Everytime they do any polling in Nevada, they discover that the people there are fed up with Harry Reid and inclined to vote him out of office. The latest polling shows Reid losing to Republicans who have little stature. Nevada has been hit extremely hard by the collapse of real estate values and has whole communities facing foreclosure on their homes. People there are hurting financially and that appears to be fostering an anti-incumbent sentiment. Reid is not alone. The people would also vote out the Republican governor and Sen. John Ensign.
Nevada is a swing-state that is trending Democratic due to demographic changes. Yet, it’s huge Mormon population and live-free-or-die libertarian streak assure that Republicans will remain competitive for quite some time. In an abstract sense, Nevadans would be crazy to vote out a politician that carries as much clout as Harry Reid. Whatever his failings, and they aren’t that severe, the same logic that made Alaskans reluctant to vote out Ted Stevens should hold some sway in Nevada. No freshman backbencher from either party is going to be able to do as much for the state as the Senate Majority Leader. But that logic didn’t save Tom Daschle in South Dakota, and it may not save Harry Reid.
Sen. Reid would probably be safer if he didn’t have quite so high a profile. If he were just one senator among a hundred, he could trim his votes here and there to create a little distance between himself and the mainstream of the Democratic Party. But he is not able to do that because his responsibility is to usher through Obama’s policy agenda, and he can’t show leadership if he is voting against the legislation he is trying to advance.
Yesterday, I wrote about the plight of Blue Dog Rep. Allen Boyd from the Florida Panhandle, who was faced with some virulent town-hall opposition to Obama’s health-care plan. But look at what one of his constituents had to say:
John Webb, a retiree from the small village of Woods, said after a Boyd town hall meeting in the county seat town of Bristol that he thought the country is headed in the wrong direction — and he wasn’t alone.
“I go to church. I hear it at church. They’re just afraid. They don’t trust this administration,” Webb said.
Exactly why is tougher to pin down, but it often returns to the same litany, a mix of conservative and populist frustrations. Webb cited the stimulus before wondering in his next breath: “I don’t understand how a company can fail and then the head of that company gets a $3 or $4 million bonus.”
That’s a pretty straightforward articulation of a worldview that combines conservative religiosity with populist anger. I don’t think John Webb’s political views are reducible to a simple left/right Democrat/Republican definition. He goes to church and hears a lot of angst and mistrust about the administration. People are worried about an expanded role for a government they don’t quite identify with, but they also want someone to do something about corporate CEO’s getting away with murder and stealing their money. In a bad economy, churchgoing folk are getting hit just as hard as everyone else. The collection agencies are going after them, their jobs are disappearing, their savings are drying up, and Goldman Sachs is making record profits.
So, if you are a Democrat in a vulnerable seat, how do you think you are going to reach a guy like John Webb? He’s already suspicious of you because of his social conservatism and bias against the federal government. I don’t think you reach John Webb by protecting the profits and market-share of large corporations. I think you reach him by helping his neighbor avoid foreclosure. Maybe you reach him by helping him buy a new, more energy-efficient automobile. You reach him by telling him that you’re going to keep corporate bean-counters from rescinding his health-care coverage when he gets sick.
Despite his protestations against government action, government action is something he wants. But he doesn’t want to see the government helping just CEO’s and poor, urban people. He wants to see the government helping his peers and himself. There are connection points to be made between the Democratic Party and John Webb, but the consultants in Washington DC are misidentifying what they are. Yes, it might help a Democrat connect with John Webb if they cast some socially conservative votes. But, on economic matters, it is precisely the wrong thing to do to tell him that you are going to look out for the market-share of health insurance corporations.
I don’t know why this is complicated, but if Harry Reid doesn’t figure it out quickly, he could be out of a job.
