Op-Ed: Harry Reid's Inconvenient Stumper

President Obama will soon hit the campaign trail with Harry Reid in Las Vegas. Given the President's most recent smackdown of Sin City and the nuclear local backlash, that visit should now be as eventful as Karl Rove stumping for Dick Cheney in Berkeley.

I never thought the day would come that I would have the least bit of sympathy for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. He has been underhanded in his shady and wildly unpopular dealings in the Senate, and his suspect shady and highly profitable dealings back home in Nevada also smack of corruption. In this politico's humble opinion, Reid deserves all the flack he gets and more. Leave it to our political miracle worker President, who has managed in just one year to unite whole swaths of the American electorate against him to the point of turning Massachusetts Red, to awake in me sympathy for the Nevada devil. Two weeks ago, the announcement that Obama would soon be campaigning for Senator Reid in Las Vegas broke with little fanfare. There was the lingering resentment in Nevada against the President's slamming of Las Vegas as a tourist destination last February, a backhand which locals believe was both totally unnecessary and worse, cost the City of Las Vegas and the State of Nevada in tourism dollars. Most of that resentment had died down since. At least until the President decided to take yet another unwise political shot at Las Vegas. The backlash from Nevada politicians, businessmen and civic leaders has been nuclear. Many have stated that the President will not be forgiven this time. Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman has been most outspoken in his condemnation of the President's remarks (see embedded video), stating that the President "has a real psychological hangup with the entertainment capital of the world," and promising that when Obama does come to Vegas, "I can assure you that we will do everything we can to give him the boot back to Washington so he can revisit his failures back there." Ironically, Senator Reid himself spoke out in vehement opposition to the President's politically damaging Las Vegas Groundhog Day moment, reportedly responding to the White House by saying that "the President needs to lay off Las Vegas and stop making it the poster child for where people shouldn't be spending their money." The President clarified his remarks in a recent letter to Senator Reid that contains belated praise of Las Vegas, but no formal apology. Not that the locals are accepting any. So there is the agitated and hostile landscape in which the Senate Majority Leader will drag the biggest and heaviest political ball-and-chain imaginable to Las Vegas, with the express goal of helping to bolster a candidacy that already enjoys barely a third of public support in Nevada. Can American politics get any more twisted? If I were a political cartoonist, I'd draw a cartoon with a grave dug in the middle of the Strip, Harry Reid in a coffin and President Obama nailing the lid shut with the underlying caption, "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!" Like I said, it's almost enough to make me sympathize with Mr. Reid. Not quite, but the President nearly pulled it off. Credit where credit is due. Stay tuned, folks! I see a wild one coming! Tea Partiers and angry Las Vegans lining the streets in the foulest of moods, Obama and Reid booed off a stage or two, and then given the bum's rush out of town. Should be quite the Vegas show! Bring plenty of popcorn, but leave the children at home. Lastly, it is said that most people arrive in Vegas in a $20,000 vehicle and leave in one worth $100,000: a Greyhound bus. Given Sin City's colorful history, Mr. Reid will not be the first to arrive in Las Vegas in a limo and depart in a hearse. But he will most certainly be the first Senate Majority Leader to do so. I think that would be history worth blowing some kiddie college savings in Vegas to see. Speaking of which, any bets on whether Obama scratches his upcoming Viva Las Vegas Tour? Come on, baby needs a new pair of shoes and a college fund!