Event starts Reid’s pursuit

They turned out in droves for Barack Obama in 2008.

Now Harry Reid hopes those Democratic voters will turn out for him in 2010.

Reid is running for re-election, and Tuesday night marked the kickoff of his organizing effort: About 300 supporters attended a rally and barbecue put on by the state Democratic Party to hear him speak, ask him questions and eat free hamburgers in a downtown office building.

As majority leader of the U.S. Senate, Reid might be the most powerful man on Capitol Hill.

In Nevada, however, he's just another politician asking for votes, and his task now is to try to convert the partisan surge that won the state for Obama by 12 percentage points into his own political advantage.

So what does Washington's most important lawmaker say when he comes home to campaign? Good question.

The media weren't allowed in for Reid's speech at the event, which was otherwise open to the general public. Attendees and party officials said he talked about his background -- growing up poor in a one-room shack in Searchlight -- and touted his accomplishments for Nevada, then discussed issues such as energy, education and home foreclosures.

For Carolyn Renaud, 53, the cause she signed up for in 2008 didn't end with the presidential election.

"We're on a roll, and we need to keep it going," said the Las Vegas small-business owner.

"We need to keep Congress (for the Democrats), or all the things we signed up for will be stopped," she said. "I think most people realize that the victory in November was only the beginning."

Renaud wants to see progress on global warming, health care and education, and she believes that sending Reid back to lead his party in Congress is the only way it will happen.

Wan Ali of Las Vegas wore a T-shirt decorated with Obama's portrait and the words "The One." The 2008 election was the first time he ever voted.

"I'm going to push Harry Reid just like I did Obama," he said. "That's why I'm here. It's about Team Obama now."

Reid has been laying the groundwork for this fight for years, principally by transforming the Nevada State Democratic Party into a well-organized political machine to elect candidates up and down the ballot.

With Reid's help, the party raised more than $6 million in 2008, $360,000 of that coming directly from Reid's political action committee. Between the money and the January 2008 early presidential nominating caucuses, also engineered by Reid, Democrats were able to boast 100,000 more registered voters than Republicans by Election Day.

In 2008, the amped-up party combined with the national electoral sweep of the Obama campaign to win Nevada for Democrats in several categories:

• Obama took the state.

• Democrat Dina Titus beat then-U.S. Rep. Jon Porter.

• The party took over the majority in the state Senate and maintained its majority in the Assembly.

For now, Reid is sitting pretty: No one is running against him.

If Republicans had a high-octane candidate jumping out of the gate to take on Reid, they could be making things difficult for the senator, said Eric Herzik, political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. Since taking on his partisan role as Democratic leader in 2004, Reid's approval ratings in Nevada have ranged from middling to dismal.

"Harry Reid's not the most beloved politician," Herzik said. "He has plenty of past statements and votes that normally would be fodder for attack. But if Republicans don't have a candidate, his chances of re-election are very good."

Last week, former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle, a Reno Republican who lost primary races in 2006 and 2008 to Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., announced she is exploring a bid to challenge Reid. Herzik said Angle would not be a particularly strong candidate.

Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki had talked about running, but his indictment for misappropriating state funds has crippled him politically, Herzik said.

Assuming a worthy opponent does materialize, the question for Reid will be whether he can rely on the massive grass-roots organization of the Obama campaign to come out again for him.

"It remains to be seen whether the Obama effect is a Democratic Party effect," Herzik said. "2008 distorted our understanding of where the Democrats may actually be. ... All those new registrants weren't because of Harry Reid. You take Obama away and you have Harry Reid at the top of the ticket, does his charisma bring all those people to the polls the way Barack Obama did?"

On Tuesday, Reid sped around town to a series of events. He hit the button to set a wind turbine in motion and took questions about renewable energy at a union hall; he discussed the importance of programs for children at a nonprofit groups' summit at UNLV, mentioning his confidence that the president will take his advice and start a special position for children's affairs.

At these types of official functions, Reid doesn't give the polished, sound-bite-laden speech you might expect from a politician of so many years' experience. Rather, his remarks tended toward unstructured, nostalgia-laden rambles.

At the union hall, he recalled the long-gone union leader for whom a nearby road was named, and the days when Democratic politics were more rough-and-tumble. At the children's event, he recalled that two of his early mentors were a country sheriff who took him to see a dead body in a car accident, and a local brothel owner who let him off with a warning for stealing.

"They may not be role models to a lot of you in here, but for this kid from Searchlight, they were a really big help," Reid said.

Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball@ reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919.