The political lessons Harry Reid learned

The hard lessons Harry Reid (picture here with Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi) learned are ones Republicans now rue as well. (Photo: John Shinkle)

By DAVID ROGERS
Politico

Ben Nighthorse Campbell rides again — this time across the pages of a Harry Reid political essay that sheds new light on Arlen Specter’s switcheroo last week.

Astride his Harley or horse, “Black War Bonnet,” the ponytailed Campbell cut a colorful swath through Congress for 18 years, jumping midway in his career from the Democrats to the Republicans in 1995 after a bitter fight with environmentalists over a water-rights bill affecting the Ute Indian tribe back home in Colorado.

That defection left an indelible print on his Nevada neighbor Reid, who was then working his way up to become Senate majority leader. The hard lessons Reid learned are ones Republicans now rue as well.

“To this day, I can’t believe we let that happen,” Reid writes in the essay released Monday as a new epilogue to his book, “One faction of our party drove a very good Democrat into the wilderness. How could we be so intolerant of differences to do something like that?”

(More here.)