Flaps
[Reprinted from the September 9, 1997 Las Vegas Review-Journal]
by Jon Ralston
(COLUMN)
Harry Reid needs to add another line to his resume. He's not merely a former lieutenant governor, Nevada Gaming Commission chairman, two-term congressman and two-term senator. The man is a comic genius.
Reid recently mailed a fund-raising letter for his 1998 re-election effort. But this is no ordinary plea for cash. This is a missive in need of a laugh track. Reid has penned a "donations, please" prototype: Demonize the opponent, glorify yourself, create a theme. And put on paper what you couldn't utter out loud with a straight face.
The theme Reid is striving for in the missive -- queue the laugh track -- is this: The U.S. senator as little guy. But that's just the beginning of a written pitch where the guffaws just keep coming.
The letter offers a gut-busting one-liner in the senator's putative return address: "Searchlight, NV." Reid may have been born in Searchlight (son of a miner, poor as dirt, etc.). But he lives in Washington, and has since 1982. Reid spends the first third of the letter assailing Lake Tahoe's Bruce James, who already has poured more than $1 million of his own money into the contest.
Then comes the first of the missive showstoppers: "But I prefer to raise as much money as possible for my campaign in a different way, one Nevadan at a time, from the people I represent." Well, not quite. Of the money he collected this year, almost 90 percent came from outside Nevada. Among the "Nevadans like you" on Reid's current disclosure report, showing he has $1.1 million in his war chest (which undoubtedly sits in that Searchlight cabin), are Universal Studios mogul Lew Wasserman, wine tycoon Ernest Gallo and Southwest Airlines CEO Herb Kelleher.
Reid then takes a brief turn as revisionist historian, writing, "I first ran for the U.S. Senate in 1986, after serving four years in Congress." I understand why Reid wants to forget his first U.S. Senate race 23 years ago, an agonizing loss to Paul Laxalt by 622 votes.
Of his 1986 victory, Reid declares: "People called that campaign `David vs. Goliath' because of all the powerful interests who were lined up against me and the regular everyday people I represent." Actually, that's what Reid called his campaign, which spectacularly executed the biblical analogy though his TV spots. If Reid, who will raise more than anyone has for a Nevada Senate race, can portray himself as David next year, it will be a nonpareil political morphing.
The rest of the letter features Reid boasting of his accomplishments, mellifluously playing one political note after another, missing very few on the scale -- families, women, seniors, enviros.
Reid then plugs his "seniority in the Senate," which could allow him to become the party whip. Reid, it seems, believes Nevadans appreciate juice. Although, I might ask, if he is the poor beleaguered little guy from Searchlight, how can he have all this influence in Washington? Building to a comedic crescendo, Reid goes onto ask, "why are the special interests spending billions of dollars to elect candidates favorable to them? And why are the dirty tricksters of today's politics -- using so-called `independent expenditures' -- already running full-page newspaper ads, negative radio ads and producing TV attack ads costing thousands of dollars?" Strange, but I didn't hear the good senator wailing last election cycle when the AFL-CIO was employing the same technique.
Finally, the priceless last line: "Let's give all the Davids in our state the kind of government that will help each of them live their own American dream." I don't know whether people will be more misty-eyed from love of country or from laughing too hard. As shameless as the letter is, though, it will probably help Reid raise a lot of money, which he hopes will keep him laughing all the way back to Capitol Hill.