QUOTE OF THE DAY…. The NYT‘s John Harwood ran a good piece last night, providing some context to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s successes of the last two years, and the low-key Nevadan’s ability to survive, preserve, and secure a place in history.
Towards the end of the piece, Reid looked ahead.
For his part, Mr. Reid predicted, “We’ll get some things done,” naming comprehensive immigration legislation as one possibility.
If Republicans’ vulnerability among Hispanic voters does not persuade them to compromise, he noted, “they have real problems with their mental capacity.”
On the substance, my expectations for comprehensive immigration reform are pretty low. Just a few years ago, the Bush White House and several leading Republicans endorsed a framework Democrats could live with, but opposition from rank-and-file congressional Republicans and the GOP base made passage impossible. The party has become even more right-wing in the years since, and even if the Obama White House embraced the Bush plan in its entirety, it’s hard to see how this GOP-led House would even consider it.
That said, there’s something endearing about a Senate Majority Leader willing to question Republicans’ “mental capacity” on the record to the New York Times.
