asked him to serve on a public hospital board about 50 years ago or so, willie, and he used that as the spring board to being asked to run for the assembly, and then he became the state s youngest lieutenant governor. what people may not know about harry reid, willie, is that he was very, very ambitious, a driven person. i think, again, forged in searchlight, nevada, and he ran for the senate in 1974 for the first time and lost in an absolutely brutal race against paul waxal. then he ran for mayor of las vegas and lost in a landslide. people thought he was done. but his mentor, and you ll mention this, his mentor governor mike ocala happen plucked him from his sulking and he made a name in the nevada gaming commission and made a
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at which some aide to then majority leader reid convinced him to do a charm offensive. so i got a call from his office. would you like to drop by just to chat? i said, just to chat with harry reid? yeah, just to chat. so i went by his office, and it was like the weirdest hour because he clearly didn t get the memo, right. he wasn t really into chatting, and so there was a lot of stoney silence. we talked a bit about searchlight, about his growing up and about boxing, and eventually i found an excuse to sort of leave. that wasn t that wasn t the setting in which harry reid really shone. it was in the halls and the floor of the senate where he was he was a magician, and he was also an enforcer.
mccaskill referred to and others have talked about in the legislative arena, especially his proudest achievement, the affordable care act which i ve said many times, willie, should probably be called reid care. maybe so, given the work he did in the senate to push it over. and as claire reminded us, back in the days you needed 60 votes to get something done not so long ago. john, let s talk a little more about the story you began to tell from searchlight. destitute, no indoor plumbing, he served on the nevada gaming commission in the 70s and 80s. which is the stuff of scorsese movies. he learned a few things there, i imagine. what was his leap into politics? why did he want to get into that kind of service? you know, he said there was no real politics when he was growing up. he also didn t have much religion. he didn t have faith. but he just wanted to do something, and he actually started when a bunch of doctors
best accomplishments the impact he had on presidential history, encouraging barack obama to run. i called him in my office and told him he should take a look at it. he was stunned. i was the first one that ever suggested it to him. when he was re-elected, he said, you re the reason i m here. reporter: he spearheaded epic legislative battles like obamacare with the scrappy styled he learned during his impoverished childhood. reid was born, shaped and scarred in search light, nevada, essentially a truck stop in las vegas. he grew up in a shack with no running water where this trailer now sits. he took us there in 2006. his mother did laundry for the local brothels. his dad always looking for work as a miner. both drank heavily. during that 2006 visit to search light, he casually pointed out where his father took his own life at 58 years old. this house right here, that
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