Harry Reid: ‘I Will Be Blunt. I Want Alan Grayson To Lose.’

[merrily]

4. Welllll....His job is to do his best to (1) assure the members of his caucus

get re-elected; (2) pass legislation party leaders want passed; and (3) block legislation party leaders don't want passed.

He has been pretty darn good at those three tasks or they would not keep re-electing him as leader. He is, IMO, genius at strategy as to (2) and (3).

His job is not to make sure liberal voters are happy with the results of his performance. We are not his constituency in his capacity as Party leader. Even the people of Nevada are not. Party leaders and caucus members are. The people of Nevada are his constituency in his capacity as Senator.

Unfortunately, for us, the conventional wisdom as to (1) is that you never lose an election because of a bill that does not pass, only because of bills that do. For example, the SCOTUS is taking all the heat for no voting rights bill, but the SCOTUS decided that Congress had to look at current data if it wanted a voting rights bill, not just keep renewing the old one based on fact-finding from 50 years ago. In any case, the incentive is not to pass any potentially controversial legislation, which of course, is exactly what conservatives want to see--except for the laws they'd like repealed.

Somehow, we have to shift the perception that getting re-elected is their main job.