly makes him the odds-on favorite. But Reid as Minority Leader is not without risks.<\/p>\n Pros<\/i> — Reid is exceedingly smart, tough, and has a reputation for unwavering honesty. He isn’t an in-your-face type or an inspiring orator, but he’s downright brilliant behind the scenes. Remember when Dems convinced Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.) to leave the Republicans? Reid made it happen. Moreover, Reid is also known as a centrist, so he’ll hardly be an alienating figure or GOP punching bag.<\/p>\n Cons<\/i> — He’s from a relatively Republican state, so Reid may have to put his own interests above the party caucus’ from time to time. More importantly, Reid is — I hope you’re sitting down — opposed to abortion rights, which clearly puts him at odds with the overwhelming majority of congressional Dems on a high-profile issue.<\/p>\n Reid’s efforts this afternoon will give him a critical head start in the race for the job, but I’d be surprised if he didn’t face a rival or two. Among the names floating around: Chris Dodd (Conn.), Dick Durbin (Ill.), and Hillary Clinton (N.Y.). All three steer clear of the “cons” listed above, but none have been building up a favor reservoir the way Reid has.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s hard to choose the single most disheartening defeat from yesterday, but seeing Tom Daschle lose in South Dakota has to be right up there. Looking ahead, however, we need a Dem to fill his role as the party leader in the Senate. It may quickly get competitive, but a frontrunner already seems obvious. Senate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2949\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}