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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday defended his state’s January caucus, saying it created a “tremendous sea change on how politics are looked at in Nevada.”
His comments came as the campaign for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has increasingly criticized the caucus system, which has favored Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in the two senators’ quest for their party’s presidential nomination. Clinton won the popular vote in the Nevada caucus, but she has fallen short on a number of other caucuses, including Saturday’s in Wyoming.
Reid is one of the most influential uncommitted superdelegates — the members of Congress and state and party officials whose support could tip the nomination to one of the two candidates. Reid said Wednesday he will continue to stay neutral in the race.
“In a period of an hour, we had 30,000 new Democrats in Nevada,” Reid said in defending the Nevada caucus on Wednesday. “We had tremendous new participation we’ve never had before.”
The Clinton campaign has increasingly tried to minimize Obama’s wins in caucus states, saying that the process of meeting in an open setting, rather than in a secret voting booth, creates an unfair method of selecting a nominee. On NBC’s “Meet the Press” last Sunday, Clinton supporter and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said: “Caucuses are undemocratic.”
Some Clinton supporters have suggested that caucus delegates should be treated differently than pledged delegates from states that hold primaries, but Reid seemed to reject that suggestion.
“If we’re going to change any of the rules it has to be [in the] next election,” Reid said at a “fireside chat” podcast honoring the 75th anniversary of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first such chat. “You can’t change things that have already taken place.” |
