Harry Reid Hearts Crazy Tom Coburn, Hates Chris Dodd

D-Day has a wonderful post about the pathetic problem in our Senate today:

Harry Reid has no problem respecting the one hundred holds from Tom Coburn on all sorts of legislation, but will ignore Chris Dodd's. That's the bottom line, and given that, you have to conclude that Harry Reid is the one doing the holding.

Chris Dodd is heroically calling for a filibuster, but the real issue here is the issue of ignoring the rules of the Senate. Harry Reid is picking and choosing which Senators he will listen to. The fact that Chris Dodd came within one vote of defeating him for Minority Leader back in 2004 wouldn't have anything to do with this, would it?

Harry Reid has set up two rules for the United States Senate; one under the normal standards of conduct that have held for 200-plus years, and one for bills that he really really has to pass or the President will get mad at him. Earlier this year, Reid ignored a hold placed by Sen. Ron Wyden and confirmed an assistant Secretary of the Interior that Wyden had issues with. Sen. Wyden dropped an important amendment into the flawed Intelligence Committee bill on FISA that the President opposes, which would force the government to get a warrant to spy on Americans overseas. I guess we'll see if Reid strips that amendment out of the bill, and if he holds the same respect for amendments that he does for holds.

The point is that Harry Reid has made Tom Coburn the most important member of the United States Senate. He's made Chris Dodd, a member of his own party, irrelevant. And he's made himself into a joke. We cannot go into 2008 with this laughingstock of a leader in the Senate.

Harry Reid loves crazy-ass Tom Coburn and is a vindictive prick. Was that mean? His staffers are brainwashed into thinking he's a God who single-handedly put Nevada on the map. Oops, was that too true?

My colleague on this site, Abijah Adams has called for new Senate and House leaders. While I'd love that, here's my 2c.

Votes for leadership positions are paybacks for campaign donations. Pelosi got where she is because she is phenomenal at raising money and handing it out. Plus she is pretty tough on her caucus, all things considered. Her problems are Rahm/Hoyer (the corporatists) and the presence of so many Bush dogs in the caucus.

We need to hurt Rahm and Hoyer by sending a message that their people are more vulnerable than the protection his $2,000 checks to them afforts.

Pelosi is not going to be defeated in SF--she is Establishment there and Rahm and Hoyer can also raise phenomenal amounts of money, therefore it would be a waste of time and resources to try for any of those three.

What we can do is be consistent about giving through Act Blue and not through the DCCC or any of the leadership PACs in order to dilute these three people's influence simultaneously we should try to pick off a couple of Bush dogs as examples, the way The Club for Growth has done on the right.

We should start with Daniel Lipinski and Al Wynn and maybe Zack Space.