CARSON CITY, NEV. — When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid came home recently to address the Nevada Legislature, a small but vocal band of Republican protesters gathered at the state Capitol. They waved signs, razzed Democrats and marched outside.
But the group fell silent when asked the chances of ousting Reid at the polls next year. "It's going to be tough," demonstrator Carol Howell, 65, finally said.
Inside, Reid illustrated one reason why. Speaking to a bipartisan group of lawmakers, he touted hundreds of millions of dollars headed for Nevada under the economic stimulus legislation he helped push through Congress.
"There's so much good stuff in there that wouldn't have been there but for me," Reid said in an interview beforehand. "And I don't mean to say that in any boastful manner. That's just the way it is."
Reid may be the most powerful Democrat in the U.S. Senate (and, arguably, in Nevada history). His clout, as he showed, is quantifiable. But Reid's political strength creates a paradox: His power and prominence have turned him into one of the top targets for Republicans nationwide, who are eager to topple him the way they ousted the Senate's last Democratic leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota.
In January, the Republican Party launched its first TV ad of the 2010 campaign, a 30-second spot that aired in Reno and attacked "super-spending partisan Harry Reid." Across the country, conservative groups have formed with the express purpose of denying the Senate leader a fifth term.
Now Republicans just need to find a serious candidate to face Reid, a task that has proved difficult -- surprisingly so, given his middling poll ratings, a history of combustible comments (despite his starchy demeanor) and his notable lack of warmth or charisma.
"You can't beat somebody with nobody," said Chuck Muth, a GOP strategist in Carson City. "His degree of vulnerability depends entirely on the quality of the Republican opposition."
Like Daschle, Reid hails from a heavily rural state with a strong conservative bent. A teetotaling Mormon still wed to his high school girlfriend, Reid, 69, is a relative moderate compared with many fellow Democrats. He opposes legal abortion and most gun control measures, sponsored a constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning, and voted for both wars in Iraq. (He has since become a fierce critic of the second.) But his leadership role in Washington -- mainly as one of President George W. Bush's chief antagonists -- cast Reid in a far more liberal light than his voting record might suggest.
