Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is in political hot water right now. A lot - but not all - of his difficulty is wrapped up in the politically endemic issue of race in the U.S. That's an issue I hope to get to soon.
For the moment, though, I'd just like to look at the politics of Reid's situation -- with a glimpse at another very different pol, Sarah Palin, who is also in the news today.
You can read a myriad of opinions in the media about Reid's future: Either he's likely to win reelection regardless of a little bad publicity, or his goose is cooked; he should resign (I doubt that's going to happen); he will resign, as soon as he gets health care passed; a Washington Post puff piece suggests (without much evidence) that Reid's son's campaign for Nevada governor will interfere with the senior Reid's reelection. Take your choice.
It's very early for all this speculation. Elections are still 10+ months away. Reid's remark (undoubtedly far less important in the Nevada context than in the east-coast media anyway) will have blown over. His political importance to the Democratic Party will be far less in November than it is now. By then, health care reform will have been passed (or not). Reid and his managers will review the polls of Nevada voters and decide how his chances look; and he'll stand or fall based on how voters assess him comparative to the Republican candidate.
If Reid should run and lose in November, no one is likely to see it as a great tragedy for the country. Some may be tempted to see it as a great tragedy for Democrats, but I can't subscribe to that theory either. The Democrats' command of 60 seats in the Senate is unlikely to survive into 2011 under any circumstances; someone else can easily pick up the mantle of majority leadership. Personally, I believe if Reid feels by March or so that he's in real trouble, he could best serve his party by resigning and allowing another Democrat with better chances (is there one?) to compete, as Senator Dodd seems to have done.
The greater significance of Reid's and Dodds's fate, however, is generational change. One of the predictable consequences of electing a young, relatively inexperienced new President (like Obama, and like Kennedy before him) is a change of mood, a broadly shared expectation that some, and possibly many, of the old codgers on both sides of the aisle will be pushed out. There are many others whose retirement, forced or voluntary, could be considered refreshing, even beneficial (Mitch McConnell comes immediately to mind). Democrats should welcome this, as any trend against the overexperienced is likely to impact the GOP (Geezers Obstructing Progress) harder.
As more proof of the generational theme, look at Sarah Palin, a younger person in a party that desperately needs them. Whether or not she intends to run for office in 2010, or in 2012, she certainly intends to run at some point. There aren't too many politicians for whom Fox News would be a step up in credibility, but Palin is one such, so her latest coup -- signing this week as an occasional contributor to Fox News -- ought to help her stay "in" with the tea-party crowd while offering a chance to round off the rough corners that made her a national embarrassment in 2008. Harry Reid's own son, who is running for Governor of Nevada this year, may be another example, especially if he wins and his father does not.
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