| However the health care negotiations end — with a Rose Garden signing or a last-minute debacle — Reid has another battle waiting at home: to save his seat in the Senate. The longer Reid has served as Democratic leader, the more Nevada voters have turned against him. It’s a challenge that regularly confronts politicians who have to balance the demands of being a Congressional leader with maintaining political viability back home. For the third time in 16 years, Republicans are trying to oust one of the top Democratic leaders in Congress, as they successfully did with Reid’s predecessor as Democratic leader in the Senate, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, in 2004, and with Tom Foley in 1994, when he was the speaker of the House. If Reid loses in November, it is hard to imagine either party selecting a Senate or House leader from a competitive state like Nevada anytime soon. “He lives in a purple state, and he is pursuing a deep-blue agenda, and that’s tough,” Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, told me. “He’s shown a lot of loyalty to his party and to his caucus to his detriment, and I admire that.” The cheers for Reid in Washington are not being heard back home: a poll conducted this month on behalf of The Las Vegas Review-Journal found that Nevadans disapproved of the health care bill. Reid’s attempt to slip in financing to offset Nevada’s Medicaid costs, precisely the kind of vote-getting sweetener that could display his worth to Nevadans, came under fire in Washington, so he withdrew it rather than risk having the bill unravel. |
