Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said “the country is better off” today for “having the spirited debate that’s been going on” between Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Reid is refusing to endorse going into the Nevada caucus, which the Democrats hold on Feb. 20.
He also argued that the superdelegate process — by which Clinton got as many delegates as Sanders in New Hampshire despite Bernie’s 22-point landslide — is more fair than it used to be.
“Eight years ago, I looked at this and I thought, how in the world could we have the future of this country be dependent on Iowa, which is 93 percent white, and we have New Hampshire, which is 97 percent white, no diversity. No diversity in Iowa. And have the final decision made as who’s going to be the President of the United States based on those two states. It was wrong. We now have Nevada and South Carolina before we get into the rest of the country as to who’s chosen where,” Reid told MSNBC.
“This is better; it’s so much better than it was before. So think what it would be if this campaign didn’t go to Nevada and South Carolina, so it was just determined by what happened in Iowa. She won. And you just indicated that even though he won the election by a big margin in New Hampshire, the delegates came out even. It was not a good system. It’s getting better.”
Asked if Bill Clinton is failing as an effective surrogate for his wife, Reid stressed that the former president “is a person who did and knows how to feel our pain.”
“And so don’t, by any stretch of the imagination, count out Bill Clinton. He is one of the best communicators a president has ever been. He’s a — he’ll be involved in the campaign,” the minority leader continued. “And Bernie, he’s got a lot of people of stature involved in his campaign. I repeat, as I’ve said before, this is a great campaign. As somebody’s been involved in politics all their life, like I have, this is really a feast.”
“…You know, we’ve been debating, as Democrats, on the issues. Isn’t that great? We’re not attacking each other personally. We don’t have this mobfest that they’ve had in the Republican Party to see who can be the most vile, the most negative. We don’t have that.”
The Democratic Party infighting between Hillary and Bernie supporters works to Reid’s advantage if that results in high Dem turnout, because he wants higher party registration to boost chances that a Dem will fill his seat in November when he retires.
Asked if he’ll endorse after the caucus: “I don’t need to get ahead of myself.”
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