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Sunday, August 14, 2005

NV-Sen: Reid Handling Ensign with Kid Gloves

Posted by DavidNYC

Hugh at the Los Vegas Gleaner points out this frustrating AP story. Yargh... stuff like this drives me nuts:

The home state of the Senate Democratic leader might not seem like the best place to be a first-term Republican senator up for re-election. But Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., is finding he could hardly ask for a safer haven.

Once bitter opponents, Ensign and now-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid emerged from a hard-fought 1998 campaign, which Ensign lost by 428 votes, to forge a close relationship.

Now Reid, in charge of growing the Democratic minority in the Senate, is signaling that Ensign is one Republican who won’t be in his cross-hairs.

“We’ve got other places where we’re going to focus our attention,” Reid said.

Yeesh... Nevada is a true swing state - John Kerry lost the state by less than 3 points, and Bush's approval rating is at an extraordinarily bad 38-57. In fact, Nevadans gave George Bush the lowest marks of any red state in Survey USA's early June fifty-state poll. In fact, NV ranked him worse than even Massachusetts did!

What's more, Ensign himself has only a 49-34 rating. Doesn't sound too bad, I know - but it's only good enough for 82nd-best out of 100 senators. To put things in perspective, that's worse than the highly vulnerable Lincoln Chaffee (R-RI) and the odious Conrad Burns (R-MT).

So it's pretty clear to me that Ensign is among the weakest sitting GOP senators up for re-election in 2006. Why, then, is Reid being so kind to him?

I think there's no way any GOPer in Reid's position would show him the same sort of courtesy. I feel like we've been exposed to this lesson countless time over the past 5 years, so why haven't we learned it? Mary Landrieu, Max Cleland, etc., etc. Moreover, at most, the GOP will go easy on Reid and Reid alone when he's up for re-election.

Look, I like the job Reid has been doing - I think he's held the caucus together pretty well, and he's certainly been a damn sight better than Tom Daschle. But if he's looking to save his hide at the expense of giving up a chance to knock off a vulnerable Republican, then I can't tolerate that.

Posted at 11:38 AM in Nevada | Technorati

Comments

This is the type of thing that drives folks absolutely insane. The right is working on pouring money into quixotic campaigns in places like Maryland and West Virginia and we have Harry Reid talking about taking a pass on challenging a Republican in a swing state who doesnt have stellar numbers in a year that is clearly go to be a down year for Republicans. There is no hope of a Democratic majority if you can't put together credible and well-funded challenges in places like Nevada.

Posted by: realvalues at August 14, 2005 03:09 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

DASCHLE! Frist campaigned AGAINST DASCHLE!

Dem leadership has got to wake up.

Posted by: njdem at August 14, 2005 03:33 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

I'll admit it... that's a tough one to stomach. We don't have the luxury of pulling our punches.

Posted by: Ohio 2nd at August 14, 2005 09:50 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

It's always about money, though. The question of whether or not Ensign's seat would be up for grabs comes down to how much the GOP will spend to keep it. Maryland is actually a very Democratic state, despite the Republican governor. I don't know the situation in W. Va. But I just get s sense that there's something more than meets the eye in the case of Nevada, and I give Reid a lot of credit as a politician. I wouldn't want to run against him and I wouldn't want to play poker with him. He may have something else up his sleeve. Has anyone asked him about this?

Posted by: G. D. Frogsdong at August 15, 2005 01:13 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

I gotta say, I was feeling like Reid was doing to right and honorable thing until I read this:

I think there's no way any GOPer in Reid's position would show him the same sort of courtesy. I feel like we've been exposed to this lesson countless time over the past 5 years,...

Oh yeah! Oh hell yeah! You are so right about that, Tim. Those repugs only see friendship as a weakness. There's no point to being honorable with them.

Come on, Harry, Give him hell!

Posted by: Eric Loeb at August 17, 2005 10:35 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment