How Harry Reid came to be almost invulnerable

By Jon Ralston

Sunday, May 17, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Let us turn our attention today from the train wreck unfolding in Carson City to another engine that has run off the tracks: The Republican Party’s effort to end the career of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

The most damaging line to the GOP about Reid’s 2010 prospects came not from any liberal media types here but in the nationally respected Politico newspaper last week, in a piece that also appeared in Thursday’s Las Vegas Sun. “Few Republicans will say so publicly, but it’s increasingly looking like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is going to get a pass for reelection in 2010,” Alex Isenstadt’s story began.

Now declaring Reid reelected more than 500 days before the balloting is almost as silly as declaring Yucca Mountain dead before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission decides whether to license the dump there. Or is it?

The national media no longer list Reid as among the most vulnerable senators in the country. And when the best they can do is float a former assemblywoman known for her initiative failures, Sharron Angle, and a New York banker with residency issues, John Chachas, those sounds you hear are the plaintive cries of desperation.

This is a stupendous achievement, with credit due to the Reid organization’s brilliant anointment process and the GOP’s magically incompetent recruiting efforts. To be fair to the national Republican Party, though, there is no Republican Party here. Beyond activist Chuck Muth, who isn’t even a Republican anymore, sending out incessant conservative screeds under his name and ghost-writing others for GOP leaders, the party is a cipher.

The Reid pre-campaign has been nothing short of spectacular. Raising $7 million. Coaxing prominent Republicans such as two Northern mayors and uberconsultant Sig Rogich to sign onto the campaign — and I bet Reid is on the phone every day trying to get more. The upcoming event at Caesars Palace with President Barack Obama should yield seven figures. And I don’t think Reid got Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki indicted, but he might have helped Jon Porter get that plum D.C. job.

This sheen of invincibility, though, could be torn away overnight. But not easily.

Normal human beings — i.e., those not obsessed with politics 24/7 — might argue it’s still early, that much can happen, that a deus ex machina is waiting around the summer corner. But to the GOP apostles, especially the ones in D.C., Rep. Dean Heller is God and the rest of the prospective field is hardly of Olympian proportions.

I have always believed Heller was the most formidable contender against Reid, even after he succumbed to the Invasion of the Moderate Snatchers. He is telegenic and has a rock-solid base and few negatives.

Heller has flirted with running for the Senate before, including the last time Reid was up, announcing his non-candidacy with a statement to then-Review-Journal reporter Erin Neff that may be exhumed by the Reidites if there is a Heller campaign: “Voters have been very vocal across the state about their concern for losing clout in Washington. There’s a real concern about seniority.”

Heller might be able to finesse that — “What good is seniority if it is not used to help the people of Nevada?” But after a week of Reid-led gutting of the Yucca budget and the appointment of a former employee to head the NRC, that seniority argument seems more potent than ever.

Reid’s campaign clearly is predicated on two premises — clear the field of anyone who might be dangerous and raise a fortune in case anyone dangerous files. His team knows how weak the incumbent’s numbers are and how susceptible he is to a strong challenge.

The domestic and foreign atmospherics could be critical, too.

The Republicans still must deal with the most unpopular figure in the state being at the top of their ticket. Most savvy Republicans are praying that the proverbial group of wise men will visit Gibbons and have the talk. “You are not Ø, Jim,” the message will be. “For the future of the Republican Party here, you are less than Ø. And we are supporting Person X.”

Now if Person X turns out to be a game-changer — what if GOP dreams came true and ex-Attorney General, current federal Judge Brian Sandoval ran? — that might alter the dynamic and help Reid’s GOP foe.

Reid, who will appear with the president at the Colosseum at Caesars on May 26, also may have his fortunes tied inextricably to Obama’s. If the president is still doing well, if the economy is rebounding a year hence, Reid will benefit. If not, and if the GOP finds a real candidate, today’s languishing GOP locomotive could become Reid’s train to oblivion.