Let me advise the Exec Director against blogging from his new digs. His peers frown on such practices.

damn! i saw your headline and got my hopes up. i thought it was going to be a post about harry reid losing his majority leader job, not his senate seat.

Better safe than sorry, though. He should step down as majority leader to focus on his own reelection.

I'd like to say I have no ulterior motive for suggesting that course of action.

Keep in mind, sometimes low approval ratings for Democrats (and/or Congress) are partly the result of some segments of the public wanting them to be MORE confrontational with the GOP.

Yeah, mellowjohn, me, too. That's what we really need to happen.

I don't think the WSJ got the memo. The aura of inevitability isn't what it used to be. And the WSJ already has enough credibility issues to work through.

Uhh, Reid has negatives above 50 percent right now. True, we're not yet at summer 2010, but, the plus-50 on negatives is usually the No. 1 public sign of incumbent vulnerability, so I think the WSJ has a legitimate story, pending the actual GOP candidate.

Or, who knows, maybe he'll get more than a token challenge in the primary.

I think Reid should step down as majority leader. It seems to me that having a leader from a swing state whose seat is not secure is a major problem. It forces him to be concerned about his own prospects and thus to be less aggressive about pushing the Democratic agenda than he should be.

This was a problem with Daschle, I think, and it continues with Reid.

Ditto - I was hoping to hear someone was challenging Reid in the Senate as Majority Leader. We really need someone else. Another two years of his quivering weak-kneed surrender to the minority Rethugs and the Democratic majority is going to fall apart.

First, the state seems to be getting "bluer," with Obama having won in Nevada by 12 points.

This is actually a problem for Reid, actually, not a plus in Reid's column. Reid is a fairly conservative Democrat, and if the state is trending away from him then he may find it hard to get people interested enough to turn out and vote for him in a non-Presidential election year. OTOH, as the Majority Leader he has a bulls-eye right in the middle of his forehead that Republicans will be aiming at - hard. Recall how happy the GOPers were to get Daschle's seat in South Dakota - that's the minimum of how desperate they're going to be for a "win" by unseating Reid.

If I were Reid, I'd be giving serious consideration to stepping down from the Majority Leader post. The only reason he's in such dire straits is because he's in that position. Without the giant bulls-eye on his forehead he's still at risk, but he's not the prize that he is right now.

It seems to me that having a leader from a swing state whose seat is not secure is a major problem. It forces him to be concerned about his own prospects and thus to be less aggressive about pushing the Democratic agenda than he should be.

What you see as a "major problem" the conservative and moderate wings of the Democratic Party see as a "good feature". And since they outnumber the liberals in the Senate, their guy is in the seat. Yeah it makes him a weak leader, but in their eyes that's good because they don't want to be told what to do anyway - they have their pet projects and their own re-elections and they want their leadership to make both of those things run as smoothly as possible and otherwise get the hell out of the way.

You also seem to think there's something called a "Democratic agenda". There isn't. At least nothing like the Republican agenda we've been living with for the last 30 or so years. The Dems are not a unified party - they're a coalition of various interests pulled together into a single party (they acknowledge this - it's why it's called a "Big Tent"). There is no Democratic agenda - there are just lots of tiny little agendas that have to work within the party to get enough support to get put on the docket.

Photo caption NYT:

A Palestinian father of five young girls who were killed in an Israeli air strike mourned as he held his wounded son.

Where is Obama?

From Haaretz:

Israeli Defense Minister Barak also cited a comment made by U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, who visited Sderot during his election campaign earlier this year.

"Obama said that if rockets were being fired at his home while his two daughters were sleeping, he would do everything he could to prevent it," Barack told the plenum.

Barck cares about his daughters in a hypothetical situation; but doesn't have anything to say about Palestinian kids being killed.

While I like the chances of "a Democrat" to retain this seat, I suspect Reid knows how unhappy the base is with his ineffective behavior these past few years. He could get a run for his money in a primary and perhaps never make it to the election.

He could get a run for his money in a primary and perhaps never make it to the election.

If the presidential primary in Nevada is any indication, the party leaders will decide whether he has any competition. You may recall that Obama got one more delegate than Hillary, but the party merely acknowledged that if the delegates vote according to how they were elected, it would appear he would have more votes. This was after the media reported a tremendous victory for Hillary. The state also never released a popular vote for the primary.

Like others, I am very disappointed with Reid's performance and wish he were vulnerable as Majotiy Leader. Then I stop and think about it and wonder who, if anyone, in the Democratic caucus would be a significant improvement? I think the GOP-confrontation averse Reid is leading the caucus just where most of them (unfortunately) want to be led. A healthy Ted Kennedy maybe (at least ideologically, I don't know about his leadership skills). Even most of the few relatively liberal senators (Dodd, Leahy, Durbin) have been too accomodationist on most issues (aside from Dodd on FISA). There's Feingold, but he's probably too quirky. Actually, my favorite for the job is in the wrong house--Barney Frank. But there's probably a reason why he isn't in a leadership role in that body--I'm guessing the acerbic Frank doesn't play well with others. Which is exactly why I wish I could see him calling the Rethug bluffs and daring them to read the phone book into the night.

From the headline, I was hopeful that maybe he would be challenged for the senate seat by a democrat!

Rats! Foiled again. I am unconvinced that progressives would not be better off with a rethug in that senate seat - with the off-chance that a progressive could become the senate majority leader.

Down with Reid! Down with Pelosi! Get leadership that has the stones to do something progressive. Get leadership that does not major in wimpiness.

I'd like to see a Democrat in his seat! Maybe one who did not feel the need to kiss up to the GOP and Lieberman all the time.

Hapless Harry doesn't need to worry about losing to a GOPer; he needs to worry about the guy who figures out that someone could dig a decomposed rattlesnake corpse out of the sand, hang a sign around its bones saying "I'm a Democrat!"---and even IT could beat Harry in a primary race....

Time to donate to his primary challenger! Harry needs to go either way.

Do any of you actually live in Nevada? I do. There is no challenger, in either party, who will beat him. Forget what you may be reading in either the Las Vegas Review Journal or the Wall Street Journal. Whether he should continue as Majority Leader is a far different question, but he will be reelected in Nevada. No question.

bk---that was the name of a hot-dog/root-beer stand near my home when I was little. They bulldozed that thing ages ago....

Harry Reid should be replaced. From standing with Pelosi in "taking impeachment off the table", to giving immunity to the telecoms for illegally spying on americans, to the authorization for military use in iraq and this bail out to the banks and not to the people that the banks have been scalping all of these years, and so many more reasons, Harry Reid is a weak, ineffective legislator unless you are some corporate leader who wants to store radioactive waste under his mountains. I wish he and other DINO's like pelosi will step aside and let a more progressive democrat fight for their seats. These establishment democrats are no better than their neo con friends in congress. Out with them all and in with new blood.

with a 58-9 Dem majority in the Senate, I'd tend towards giving up a seat if that is what it takes to get rid of the less than useless Reid as ML. Of course, I'd prefer to keep the seat Dem and just replace Reid as ML.

yeah, include me in with those calling for reid to be replaced as majority leader.

pelosi as well.

the two of them bear much of the responsibility for the poor approval rating of congress.

i am tired of calling/writing their offices and getting blown off.

Reid and peloski were responsible for the energy bill that got shoved down our throats and started the big push towards $5.00 gasoline. then the duo shoved their bailout bill down our throats that reaped the US TAXPayers. Yes they both should go.

Ho Hum, sounds like a little bit of race-baiting here.

You're out of line. Excuse me, you have a sitting prez that's collecting a salary for a JOB WELL DONE-

If you are so concerned about these things, why don't you get off your A** and demand the sitting prez does his job, afterall, you're paying his salary!

Harry Reid's game is to pretend to be a Democrat, while advancing the radical corporate Republican agenda. Unfortunately, that's the same game a lot (most?) of our Democratic Senators are playing as well. To be truthful, they do stand up and fight when it comes to important things like parking spaces, office locations and non-binding resolutions that demonstrate fidelity to Republican leaning interest groups.

I would love to see a primary challenger to this loser, but I wouldn't shed a tear to see him lose his seat to a Republican.

Well, I hope Nevadans realize without Reid, they will have a lot less say and a much greater chance of having spent nuclear fuel stored in their state.

Of course Nevada is going blue! Everyone from California is moving there to ruin that state like they have the Golden State. Be ready for Income tax Nevadans!

Okay, fine, but does he have to be the Senate leader? Does he really? And if he must hold on to that position, can we get him to, you know, lead?

Rupert Murdoch's WSJ already planting the seeds that will no doubt take root and blossom in the minds of the sheep who think the prevention of middle Eastern submarine attacks in the Arkansas river through no-bids paying the veep's company $5/tic-tac is where we should be putting our tax dollars.

Surely you can spot a 'plant' article a mile off?

Conservatives will want Reid to 'play ball' in blocking some of Obama's liberal initiatives.

So they start the story, and make sure it becomes 'conventional wisdom' in the commentariat that Reid has to heave to a conservative line to pacify that side of the Democratic party, and his own electoral constituency.

This is all preparing the ground to block major initiatives from the new Administration.

It's an old game. Tell a story so many times it becomes true. They really do fear another FDR.

Surely after the 'triangulation' period under Clinton we can recognise all of this?

Someone should grab ol Harry by the short and curleys and divest him of his twins....

Damn -- when I read the headline, I thought it was about Reid's chances to stay Majority Leader, which I would love to see him lose...