Ensign Still More Popular Than Reid?
Here's an interesting number from the new Mason-Dixon poll of Nevada, which showed that Sen. John Ensign's (R-NV) favorable rating has fallen to a paltry 39% in the wake of the news about this affair: He's still more popular than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
As it turns out, Reid's own favorable rating is only 34%. And of course, nothing has happened recently to call Reid's personal life into question. And the polls are much more important for Reid, because he's up for re-election in 2010.
The interesting thing is that while Reid has consistently lousy ratings back home, he currently has the advantage of not having any real opponent. The Nevada GOP has been battered in recent elections, and no Republican has stepped up to the plate to challenge him -- for example, former Rep. Jon Porter, who was defeated in 2008, recently took himself out of the running. And Reid has millions of dollars in the bank, as well, which can both ward off opponents and of course overpower anyone who does emerge.
Josh
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Eric
Brian
Republicans don't exactly have huge motivation to knock out Harry Reid. The senate is the one place right now where Republicans can block the Democratic agenda and Harry Reid is a huge reason why. I wonder who would step into the leadership position were he to get knocked over? Durbin? Schumer? Is it possible they are going easy here to avoid a real Democratic senate leader who would hold them accountable for some of their shenanagins?
June 22, 2009 1:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I'd think so-called "centrist" Democrats like Nebraska's Ben Nelson, California's Dianne Feinstein and Connecticut's Joe "Party of One" Lieberman also have something to do with it. We tend to forget, after years of watching the GOP behave in such a manner, that the Democrats are not some monolithic political entity, but rather a diverse coalition of sometimes-competing interests.
Further, we can lay a tremendous amount of blame on the lazy and relatively inept national media, which continues to promote a superficial cult of personality and celebrity at the ultimate expense of intelligent debate over public policy. The Beltway media-elite pay an unseemly fealty to the Republicans, almost as though they were somehow still in power, by repeatedly allowing an obsolete curmudgeon like John McCain and political rodeo clowns like Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin to stake an undue claim to a plurality of national airtime.
Finally, we can blame ourselves, the gullible general public, for treating politics as some vicarious form of entertainment. In so doing, we blithely accept the painful canard that the GOP's recent wanton abuse of Senate Rule XXII (the filibuster) is somehow the political norm, rather than the historical aberration that it is.
The very notion that the Senate's majority Democrats now require 60-plus votes, or a three-fifths super-majority, in order to pass critically needed legislation is patently absurd on its face, and we need to be far more forceful ourselves in calling both the Senate Republicans and the media on this bullshit. If we want to stop the GOP's bullying, we need to let Democrats in Washington know that we will have their back in any confrontation with obstructive Republicans.
June 22, 2009 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Someone tell us why the Democrats feel the need to pass a cloture vote. Tell us why 51 votes is not enough.
Let the Republicans filibuster all the way to 2010 elections.
Someone tell us!
June 22, 2009 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Generally speaking members of Congress have popularity ratings that are somewhere between colonoscopies and root canal pulpectomies. Nevertheless, incumbents tend to stay incumbents unless something particularly egregious happens. Ensign may benefit from the "....but he's our scoundrel" mindset and get re-elected anyway. Reid too.
June 22, 2009 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
The best thing that could happen to the Democratic Party in 2010 would be for Harry Reid to leave his leadership position. If it can't happen any other way, I hope he'll be defeated for reelection.
June 22, 2009 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Be that as it may, Reid will be re elected. It takes a really bad scandal to oust a sitting Senator, or a huge backlash against the party in the Whitehouse, neither of which is likely.
June 22, 2009 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Although couldn't we find someone to run in the primary? At least then he might have to tack left...
June 22, 2009 2:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm willing to go along with Reid as a Democratic Senator but not as the Majority Leader. Since the Huns have taken over the Republican party we need a Hun to confront them, Peter Pan just won't do it for us.
June 22, 2009 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I HAVE to suspect that Rove's Total (Political Enemy) Information Awareness Program has uncovered a real doozy on Harry "Weak" Reid: something on the order of a live boy or dead girl (or both!) in his bed. How else can we explain such mind boggling ineffectuality?
I'm squarely with runsfast on this one. I'd put up $500 to primary his shriveled ass with a real Democrat. Since we're talking Vegas politics, such a challenge would be unlikely to "survive", but at least I'd like to think he would feel SOME heat to act like a Dem, or at least, play one on TV. I would definitely not mourn his loss, one way or the other.
June 22, 2009 3:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reid is toast. "None of the above" would beat him like a drum.
He has been the worst, by a wide margin, Dem leader in the senate since I've been watching politics (early 1980s). At least if he had balls, his failures would seem heroic--instead of pathetic.
June 22, 2009 4:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are all far too kind. Harry Reid, like Daschle before him, might be a decent person, but is an embarrassment, a disgrace as a senate leader.
But he's pro-life!
See how broad-minded democrats are???
June 22, 2009 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
The reason Ensign is more popular is simple - voters can at least see that he is doing something (even if that something is screwing a staff member). Reid on the other hand does nothing except back off every time the Repugs confront him.
June 22, 2009 4:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
These comparisons polls are faulty. For starters, Reid suffers (and probably rightly so) from the generic "dislike" of Congress that polls inevitably show (not just under this Administration). He's the majority leader of the Senate, so.....However, when it comes to the actual election, an entirely different set of dynamics come into play. Reid is no danger now.
Ensign, on the other hand, is just perceived as being a Senator. This fall should be more worrisome for him. Of course, he has time, and I don't know if the Dems are out for him.
June 22, 2009 5:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wouldn't put any credence in a poll commissioned by the Las Vegas Review Journal--very anti-Obama, right-wing.
June 22, 2009 8:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well Reid is a douche bag too.
I love it when psycho right wing pundits have to tip toe around issues like Republicans hypocrites resigning.
Here's a clip.
http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=1924
June 23, 2009 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink