 | | Monday, January 11, 2010 |  | |  | | MORNING FIX
BY CHRIS CILLIZZA | | | | washingtonpost.com/thefix
Harry Reid survives -- for now
1. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) appears to have weathered the initial media storm caused by his admission that he had referred to President Obama as "light skinned" and lacking a "Negro dialect" in a conversation with reporters. Calls for Reid's resignation came solely from Republicans on Sunday including Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, himself in considerable hot water over impolitic comments, and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (Texas). Democrats -- from the White House down -- rushed to Reid's defense, arguing that he had chosen his words poorly but that his record over a lifetime in public office made clear his commitment to civil rights. The story can now advance in only one of two ways: either there are more revelations of past controversial statements on race by Reid, which seems unlikely, or some high profile Democrat(s) breaks ranks to call for him to step aside. Reid spent the weekend working the phones to ensure that no member of his own party makes such a statement and undoubtedly will continue to do so in the next 48 hours or so. While Republicans spent the weekend comparing Reid to Trent Lott, the Mississippi Republican forced to step aside as majority leader in the wake of controversial comments on race in 2002, Lott was hung out to dry by his own party the White House and several of his colleagues who had ambitions of their own. Reid has avoided that fate to date and neither Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) nor Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.) -- the two men likely to fight for the majority leader slot if and when Reid leaves -- seem at all interested in pushing the Nevada Democrat into a premature retirement.
2. The book where the revelation about Reid's comment appeared -- "Game Change" by Time magazine's Mark Halperin and New York magazine's John Heilemann -- is filled with other nuggets about the 2008 campaign sure to interest political junkies. Among them: 1) Prior to deciding to run for president in 2008, Obama huddled with retired Gen. Colin Powell, who ultimately endorsed his candidacy. In his conversation with Powell, Obama wondered why the general had decided not to run for president in 1996 ("It was pretty easy," said Powell. "I'm not a politician.") and sought his insight into how the issue of race might play out in the campaign. 2) Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman (I) was asked by Steve Schmidt, the manager of Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign, to pray with former Alaska governor Sarah Palin in hopes of setting her mind right amid the struggles of preparation for her vice presidential debate with then Sen. Joe Biden. Lieberman cited the teaching of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, telling Palin: "This is your moment to make it really count for something." 3) Jim Wilkinson, a longtime GOP operative, voted for Obama for president after McCain suspended his campaign in September to return to Washington to deal with the economic crisis. "It just wasn't what a serious person does," Wilkinson told the authors. 4) Obama, at entertainment mogul David Geffen's home for a fundraiser in February 2007, got a sneak peek at Maureen Dowd's New York Times column in which Geffen lambasted Hillary Clinton and insisted she couldn't win. "I hope it doesn't cause too much trouble," Geffen told Obama. "Trouble for whom," the then Illinois Senator joked.
3. As the White House plans to turn its attention full force to the economy and job creation this week, Richard Trumka, the head of the AFL-CIO, will deliver a speech in Washington today laying out the challenges before organized labor. "The voices of America's working women and men must be heard in Washington -- not the voices of bankers and speculators for whom it always seems to be the best of times, but the voices of those for whom the New Year brings pink slips and givebacks . . . the roll call of an economy that long ago stopped working for most of us," Trumka will say, according to excerpts of his strongly populist remarks obtained by the Fix. Trumka is expected to cast the 2010 midterms as a choice between "continuing the policies of the past or striking out on a new economic course for America." Unions, as one of the backbones of the Democratic base and the party's turnout operation, always play an influential role in elections but with segments of the ideological left growing disenchanted with the president and polls showing an intensity gap between the two parties' bases, organized labor may matter even more come November.
4. In 51 days, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) will face off against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) in what is widely regarded as the pre-eminent primary in the country in 2010. If he wins that race, he may well pivot to run for president in 2012, according to a lengthy look at Perry by Texas Monthly's Paul Burka. "His travel schedule, speaking engagements, and television appearances in recent months give every indication that he and his team of advisers are looking beyond Texas to national politics," writes Burka. Perry's place in the race would be on the far ideological right; he has made states rights his signature issue and regularly floated the idea that Texas could secede from the union if the federal government continued on its current course. Perry was one of the earliest adopters among elected Republican officials of the tea party movement -- fully embracing it to the point where, if that loosely affiliated group did have a preferred candidate heading into 2012, Perry might be their guy. "The fact is that no Republican has so ably surfed the wave of populist anger that has swept through the party in the past year," Burka writes -- and he's right. (The only other contender for that distinction was South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford before he blew up his political career with the admission of an extramarital affair with an Argentine woman.) While rejecting Perry's politics has become a favorite parlor game in Washington, never forget the decidedly conservative, anti-government makeup of the people who choose the Republican presidential nominee every four years. And, remember that there is no clear favorite in the 2012 field or even a real sense on whether some of the major players -- former governors Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee, former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich -- make the race at all. Fluidity rules and, given that, writing off Perry is a mistake. ALSO READ: Robert Draper's massive Perry profile from a last month in the New York Times magazine.
5. Isaac Baker, one of the stars in the operative world during the 2008 presidential campaign, has inked a deal with AKPD Message and Media, the firm started by White House senior adviser David Axelrod. After serving a stint as a national spokesman for Clinton's presidential bid, Baker joined Obama's general election campaign as communications director in the swing state of Ohio. Baker stayed in Ohio after the election, advising Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher who is running for the state's Senate seat. "Isaac has excelled as a spokesman and strategist in state and presidential politics," said John Del Cecato, one of AKPD's partners.
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