Reid Hides From Top Issues

ABC News’ David Chalian Reports:  If President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are looking for a booster of the national Democratic agenda out in a key battleground state, they shouldn’t bother asking Sen. Reid’s son and gubernatorial candidate Rory Reid for public support. The younger Reid will share the ballot with his powerful father next November and may end up having the easier race of the two.  Democrats see an opportunity to seize on Nevada GOP woes (Gov. Gibbons, Sen. Ensign) and pick up the gubernatorial seat in one of the nine states that flipped from Bush to Obama in 2008. Rory Reid, who currently serves as Clark County Commission Chairman, made clear today he only wanted to focus on his path to the governor’s seat in Carson City and his vision for transforming Nevada’s economy and that he had no desire to weigh in on the major foreign (Afghanistan) and domestic (health care) policy issues facing the country today. At a meeting on Wednesday with a handful of political reporters in Washington, DC, Reid refused to answer a question about whether or not he would push to have Nevada opt out of a public health insurance option should the current Senate version of the public option make it into the final bill. “I don’t know what the bill’s going to be ultimately. I think everybody believes something will be pass. . . I don’t know what’s going to become law ultimately,” Reid said. Reid conceded he was taking a pass on the question.  “Absolutely and I’m telling you I am.  I’m not going to guess at what the law might be,” he said. As for President Obama’s announced strategy for the way forward in Afghanistan, Reid said his opinion is not relevant. “I’m running for governor of Nevada because we need to transform our economy,” Reid replied when asked if he supported the president’s plan to surge 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan over the next 8 months. When asked if some of the people in Nevada he seeks to represent are fighting in the war over there, Reid didn’t seem persuaded to express an opinion on the president’s announcement. “I’m sure there are Nevadans fighting in Afghanistan.  I think that that policy is best left to the president,” he said.   “I do not control national policy like that.  While my opinion on it might be interesting to a few folks, I think what Nevadans want most is to work and they want to have a new economy and I want this campaign to be about that.  I have an opinion that isn’t relevant to what the policy will be so I’m going to work on things that will matter to Nevadans that I can affect directly,” he added. The Democratic gubernatorial candidate also refused to state a position on a second stimulus package under President Obama to get more federal aid to the states. However, he didn’t fully dodge a reporter’s question about running on the same ballot with his famous and embattled dad in the Silver State.  “I love my father more than any of you,” he quipped. “I did every kind of qualitative and quantitative research that you can do.  And I understand why people ask the question.  I think it’s curious, at least, to have two Reids on a ballot.  But that data and my personal experience lead me to believe, while it’s interesting to talk about in a race that’s yet unformed, ultimately, I’m going to be running against somebody.  It’s a binary decision.  People are going to vote for me or the other person and as they make that decision they’re going to consider the thing that any voter does when they make their decision and that is ask themselves ‘which of these candidates will make my life better?’”