Harry Reid has always baffled me.

[Are_grits_groceries]

He grew up in very poor circumstances in Nevada. His father committed suicide and he had to overcome that also. I don't think anything came easy to him.

He was also a boxer in his youth. Later he was the Chairman of The Las Vegas Gaming Commission. In that role, he took on the mob and others who were running the corruption show. He was facing very real danger in that position. A bomb was attached to his wife's car in one incident.

I have always believed there was much more to him than met the eye. However, it has only been lately that the hard-nosed side of him has emerged for any length of time.

I wish his grit had been shown much earlier. I can only surmise he held out too much hope that many people he worked with in the GOP would at some point back away from the edge of The Tea
Party Earth.

The GOP finally stepped on Harry's one last nerve. He may be circumspect about pulling the 'nuclear trigger' but I don't think there was ever any doubt in his own mind that he would. The GOP bet the same way too many times and lost big.

Don't play poker with him. He may lose a lot while winning a few. However, at the end when the biggest bet has been made, he will leave with all the money and you will be left with no game at all.

[unblock]

1. i don't think it was him, it was the holdouts, who kept him back.

generally speaking, a majority leader can only flex muscles if there's confidence that enough votes can be garnered.

reid has made many noises over several years about filibuster reform, and knew he didn't quite have the votes. so imho, reid was doing the best he could with a losing hand. to continue the poker analogy, he knew he was behind but made a small bluff to win a small pot, knowing he would have to fold if republicans raised him.

finally he drew a good hand, and made a solid bet to win a sizeable pot. still, though, he didn't have the nuts -- i'm quite certain that the holdouts agreed only to the limited filibuster reform on non-supreme court nominees that we got, otherwise reid would have gone further.

my guess is that reid had been working the holdouts on this issue for years, and it finally paid off.

[longship]

3. That's my reading on it.

The Dem caucus is a bit of a rabble, and always has been. Democrats are not as ideologically pure as Republicans. It would be foolish for Reid to bring a losing filibuster ending vote to the floor. Harry has always known that. People need to give him credit.

[Gothmog]

4. Reid did a good job of herding cats

I am convinced that he did not have the votes until this week

[longship]

5. I am sure of it. Just from the previous public announcements from various Senate Dems.

All that was needed was five Dems against and it goes down. Nobody can credibly claim that Reid delayed this because he was cowardly, or some other such utter crapola.

It happened this week because he finally had the votes to succeed. He was doing the job of a majority leader in not bringing it up until there were enough votes.

I have always supported Reid on this.

[GoCubsGo]

11. Yep.

I don't think he's as spineless as many believe him to be. Some of his fellow Senate Dems, OTOH... It would be great if everyone Reid has to work with was an Elizabeth Warren or a Sherrod Brown, but unfortunately he's also stuck dealing with the Mary Landrieus and Joe Manchins.

[fadedrose]

13. If all goes well - maybe legislative nuclear is next......

Obama's only got 2 full years and then the election will take all the juice about candidates....

The ACA and everything else could have gone better if those awful rightwingers had just made even a slight suggestion that may have helped. It's their country too...

[whathehell]

2. I can understand why..

From what I've read about him, he's decidedly, well, um "unique".

I recently read that he has a strange telephone "style", if you will. When he's finished talking to someone,

anyone, it seems, he just hangs up the phone -- No "goodbye", "talk to you later', nothing, zilch.

Apparently, a number of people have found this odd and off-putting. When he was asked why he

does this, e.g. just hangs up at the end of the conversation, his answer was "because I'm done talking".

[randome]

6. Everyone has their idiosyncrasies.

My ex-father-in-law found it difficult to speak coherently on the phone. Just some kind of mental quirk he was never able to overcome.

And he was a retired physics professor. It wasn't that he lacked for intellectual awareness.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[whathehell]

9. That's true. I'm not trashing the guy, I'm happy as hell that he changed the filibuster rules! N/T

[Are_grits_groceries]

7. My Grandmama was like that.

I would be talking to her and then 'boom.' She was gone. Apparently SHE was through with the phone call whether I was or not.
I don't think she ever cared to learn or knew telephone etiquette. She wasn't mad at me or anyone else. I learned quickly never to take it personally. It began to be funny.

[whathehell]

8. That IS funny...

I knew a hippie guy back in the day who, if you were visiting him in his house, would simply walk out of the room when

when he was ready for your visit to end. He wasn't angry or anything, he was just "done".

It was a little strange, as often, one would have to wait a little while to realize that

he hadn't just gone to the toilet.....After five or ten minutes passed, you understood that this was his way

of saying "good-bye". It was a very interesting time, there, in San Francisco in 1970.

[malaise]

10. Great post

One thing I know about the best boxers - they deliver that knock out left hook when you least expect it.
Harry 'done good'. Fill all the vacancies.

[kentuck]

12. I'm thinking Harry wanted the filibuster all along...

but did not have enough Democratic votes to pass it. Rather than name individual Senators, as their Leader, he took the blame for the failure to bring it up?

I think I may have been wrong about Harry?