First GOP, Now Progressives Challenge Harry Reid's Leadership

Last week, Holly wrote about the tough race Harry Reid will face next year in Nevada. Republicans, she wrote, are eager to knock him off, as they did Tom Daschle in 2006. And if his poll numbers are any indication, Reid should be worried. Sensing an opportunity to pressure the majority leader, progressives are leaping into the fray, hitting him from the left on health care. A group called the Progressive Change Campaign Committee is running an emotional ad pressuring Reid to fight for a public option. It features a plaintive nurse with serious health issues questioning whether Reid is "strong and effective enough as a leader to pass a public option into law."

The reason this ad could potentially be very effective is that it goes to the core of Reid's appeal in Nevada. As majority leader, he's supposed to be the guy who can bring home the bacon to his state. Few states are more politically privileged than the ones represented by party leadership. But if progressives can cast doubts about his effectiveness as a leader, that would erode his ability to argue that his position is beneficial for the state. That diminishes the trump card he holds over GOP rivals, who, if elected, would be junior senators with pretty ordinary committee assignments and very little power in such an anachronistic body. It's a smart strategy for progressives in the short term, particularly if they get the public option they want. In the longer term though, if they target a weakened Reid too aggressively, they may end up ushering in a conservative, who'll have far less sympathy for their agenda than Reid does.