Jon Ralston, contributing editor at Politico Magazine, has covered Nevada politics for more than a quarter-century. He has worked for both major Las Vegas newspapers and now has his own site, email newsletter and television program.

Forty years ago, a relatively unknown youngster had fought his way to a slight advantage over former Nevada Gov. Paul Laxalt.

But the challenger felt he needed a coup de grâce, so he raised questions about Laxalt's family finances, wondering about the provenance and propriety of certain funds.


Laxalt responded by putting his sister out front to explain how she had lived her life with a vow of poverty: She was a nun. The outrage was palpable; Laxalt was elected by 624 votes.

The loser in that 1974 race was 34-year-old Harry Reid, whose putative killer instinct had killed the messenger (i.e. himself), theoretically ending his political career. But four decades later, buoyed by a series of fortunate events and a determination bordering on indomitability, Reid appears to be poised to embark on a bid for a sixth term.

Or is he?

Questions about the 74-year-old’s health, his recent move to be closer to his children and grandchildren and uncertainty about the Democratic majority in the Senate lead some knowledgeable insiders to speculate that Reid will retire rather than face a challenge in 2016.

“I don’t think he will run again,” said one insider with decades of experience in Nevada and D.C. politics. “He’s not well. His wife isn’t well. He has grandchildren. And he may not be in the majority after November.”

That, however, is a minority view, albeit an understandable one based on observing Reid. Those close to the majority leader say his health actually is quite robust, that he is intent on mounting another campaign and that he relishes any challenge, even from popular Gov. Brian Sandoval. As for the reports that the Koch brothers are plotting to bring him down, his staff has a ready answer: Bring it on.

Although some Reidites are willing to concede he has slowed down, with the signature shuffle now even more pronounced and his notoriously poor balance palpable. But they say his mind remains sharp as ever, even though several sources told me they have recently witnessed him lose his place in conversations or meander into tangents before regaining his focus.

And then there are the gaffes. So many, so much more frequent, it seems. Just last week, Reid was forced to apologize for what for him was a minor slip, more a case of him trying to be too cute by saying he had trouble “keeping my Wongs straight” at an Asian Chamber of Commerce event. This was not on par with describing the first African-American president as “light-skinned….with no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one,” which one Nevada Democrat recently called “as bad as it gets.”

But it was cringe-worthy enough, and another sign that whatever filter Reid once had is gone, perhaps because of older age, perhaps because he has decided not to run or simply because he is … Harry Reid.

The majority leader’s staff allows no room for equivocation.

“Senator Reid is running for reelection regardless of who his opponent is,” said Reid’s spokeswoman Kristen Orthman. “We fully anticipate the Koch brothers will spend millions of dollars trying to buy the race in Nevada. We also fully anticipate they will be unsuccessful as they have been in previous cycles when Nevadans rejected their anti-middle class, anti-Social Security agenda.”

But what else can she say?

In this case, though, the spin may be the truth. After talking to some keen, longtime observers of Nevada politics, I remain unshaken in my belief that Reid intends to run, absent any serious health concerns for himself or his wife. But with his intense war against the Koch brothers, whom he seems to mention every time he gets on the Senate floor, and his approval numbers as bad or worse than they were before he ran last time, Reid has raised questions about what his endgame is – or if this is the end.

Reid declined to be interviewed for this piece. Some of those who agreed to talk about Reid’s health, gaffes and/or machinations understandably did not want to be identified. But they are all reliable insiders who are tuned into Nevada and D.C. politics, and some are far from Reid sycophants.

***

When he spoke last week in Vegas to the Asian Chamber, Reid, a voracious reader, told the crowd about a book he had just finished. “I would recommend it to everyone,” Reid said. “It’s called Dowager Empress Cixi. Read that. It’s a best seller. It’s a great book. Everyone should read that. … This remarkable woman did so much for China.”

Reid has mentioned the book (he got the title slightly wrong) to others, too, but not simply because he loves history. “In some four decades of absolute power, her political killings, whether just or unjust … were no more than a few dozen, many in response to plots to kill her,” Jung Chang writes of the empress.

A leader who is ruthless in pursuit of and holding onto power, who is willing to dispose of political enemies and who revels in changing history. For four decades!

The parallels are clear. That explains why Harry Reid loves the book, and to many of those who know him, helps explain why he will never willingly give up power.

“Harry Reid will do virtually anything that is not contrary to the law to achieve his objective,” said one Democratic insider who knows Reid well. “He is strategic in his thinking and very focused.”

But at 74, he’s also old, albeit perhaps not for the Club of 100 cohort. He also looks frail, many have observed. Reid had to be helped off the stage at the Asian Chamber event, where he not only made those gaffes but went into a long, tangential disquisition on funding the National Endowment of the Arts, including a mariachi study.

“He went for five minutes on mariachi music,” said one attendee. “It was as if he had forgotten he was at the Asian chamber.” (Maybe some of the people looked a little Hispanic to him?)

Anyone who has been around Reid has seen him lose his train of thought, have difficulty finishing sentences. Some believe it is a residual, gradually worsening impact of a mini-stroke he had almost exactly nine years ago. But even those who have experienced Reid’s loss of focus mention, as one Republican told me, “his incredible long-term memory and his immediate recall.” Others tell stories of Reid’s ability to regale them with legislative and process minutiae, impromptu seminars on how bills became law in the congressional maze to which only he has the full map.

“He does kind of wander,” said one insider who sees Reid fairly often. “But when it comes to something important, he’s on it.”

“He still operates at 100 mph,” added one Reidite, “He may walk slower but his mind is still incredibly agile. And of course, when you are majority leader, you set the pace (people wait up for you).”

Reid still walks three miles a day—he used to run until knee problems became too acute about a decade and a half ago. A Mormon, he doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke. And he certainly is not on the capital social circuit.

“I’ve heard that he looks old and tired,” said one Reid friend who marveled at his constant travel schedule. “Well, he is old and tired.” But, the crony added, “I have not noticed any drop-off in his mental acuity, response to topics. I have not gotten that sense.”

Reid is devoted to his wife, Landra, who was deemed cancer-free in 2012 after a trying bout with breast cancer. She looks much better, appears at events, including in Reno at a Washoe County Democratic breakfast in early August.

As for the gaffes, Reid has not been a smooth speaker … ever. But his lips have grown looser over the years, resulting in many Reidisms that were recalled by national media types after the relatively tepid Asian Chamber remarks. A mashup of Reid appeared, and there have been many in the past.

Several people told me they thought the flap over the Asian comments was overblown, that it was a case of Reid trying to be too clever. “He thinks he’s being cute and funny,” said one friend. “He’s not.”

But there are Republicans, and even some Democrats, who believe that Reid, like Vice President Joe Biden, is given a “gaffe immunity” by the media, which is not similarly extended to Republicans, as Hot Air’s Noah Rothman and the San Francisco Chronicle’s Debra Saunders, among others, have argued.

Reid’s gaffes have become so expected, so commonplace that there is a tendency to whisper, “Oh, that’s just Harry being Harry.” But while Republican elected officials often are asked to answer for the most obscure GOP official saying something idiotic, have you ever seen Democratic senators or candidates asked about the unfortunate effusions from the second most powerful Democrat in the country? That surely helps insulate him from internal caucus fracturing.

“He has reached that stage in his life where he disregards any filter that someone hopes to put on him,” said one friend. “Do I think he’s losing it? I don’t think so. He is just more uninhibited.”

Another Reidite was blunter and had a different explanation: “He’s a gaffe machine. There’s nothing new there. I don’t even know if the filter has been removed. He’s back to more of an aggressive mode. He feels like he’s picking up the slack [from the president]. He’s the campaigner in chief, the attack dog in chief. He’s back in the role of the Democrat who has to absorb those responsibilities because Obama can’t or won’t.”

Reid’s problems also are magnified by trackers trailing him, including the one from America Rising PAC, a GOP oppo outfit, who recorded his Asian Chamber remarks. That will be more and more the case as the next cycle looms. Live by the tracker, die by the tracker.

The Asian Chamber event turned out to be embarrassing not only for Reid’s standup routine, but also because the group turned around shortly thereafter and rebuffed his chosen candidate, Assemblywoman Lucy Flores, in the race for lieutenant governor. Reid hopes Flores will be elected, thus precluding Sandoval from running against him lest he leave the state in the hands of a Democratic governor.

That kind of embarrassment doesn’t happen often to the consummate manipulator and had to hurt the man not known for striking out too often in Nevada’s game of inside baseball.

***

Reid’s obsession with the Kochs also has fueled speculation that he is blasting away at the billionaires as his final act in political life before he announces his retirement. That is, despite his bravado, why would he take on such a formidable force knowing they could drown him in 2016?

“He has to be concerned about them,” said one Nevada Democrat. “Anyone as savvy as Harry Reid knows they have the ability to unleash a flood of money. Is he concerned? I think unequivocally, yes.”

But concerned is different than cowed.

If Reid is anything, he is calculating. And as a longtime Reid-watcher, I don’t think he is adding up the days he has left in office.

Many have speculated that the Kochmania is purely an effort to motivate a base less than enamored with the president and feeling the ennui of an off-year election. But there’s more to it than that.

“He is doing it in an effort to make the money itself an issue, to make the money toxic, to make them toxic,” said Billy Vassiliadis, a longtime Reid friend and political/public relations consultant. “I think it was a political calculation by him and the people around him: If we allow them [the Kochs] to remain anonymous, all we get is the downside. We have to make the money tougher to take.”

The last time I recall anything similar occurring was in the 1990s when Democrats here tried to make Sheldon Adelson’s money poisonous as he tried to dominate local politics. They referred to him as the “billionaire bully.” But, as Reid risibly tells us, Adelson money is much different from Koch money.

Reid’s relentless floor speeches, his regular fundraising pitches using the Kochs as whipping boys and his friends at the Patriot Majority echoing his rhetoric surely have had an impact. It was only recently that the Kochs suddenly began advertising how wonderful they are, burnishing their battered image.

Team Reid portrays the Kochs as just another in a long line of adversaries the majority leader has confronted, with “much scarier” foes littering the landscape, as one ally put it, perhaps a reference to his days regulating the mob in Las Vegas.

“Reid really believes that what the Kochs are doing is an assault on democracy,” the crony said. “And for someone who grew up with nothing, the idea that they could buy government is insulting.”

Maybe. But Reid’s hypocrisy here rankles Republicans, considering that unions pour hundreds of millions of dollars into Democratic campaigns and considering his less-than-distant ties to the Senate Majority Super PAC. And whether the son of a hard rock miner who became a millionaire and resides in the Ritz-Carlton sincerely is offended by the Kochs’ inherited wealth, just as Reid asserted he was by Mitt Romney’s when he told that false story about his tax avoidance, the majority leader had to know the Kochs would come after him.

So far, it hasn’t amounted to much. The Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity has not prospered in Nevada, having little impact and gaining less respect. As one Reid operative said, “They can throw more money at the problem but that’s not likely to change the outcome.”

It’s only 2014, though. Could the Kochs induce Reid not to run for re-election, along with America Rising and other GOP groups now with boots on the ground in Nevada? I doubt it. “Fundamentally, Reid won’t be bullied,” puffed one Reid insider.

Another theory making the rounds in capital parlors is that the Kochs could actually make Reid’s decision for him by helping the Republicans take over the Senate in December. Most oddsmakers make the GOP a favorite to do so, fueled by AFP money and infusions from other Koch affiliates.

If the Democrats were to lose the Senate, two questions arise: Would Reid decide to retire, and would he remain leader?

One Capitol Hill insider theorized, sounding a commonly held view in some quarters, that if the Senate flips, “I don’t think he will be re-elected minority leader. … And then he won’t run again. Why bother? He has moved close to his grandkids, so he is setting himself up for [losing the Senate]. Do you see Harry going back to being a rank- and-file senator?”

Of course not. But even if New York’s Chuck Schumer, seen by some to have the lean and hungry look, and perhaps Illinois’ Dick Durbin, are preparing for Team Reid to fail, those who understand the dynamic know how loyal Senate Democrats are to Reid.

“Say what you like about his unfiltered comments, he has done a masterful job of keeping that Democratic caucus together,” said one Reid-watcher. “No one has done a better job (since LBJ) on key votes on the Senate floor.”

Another insider mentioned that while Schumer is a fundraising powerhouse in the Northeast, Reid travels across the country for his caucus and raises money for them constantly. Indeed, he organized an event for Durbin this week in Las Vegas. Hold your friends close; hold your frenemies closer.

Said another: “When is Schumer not making a move? But where is Schumer now? Reid is the one on the road, taking bullets for his caucus members, etc. Caucus members know he would lie down for them. Can’t say the same for Schumer.”

Those who really know Reid say even if the Democrats lose the Senate, he would run again because he would not want to go out a loser, and the playing field favors Democrats reversing their fortunes in 2016. “Yes, he would run,” said someone familiar with his thinking. “In some ways, he’d be even more motivated to win the majority back.”

Don’t forget, too, that Reid can’t help but know he could break Mike Mansfield’s record of 16 years as Senate majority leader. But even should the Democrats hold the Senate, Reid, if he were re-elected leader and were to win another term, would not become the longest serving majority leader in history until 2023, when he would be 84.

It is far from a foregone conclusion that Republicans will take the Senate, either. Reid has the best political team in the business, and two of his closest allies, Susan McCue, a former chief of staff, and Rebecca Lambe, his right hand in Nevada, are overseeing those campaigns through the Senate Majority PAC.

As the Atlantic’s Molly Ball recently pointed out, the plan is to do what saved Reid in 2010: Harness the ground forces to enhance turnout and drive Democrats to the polls to offset unfavorable poll numbers. “He is just unflinching when he gets onto something,” said one Reid-watcher, referring to the Kochs and his effort to keep the Senate.

***

So will Harry run?

Actually, he is running. He’s raising money and laying the groundwork. He has $1.6 million on hand (he’ll raise 20 times that), his control of the state Democratic apparatus is airtight and his team already is moving the ground-game puzzle pieces into place. And, as more than one observer pointed out, “Obviously he’s going to say he’s running again or he loses all his power.”

The two most compelling arguments for him announcing shortly after the election, no matter what happens, that he will be on the ballot in 2016 are simple: He has nothing better to do, and no one strong will challenge him.

“I think he’ll die in the Senate,” said one longtime pol. “What’s he going to do? He’s not going to lobby. He’s got plenty of money so he doesn’t need to retire to make money. With the exception of Landra, there’s not a whole lot [he cares about]. He has no real hobbies.”

The Republicans do not have a deep bench, either. After Sandoval and Rep. Joe Heck, there is a chasm—and both men have good reasons not to run. No one close to Sandoval thinks he will challenge Reid, although I think immense pressure will come down on him after he coasts to victory in November. (One Sandoval friend put the chances of him taking on Reid at 5 percent.) Heck is eager to move up in the House. Should the congressman survive – and he is solidly favored to do so – my guess is he takes himself out of the running.

That leaves outgoing Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, who blames Reid for having him indicted as he was mulling a big against him; state Sen. Mark Hutchison, who is running for lieutenant governor and should he win, would be in office only a few months before the 2016 campaign would have to begin; and state Senate Minority Leader Michael Roberson, who would have to win re-election and then leave the legislature. “My bet remains all the big kids pass,” said one GOP consultant.

After that come the pygmies. Las Vegas Councilman Bob Beers says he is running, but few think he can win. Maybe Cliven Bundy is interested?

Yes, Reid could lose to a second- or third-tier candidate with his unpopularity. But he will not be scared off by anyone, including Sandoval. “He’s not going to make a decision based on his opponent,” said one member of his inner circle. Reid has absolute faith in his team, and his competitive juices would flow.

One other factor: “Don’t underestimate the LDS influence,” said one Reid friend. “That sense of mission, purpose, patriotism is very ingrained in him.”

Reid also has other hills to climb, I think. Even if he is not pursuing Mansfield, he does not believe his legacy is complete.

A global business district for Vegas, a renewal energy hub in Nevada, more goodies for Lake Tahoe. Nevada is a broad canvas for the majority leader.

One insider described Reid, who had an alcoholic father who committed suicide, and who was not given a chance in life because of his hardscrabble upbringing, as having a perpetual chip on his shoulder looking to say, “I told you so.”

So he probably is running, his health probably is all right and his hold on his caucus probably is solid. But as one intimate put it about the sometimes inscrutable majority leader: “No one knows Reid’s mind but Reid.”