Can't Fool 'Em

Harry Reid's success at transforming himself into a liberal (albeit a more stable one than, say, Howard Dean) is doing wonders for his career...

...except among his constituents:

No minority leader has so dominated the Senate since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1953-54," conservative columnist Robert Novak, who has covered the Beltway for decades, wrote last week, citing Reid's ability to hold up immigration reform and a bill to bail out companies with asbestos liabilities.

But Reid's national stature among activist Democrats, concentrated on the blue-state coasts, carries risks for him at home, analysts say. His consistent opposition to President Bush and his need to mollify the liberals in his party is costing him in Nevada, where polls show he has lost support since becoming minority leader.

Although Reid, who won re-election in 2004 and still has four years in his term, said in an interview that he pays no attention to polls, his actions in Nevada during the two-week Easter recess suggested that he is keenly aware of his vulnerabilities. He spoke to groups that carry at least a patina of conservatism - chambers of commerce, police and firefighters, religious groups, military men and women, district attorneys.

Reid touted national security, faith-based solutions and anti-gang measures. In front of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, he reminded the audience of his support last year for legislation long sought by conservatives that made it harder to declare bankruptcy.

So many western Democrats, used to life before the alternative media, have lived a double existence. Senators like Kent Conrad (D-ND), Ex-senator Tom Daschle (D-SD), Reid, and others were able to insulate their DC liberalism from the folks back home, mixing relatively conservative messages to the locals with the healthy dollops of pork, especially in the form of agricultural subsidies, enough to keep the criticism muted to nonexistent.

John Thune's defeat of Tom Dashcle was a signature moment in the upending of this system; hopefully North Dakota's GOP can rally to defeat Kent Conrad and (in '08, if memory serves) Byron Dorgan, who is virtually a Daschle doppleganger.