Harry Reid, heal thyself

Polls show approval of Congress at about 25 percent, but if one needed more specific evidence of America’s disgust with Congress, it can be found in Nevada.

Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, the architect of the Senate’s health-care reform bill, is running for re-election there in November, and for poor Harry, the outlook is somewhere between dim and dismal. His own approval rating in Nevada, as the most powerful member of the Senate, is down around 38 percent, and he is badly trailing both of his likely opponents.

For the rest of us, of course, that is good news — at least, if you believe in representative government.

After all, there is no one more deserving of being UN-elected than Harry Reid, who comes from one of the most conservative states in the Union and yet has been the lapdog of the most liberal administration in recent history.

The ultimate insult to Nevada came on Dec. 23 when Reid wrote an op-ed in which he claimed to be representing the state’s wishes as he shoved through a health-care reform bill that will force everyone to buy health insurance, whether they want it or not.

The fact of the matter is that Harry Reid represents the arrogance of power, and that what Nevada wants more than anything else, is to be left alone by politicians like Harry Reid.

Back in May of 2009 when health-care reform was still just a threat, “half of Nevada voters had an unfavorable view of Reid, while 38 percent had a favorable view,” according to a Mason-Dixon poll conducted for the Las-Vegas Review Journal.

Let’s give Sen. Reid the benefit of the doubt, and assume for a moment that the reason people didn’t like Reid in May was because they didn’t think he could deliver health-care reform. Maybe Nevadans really did want the federal government telling them how to spend their hard-earned money. In that case, then his ramrodding the health-care bill through the Senate on Christmas Eve would boost his popularity, right?

Not so fast.

Again, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, “In early December, a [Mason-Dixon] poll ... showed 50 percent of Nevadans disapproved of Reid’s efforts to get a health-care bill through the Senate. Some 39 percent approved and 11 percent weren’t sure.”

In fact, Nevada’s Gov. Jim Gibbons, has promised to sue the federal government if Reid’s health-care legislation becomes law.

Curious, isn’t it?

Makes you wonder just who exactly Harry Reid is representing. If he isn’t representing Nevada in the Senate, then who? The health-care industry? The insurance industry? Team Obama?

Nor can you say he is putting the interests of the country ahead of the interests of his home state. Because that would suggest the nation as a whole wants Democratic-style health-care reform, and it plainly doesn’t. In 31 polls since June, Rasmussen Reports has consistently found the majority of Americans against the health-care proposals before Congress. Indeed, only twice out of those 31 polls did more people favor health-care reform than oppose it, most recently back on Sept. 13 before either the House or Senate bill was even written.

At the time that the Senate passed its version, Rasmussen reported that the public was against health-care reform by a 55-40 percent majority, or a 15 point margin. And if you think, Rasmussen is too conservative, you can take your pick of every other poll in December: CNN had the margin opposing the Democratic plans at 14 percent. NBC had it at 15 percent. Quinnipiac had it at 17 percent.

It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? What part of NO don’t the Democrats understand?

And what part of representation doesn’t Harry Reid understand?

OK, let’s give him the last benefit of the doubt. Let’s assume he is voting his conscience. Maybe he really does believe that government-run health care is the best thing for this country.

In that case, there is only one thing left for the public to do: Vote their conscience and send him home!

Except most politicians don’t ever seem to go home, do they? I guess it must be pretty comfortable living off the public dollar there in D.C. and it seems like an ex-senator can always find a pretty good-paying job in Washington as a lobbyist. Amazing how many senators and congressmen arrive in Washington just like you and me and leave as millionaires. Maybe it is something in the water.

Of course, it is entirely possible that Harry Reid can salvage his political career. He has the power of incumbency and the Democratic machine to work on his behalf. And voters do seem to have remarkably short memories, as we have seen time and time again.

Here in Montana, Sens. Baucus and Tester both voted for the health-care reform bill on Christmas Eve, despite overwhelming opposition from the state’s voters. Baucus won’t face the possibility of re-election until 2014, and Sen. Tester does not have to face voters again until 2012. It’s possible that no one will remember their votes by then, just as few people seem to remember that Jon Tester promised to be a different kind of politician when he was elected to the Senate in 2006.

“It’s time for a change in Washington, D.C.,” Tester said at a debate in Whitefish in June of that year. “This election really isn’t about Democrats and Republicans. In reality, it’s about Montana vs. Washington, D.C.”

Boy, it sure didn’t take long for Sen. Tester to forget where he came from. If he would live up to his own ideals, and represent Montana instead of the Democratic  Party, then he would still have a chance to be a true hero. In a poll done by Montana State University at Billings in November, 74 percent of people surveyed said they thought that federal health-care reform would make health care in America worse.

Apparently that message didn’t penetrate the Beltway and get to Sen. Tester.

Remember, it’s about Montana vs. Washington, D.C., and the senator is now a resident of Washington — the place where Sen. Mary Landrieu bragged about getting $300 million for Louisiana in exchange for her health-care vote, and where Sen. Ben Nelson got Nebraska a federal voucher to pay for all increased Medicaid expenses from now till the cows come home.

As Jed Clampett would say, “Pitiful, just pitiful.”

And don’t think that new faces will change the game. Sen. Chris Dodd has bowed out in Connecticut, and Sen. Nelson likely will be sent packing in Nebraska, but when the new folks show up at the Capitol, they really don’t stand a chance, do they? Just ask Sen. Tester.

If Harry Reid is so gosh darned intent on fixing something, maybe he should fix the corrupt system of power, politics and persuasion that uses public money to bribe senators for their votes. The Constitution calls for representative government. If we aren’t getting it, then what exactly do we have instead? Health care in this country isn’t what’s broke; politics is. So Harry Reid, heal thyself.

n Frank Miele is managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake and writes a weekly column. E-mail responses may be sent to edit@dailyinterlake.com