WASHINGTON — After the GOP sweep last week, the only place in town Democrats may still be able to slow or stall President Bush's conservative agenda is in the Senate. And to lead the effort, they're backing a backstage master of parliamentary infighting, Nevada Sen. Harry Reid.
"Reid is a kind of Dickensian figure. He haunts the floor. He's like the hovering spirit of the Democrats," said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University who specializes in Congress.
"He is constantly on the alert, waiting for an opportunity to pull some parliamentary sleight of hand."
In the months ahead, Reid will need all that wizardry and more.
Tuesday's elections cost the Democrats, already a minority, four more seats in the Senate, giving the Republicans 55 seats to the Democrats' 44. The GOP also increased its advantage in the House. And the president has vowed to push hard for his ideas on revamping Social Security, rewriting the tax code and other issues.
One measure of how daunting the job of minority leader looks may be seen in how easily Reid persuaded his Democratic colleagues to let him have it.
The senior senator from Nevada, who has held the No. 2 post of Democratic whip, locked up enough support for the top job hours after Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota conceded defeat in his effort to win a fourth term in the Senate.
The Senate to which Reid returns in January will have fewer moderates of any stripe.
And it is likely to become an even more fiercely partisan battleground.
The uncompromisingly conservative line that Republicans took during the campaign has sharpened the divisions between the two parties. And, with such core issues as taxes and entitlement programs for the elderly expected to be on the line, the stakes will be higher.
But the grim political landscape facing Democrats did not keep Reid, 64, from laying claim to the leadership after serving six years as Daschle's lieutenant.
From his home in Searchlight, Nev. -- the gold-mining hamlet where he was born and reared -- Reid placed a consolation call to his old friend at 3 a.m. Wednesday. By then Daschle had conceded, becoming the first party leader in the Senate in more than half a century to lose his reelection bid.
By 6 a.m., Reid was making calls to colleagues still shell-shocked by the party's across-the-board losses in the national elections, lining up their support for his candidacy to replace Daschle.
