Harry M. Reid, the Democrat who rose from childhood poverty in the rural Nevada desert to the heights of power in Washington, where he steered the Affordable Care Act to passage as Senate majority leader, died on Tuesday in Henderson, Nev. He was 82.
Mr. Reid had been treated for pancreatic cancer, which was diagnosed in 2018, but lived to see the Las Vegas airport renamed for him earlier this month. His death was confirmed in statements from Gov. Steve Sisolak of Nevada and Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader.
Even by the standards of the political profession, where against-the-odds biographies are common and modest roots an asset, what Mr. Reid overcame was extraordinary. He was raised in almost Dickensian circumstances in tiny Searchlight, Nev.: His home had no indoor plumbing, his father was an alcoholic miner who eventually committed suicide, and his mother helped the family survive by taking in laundry from local brothels.
RIP.
HeleninEire
RIP. He had a life!!!
WaterGirl
This is really hitting me hard. Harry Reid was one of the good guys.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Harry Reid
God bless Harry Reid for delivering 60 votes for ACA (photo)
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
Well, that’s just shitty. He was so soft spoken, and yet he could stick a knife into the gut of a Republican while looking into his face and smiling.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Rest in peace, Harry.
Omnes Omnibus
A good life, well lived.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
God bless Harry Reid for delivering 60 votes for ACA (photo)
SiubhanDuinne
This saddens me very much. Harry Reid was definitely one of the good guys. Our country is a little bit diminished because he’s no longer here — but it is better because he was.
RIP, Mr Leader.
dmsilev
Damn.
A hell of a life, that’s for sure.
PsiFighter37
He punched above his weight, that’s for sure. RIP.
Suzanne
Man. Harry. What an icon.
Lots of good ones have left us this week.
Another Scott
He made an important difference to America, and was his own person.
Thank you Harry. RIP.
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
In just the past three days, we’ve lost:
Harry Reid
John Madden
Sarah Weddington
E. O. Wilson
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
That’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure I’m forgetting other equally distinguished names. Tough final week of 2021.
Sure Lurkalot
I didn’t know about his humblest of beginnings. I liked his soft spoken chutzpah and I’m listening to MSNBC to learn all the things I never knew. Sad day.
Miss Bianca
Ugh, why does it always seem like we lose a string of the good guys to every one of the bad ones? Why *do* “the wicked flourish like the green bay tree,” huh?
RIP, Harry.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
I’ll bet it’s also hitting President Biden hard. I feel certain they were good friends as well as Senate colleagues.
dr. bloor
The political world changed a bit faster than he was able to realize toward the end, IMHO, but one of the good guys and underrated as a force for positive change.
raven
nah
Suzanne
@SiubhanDuinne: Wayne Thiebaud and Joan Didion.
Roger Moore
@Miss Bianca:
I think we lose more good people than bad ones because your second statement is wrong. There are more good people than bad ones. It’s just that one bad person can destroy the work of many good ones, so we need many good people for every bad one to keep moving forward.
SiubhanDuinne
@Suzanne:
Yes, of course! Thank you.
(Week’s even tougher than I thought it was.)
Suzanne
@SiubhanDuinne: I am comforted by the fact that they were all old and all of them improved the world with their presence for many years.
dr. luba
Reid is dead and Trump lives. Proof there is no loving god.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes. Absolutely. Harry Reid was a helluva colleague and a helluva man. You did us all proud, Harry.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
a wily old cuss, we could use more of those
SiubhanDuinne
@Suzanne:
I agree with you, of course. It’s only … there are so many in such a short time.
The Dangerman
RIP Harry and Coach Madden. Next time I’m in Harry’s (Pismo Beach, where he met his wife), I’ll do something appropriate.
prostratedragon
bell hooks a couple of weeks ago at most.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think it’s been about a year since I read Obama’s memoir, but I remember being struck by the role Reid played in his decision to run for President, and then securing the Dem nomination. This seems to confirm that recollection
stinger
@dr. luba: Also, Dick Cheney’s still breathing.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
A beautiful, human, funny, and comforting letter from the most gracious and classy man ever to occupy the Oval Office. Thank you.
mrmoshpotato
@stinger:
As is fellow war criminal and thief, George Warcriminal Bush.
Dan B
Here’s hoping all the bad ends up in 2021. I’m looking at a photo of Pramila Jayapal who would probably enjoyed Harry Reid. When Pramila is mincing, or parsing, her words she’s taking someone down a notch and when, like Harry, she speaks the simple truth, she’s already completed the task.
SiubhanDuinne
@stinger:
Actually, at this point, I don’t care if he hangs on a while longer. Liz doesn’t need any personal distractions right now.
Viva BrisVegas
@stinger: Not to mention Kissinger.
Sorry for mentioning Kissinger.
Raoul Paste
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: what do you write to a person who knows his days are numbered?
I felt like an insider reading Obama’s note to Harry Reid. It just doesn’t get more personal
debbie
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
Fitting for a boxer. RIP.
Alice
I met Senator Reid a number of times – Nevada is a small state – and he was unfailing kind. But he took no prisoners and if he said something was going to get done, it did. An old school politician in the best way. We will miss him here.
NobodySpecial
I’m so old I remember when everyone thought Harry Reid was a Blue Dog.
Rest in Peace, good sir. It was an honor to shake your hand.
stinger
@SiubhanDuinne: Maybe, for the good of the 1/6 investigation, I will grudgingly grant you that.
@Viva BrisVegas: As well you should be!
Miss Bianca
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Damn. From one class act to another.
stinger
@mrmoshpotato: Yep. The list is long.
Mai Naem mobile
This one really saddens me. Harry Reid just came across as a good principled person who gave a crap about regular people. Reid did incredibly well given the crappy hand he was given as majority and minority leader. Also an incredible tactician turning Nevada into at least a light blue state.
mali muso
I was just thinking about him the other day and wondering how he would be handling the current senate situation if he were still in charge. He was such a fighter. A life well lived.
persistentillusion
@stinger: Dick Cheney still drawing breathe with the aid of his non-human (really) heart? For shame!
Yutsano
@SiubhanDuinne: I was scared because Nichelle Nichols was trending on Twitter. Fortunately it’s her 89th birthday. It’s so unfortunate that she’s suffering from dementia now. She touched so many lives just by being graceful.
kindness
I remember all the times Harry would be polite and let Republicans appear to walk all over him and then he’d come back with a zinger that would turn the whole conversation around. Liberal web sites would castigate him in the morning and praise him in the afternoon.
feebog
A loss for the country. Harry Reid was a brilliant political tactician and a take no prisoners Democrat. RIP Harry.
danielx
@Viva BrisVegas:
As you should be – name him three times and he appears in a cloud of smoke and odor of brimstone.
And we certainly do not want that.
L85NJGT
He pushed through the repeal of DADT because it was the right thing to do.
Godspeed.
SiubhanDuinne
@Yutsano:
Yup. I noticed that too, today, and in recent days Betty White — but those were simply anticipating her 100th birthday in January.
James E Powell
Election night, 2004. I had been working as a volunteer for Kerry in Las Vegas for the last week of the campaign. All afternoon people had been honking horns & telling us that Kerry won Ohio (remember Zogby?) so we were all in a grand good mood. Another guy & I returned the rented vans and drove to the Rio where the Reid’s big campaign party was. I lost my way walking through the casino and came upon one of those movable walls they use in such places. I saw a door, opened it, walked through & found myself right in the middle of Senator Reid’s entourage. Didn’t seem to be anyone who was security, just a bunch of suits. Right as I walked in, an aide told the senator that Kerry was about to give his concession speech. That was the first I knew for sure that Kerry lost. Senator Reid was about to go up on stage, he started shaking everybody’s hand and shook mine. I said “good luck senator” and he said “thank you” and that’s my Harry Reid story.
Ruckus
@Miss Bianca:
The good ones you know, because they are good.
The good ones leave a far better mark on the world, because they are good.
The good ones give more than they take, because they are good.
The good ones are not a waste of protoplasm, because they are good.
The good ones are not trying to screw everyone else, because they are good.
You miss the good ones, because they are good
The years always end with a list of the good ones no longer with us as a reminder that we are all here temporarily and that at least attempting to be good is worth more than one can imagine.
Fake Irishman
He was quirky and amazing. a young man with courage and anger facing a nearly impossible childhood situation found love, God, boxing and politics and managed to put it all together into something truly spectacular.
Also, interesting to see how his politics evolved over time, in part out of pragmatism: look at how he approached LGBT issues and immigration. Perhaps he wasn’t always the biggest idealist, but he never let racism or homophobia blind him to potential political alliances, and I suspect he learned a lot about life through merely recognizing many of his constituents and being open to their needs. He went from being anti-immigrant to handpicking a Hispanic woman to replace him.
And like Pelosi is, he was a master of politics. He knew where his caucus was, took care of its needs and made the hard trades to maximize its leverage (fighting no the urge to dump on Lieberman after 2008 and giving up things to keep him onside during the ACA debate was a decision that was and is distasteful, but has been shown by history to be the right one.) His work on the ACA, which he took a lot of crap for at the time, was extraordinary. And he shepherded through the legislative end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in the last hours of the Large Dem majorities in 2010, which prevented a lot of mischief starting 6 years later.
Fake Irishman
@L85NJGT:
and it’s amazing how uncontroversial the repeal is now. There’s a bill that has gotten out of committee in the senate that would make the repeal retroactive and restore benefits to those the policy harmed. That bill is cosponsored by Joni Ernst, of all people.
Fake Irishman
@kindness:
He patiently waited and worked for to get the votes. Then he ran right over you. Mitch McConnell still has several very attractive sets of tire tracks on his back from this very reason.
Another Scott
Short thread.
Well said.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kelly
There are more good guys than bad ones.
Geeno
This saddens me. Reid was one of the “Good Guys”. His position in the Senate often required that he not lead the attack, but he always had a shiv in his pocket for enemy passers by.
Anyway
Deleted
Elizabelle
Harry Reid was a good, good guy. And a decent one.
We are lucky to have had him as Senate Majority Leader. Rest well.
Mike in NC
Yes, he was a very good guy. RIP.
Ramalama
@SiubhanDuinne: Can we add Phil Saviano to the list
Ramalama
Jamison Foser on Twitter: