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- [00:00]
A
Harry Reid's not a narcissist. Was not a narcissist. Did he have a moral compass? I think he did, but I think it probably is different than most people's moral compass. And I think he convinced himself of the righteousness of his position, whether he was helping the thought, he was helping the country, the party, his family, his friends, or whatever he was doing. He was Trumpian in the sense that he would say whatever came into his head even if it couldn't be confirmed. He was very Machiavellian.
- [00:43]
B
Hello, and welcome to the GD Politics podcast. I'm Galen Drouke. Democrats are in the midst of an intraparty debate over how to win their way out of the wilderness. There are arguments about ideology, strategy, identity, and more and more. And while these debates always feel urgent for the party out of power, they're at the very least not new parties. And politicians have been trying to figure out how to shore up their vulnerabilities, enhance their strengths, and fight another day for just about as long as representative politics have existed. Today, we're going to focus on one such instance. We're looking back at late 20th century Nevada and the beginnings of a political machine that built by former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. It's a subject of a new book by CEO of the Nevada Independent John Ralston titled the Game Changer How Harry Reid Remade the Rules and Showed Democrats how to Fight. John is here with me now. John, welcome to the podcast.
- [01:39]
A
Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
- [01:42]
B
Thanks for being here. So Harry Reid first won federal office as a Democrat in 1982 when he was elected to the House just two years after Reagan won Nevada by 36 percentage points. What was Nevada like back then?
- [01:58]
A
Well, it was a lot different place. It was even before I got to the state. I got here in 1984. It was pretty similar, but it was a much smaller state. And Harry Reid, who had grown up in this speck in the desert called Searchlight, had already had a political career before then, running for the US Senate, running for mayor and losing, and then had had his career resurrected just a few years before he ran by the governor and his mentor Michael Callah, who appointed him as the top gaming regulator in the state. And Reid used that as a springboard to run for Congress. And Las Vegas then, which is where Reid lived, was as dominant in the state then as it is now, with two thirds of the population or so. But the state was Republican. You mentioned Reagan had won in 1980. The Democrats had not had much luck in Nevada up until that point. And even though Las Vegas was pretty much a Democratic bastion then, as it soon turned out to be even more so because of Harry Reid, he ran a much different kind of campaign back then. Independent, like Nevada, he gets things done as opposed to running as a Democrat as much.
- [03:18]
B
What did that mean in the early 80s? What did a political independent or a Democrat with an independent streak look like in the early 80s?
- [03:30]
A
Well, first of all, let's not go under the assumption that political slogans really mean anything other than their consultants who think that they will resonate with the public. And I think that when he ran as independent, like Nevada, he was running because it was a Republican state. As you pointed out, President Reagan had just won. Paul Laxalt, who was the US Senator, was a venerated figure in the state. And so Reid's message, even supported subconsciously to voters, was forget about what party I am. When you come from Nevada, you're going to be independent and you're going to do what's best for the state. And so I think that was a very smart message to adopt and it served him well.
- [04:14]
B
Well, I think maybe more specifically, when you look at Harry Reid's early positions on so many issues, he's unrecognizable from a Democrat today. So, for example, on abortion, he's pro life. On immigration, that might be the most notable change or distinction for Harry Reid. He was not only sort of tough on illegal immigration, you would probably describe him as a downright nativist. I mean, he was talking about how even legal immigration was excessive. You compared his positions on immigration to those later held by Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, you know, questions the constitutionality of birthright citizenship and things like that. On same sex marriage, it's the early 80s, probably not worth judging him on that in the early 80s. But also on guns. He's endorsed by the NRA throughout much of his career until the 2000s. So I'm curious, was that a representation of who Harry Reid was or was that an electoral strategy?
- [05:24]
A
I think that the answer to that question is yes. I think it's a combination of both. As I've said many times in talking about this book, Gilin, I don't think anyone can be completely captured, no matter how many words you have, but the only thing you can do is talk to people who were close to him. And I did a lot of that. And I talked to his wife for three separate interviews, talked to a lot of his staff, and from the documents I found in a very, very extensive archive, that he has up at the University of Nevada, Reno. And I would say it was some of both. I mean, you mentioned that he was pro life. I mean, it is absolutely incongruous for a pro life Democrat to be leading his party, but he managed to do that. I'm not sure anyone could have threaded that needle except Harry Reid. And he did it in a variety of different ways. You mentioned immigration. I mean, to say that he took a complete about face on that is an understatement. He did. I mean, you used the word nativist, which may be a bit strong, but even if it's a bit strong, it's only a bit. As you mentioned, he was against birthright citizenship. He said, these people are taking jobs from Americans, until essentially his wife yelled at him and said, what the heck are you doing? My parents essentially escaped Europe to escape the Holocaust and came here probably illegally. And you're doing this. And later Reid became the biggest advocate of DACA and the DREAM act on Capitol Hill guns. Nevada is a western state. I mean, you have to be pro gun if you're from Nevada. The NRA loved Reid up until they didn't love him so much. And that lack of love was reciprocated later by Reid and same sex marriage. I think he honestly did evolve in. Now, he changed as the times changed, but he went from being against same sex marriage as other Democrats were. Right. Bill Clinton was against same sex marriage.
- [07:21]
B
And then, well, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were also both against same sex marriage.
- [07:24]
A
They were also against it. People remember the Defense of Marriage act act that they voted on. But he had gay staffers. He would eventually speak at a gay staffer's wedding. And he became very much of an advocate for gay rights. And so he changed with the times. He said to me, when I asked him was this principle or political expediency, he said, john, anybody who thinks about issues who says that they're never going to change doesn't really think about issues. They're intellectually static. His position was that he changed his positions because he thought more about issues. And he clearly did change along with the party and the state and the country too.
- [08:11]
B
Yeah, I was gonna say he comes across as a highly calculating figure in your biography. So it's hard to take somebody at face value when they say, oh, I've just. I've just had a change of heart on every single issue that we fight about in American politics. I mean, there has to be some piece of it that is strategy based. I mean, are there any clear instances where you say, like, okay, he was campaigning on something that he didn't necessarily believe because he thought that that was the right strategy. And, hey, maybe it was successful.
- [08:43]
A
So think about immigration, because I think it's a good example. It's more than just Landra having influence on him and some others. Remember, when I first started covering politics here in 1986, nobody talked about the Hispanic vote. The Hispanic population was very, very small here, but it began to grow, and it began to become more and more influential, and Reid realized that. And so part of his change there, I think, was to harness the Hispanic vote, which, by the way, if he had not harnessed in the way that he did, I don't think the Democrats would have won in four successive cycles here, starting in 2008 in the presidential race. And he may have lost in 2010, when the Hispanic vote was absolutely critical to his victory over Sharron Angle in a race many people thought he could not win. So the growth in the Hispanic population clearly affected him on that issue. And don't get me wrong, you characterize my book as showing him to be a very calculating person. He was incredibly calculating in many, many different ways, both micro and macro. But he wasn't a robot. And so there were some things, I think, that he came to believe in deeply and developed very, very important personal connections in his life, including with a dreamer by the name of ast, Astrid Silva, who became maybe the most prominent dreamer in the country because Reid elevated her to that part, and Barack Obama got to know her, and she spoke at the Democratic National Convention. And that was a really sincere personal relationship. And I think Astrid had a huge influence on him.
- [10:20]
B
I want to talk a little bit about that in Democratic politics, famous Harry Reid political machine in Nevada. But let's go again personal before we get to larger sort of national politics and machine politics in Nevada, he ran in a lot of competitive races. In fact, in 1998, I think he won by just 400 some votes. And there are still questions about whether he actually won that race because there were outstanding ballots that never got counted because a judge ruled in his favor. What was his strategy for running in competitive races? We talked a little bit about, you know, positioning himself ideologically according to the party, but it didn't start and end there.
- [11:04]
A
Well, I mean, the 1998 race is really instructive. Is Reed Reid really thought that John Ensign, who ran against him and had been elected first to Congress in the Gingrich Revolution of 1994, he thought John Ensign was a joke. He had complete Disdain for him. He didn't think that Nevadans would replace someone who was ascending in leadership in the way that he was. He would become whipped after that election, would substitute a veterinarian, as he called him. And he once said, what does a veterinarian know about the Constitution when they were having a debate? But he found it hard to believe that Ensign would be competitive. And when he did, when it was clear that he was becoming competitive, he relied on his advisors to get him through, which is what he did in other close races, including 2010, which was his other race, as I mentioned earlier, that he thought he was going to lose. Generally, Reid put very, very smart people around him and he trusted them. It doesn't mean that he wouldn't say things that he shouldn't say because as I've said many times, he had no self editing mechanism and his staff often had to clean up after some of his gaffes. But he really believed that he just needed to do his job and that he would get reelected with the right people around him.
- [12:26]
B
But he was. I mean, you say kind of flatly that he was not good at giving speeches. So it isn't necessarily personal charisma, but behind the scenes, he. Well, he has a. He has a pretty advanced data team as you write about. He also has relationships with the Nevada press with a lot of business interests, and he seems to maneuver a lot behind the scenes to both trash his opponents and boost himself in ways that, I mean, maybe all politicians do, but you don't very often get to read a book that's this detailed about some of those maneuvers that, you know, that isn't written by the candidate themselves. And so it's hard to actually believe what happened. So I guess, like maybe, maybe give us a little bit of an insight into what that was like.
- [13:11]
A
You know, there was a duality about Reid in many, many different ways, Galen, but one of the ways was you just alluded to it and distilled it very, very well. This is a guy who was not good in public, very milquetoast. I used to describe him as charismatically challenged. And he didn't want to go on tv. He only went if his staff pushed him to do it. He was happy. Chuck Schumer or somebody else be the spokesman for the Democrats on Face the Nation or Meet the Press.
- [13:39]
B
I'm sure Democrats also feel, as you're famously charismatic.
- [13:43]
A
Right, right, exactly, exactly. That's a different story. But he had no desire to do any of that. But what he did have a desire to do and what he was incredibly skillful at, and you alluded to this, was behind the scenes, maneuvering and developing relationships, some of which became true friendships, but others which were clearly just transactional for him with folks that he knew could help him. The owner of the Las Vegas sun, the owner of the NBC affiliates in Reno and Las Vegas, columnists for the Las Vegas Review Journal, the biggest newspaper in the state, as well as developing relationships, as you mentioned, with special interests. And these became people who really not only trusted Reid and Reid trusted them, but they knew they could go to Reid if they needed something and he would reciprocate if he needed something. He had an ability, which I think a lot of people who saw the public Harry Reid will find hard to believe, of connecting with people. He was much different one on one than he was out there doing a stakeout on Capitol Hill or appearing on tv. He knew he had a great memory for people and their families and what they did. And this came out a lot. When I interviewed him for the book, I had 24 Zoom interviews with him before he passed away. And it's much different. Harry Reid, even that I knew in those zooms, talked the way he talks about people, the way he talked to me, the way. The way he would ask questions about my family. He was very, very skillful at creating personal bonds with others, including some of the senatorial colleagues that would end up paying off for him during key legislative battles.
- [15:26]
B
Okay, we're going to get to that, but when we talk about the Harry Reid machine in Nevada, what are we talking about?
- [15:32]
A
We're talking about a machine that was able to register voters.
- [15:36]
B
And that's the end of today's preview. Head over to GDPolitics.com to become a paid subscriber and catch the full hour long episode. We talked about what the Harry Reid machine actually was and whether it's replicable elsewhere, how Democrats pursued Latino voters in Nevada, and whether the state is trending away from Democrats after four presidential victories there. We also talked about Reid's more Machiavellian side, the machinations behind the Affordable Care act, and how he might have done things differently today. Like I said, head over to GDPolitics.com to become a paid subscriber and catch the whole thing. Paid subscribers get about twice the number of episodes, can join in the paid subscriber chat, and most importantly, ensure that we can keep making this independent podcast. When you become a subscriber, you can connect your account to wherever you listen to podcasts so you'll never miss an episode. There's a link in the show notes explaining how to do that. Head over to GDPolitics. Com. See you there.