Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid became President Obama’s de-facto protector on Capitol Hill, doing more than any other political leader to fend off attempts to chip away at a polarizing White House agenda.
But Reid, who announced Friday that he won’t seek re-election in 2016, also found it increasingly difficult to hide his annoyances with a White House he felt was maddeningly insular and responsible for his losing control of the upper chamber.
Both Obama and Reid have gone out of their way to dismiss rumblings about the deterioration of their relationship, pointing out the number of difficult legislative items — Obamacare, a politically toxic stimulus plan and Wall Street reforms — that the Nevada senator pushed through on the president’s behalf.
Reid also served as a virtual veto for Obama after Republicans won control of the House in 2010, ensuring a range of conservative policy prescriptions never reached the president’s desk.
The minority leader has insisted that he was among the first Democrats to push a then-junior senator from Illinois to make a long-shot run for president. It’s an account that has come under fire in some Democratic circles but one that Reid trumpets to this day.
Some Democrats said the end results would outlast the Obama-Reid bickering.
“It’s been messy, for sure,” said a veteran Democratic operative with close ties to both Obama and Reid. “Sniping aside, Obama couldn’t have asked for anything more from him. His loyalty was never in doubt.”
Still, there’s been plenty of drama, especially of late, between the two Democratic heavyweights.
Reid was forced to apologize in 2010 after making controversial comments about Obama’s race that were reported in a book about the 2008 presidential contest.
“[Reid] was wowed by Obama’s oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama — a ‘light-skinned’ African-American ‘with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,’ wrote “Game Change” authors John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.
The high point for Reid and Obama, the president’s re-election in 2012, was also short-lived.
Obama enraged Reid when he instructed Vice President Joe Biden to broker a deal with Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff. Reid was essentially relegated to the sidelines and accused the White House of weakening Democrats’ bargaining power during the intense period of fiscal gamesmanship.
That was just the warm-up act.
After Democrats were drubbed in the 2014 midterms, Reid’s chief of staff, David Krone, put the blame purely on the White House. Reid’s surrogate accused Obama of not doing enough to help Democrats, while serving as an albatross for their re-election hopes.
It was the rare example of an influential Democrat willing to go on record with misgivings against the White House.
Reid never disputed his aide’s account.
“They should just get over it,” Reid said of those critical of the comments. “I have a good relationship with the president. This is all staff driven. Get a life. Forget about this.”
The White House publicly tried to downplay tensions that were all too apparent.
“I don’t think [media reports] actually reflect the true nature of the relationship that exists between President Obama and Sen. Reid,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said in November. “Senator Reid struck up a genuine friendship when the two men served together in the United States Senate, and that relationship has only been strengthened during the president’s time in the White House … the success that we’ve had on those fronts would not have been possible without the leadership of Sen. Reid.”
Despite the acrimony, Reid got results for the president.
Thanks to Reid employing the so-called nuclear option, he was able to push dozens of Obama’s long-stalled nominations through the Senate in the lame-duck session. More recently, he blocked every GOP attempt to roll back the president’s executive action on immigration, effectively winning the showdown over funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
It’s a role Reid likely won’t abandon during his final stint in office.
“My friend Sen. McConnell, don’t be too elated,” Reid said in a video to supporters Friday. “I’m going to be here for 22 months. And you know what I’m going to be doing? The same thing I’ve done since I first came to the Senate.”
