If you want a story of coming up gritty in America, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s got it.

A hardscrabble youth in Searchlight, Nevada. Mom doing laundry for brothels. Dad an alcoholic miner. Young Harry hitchhiking forty miles across the desert to high school.

If you want gritty politics, Harry Reid’s got that, too. An in-your-face bad relationship with George W. Bush, who he’s called a loser and a liar. A razor’s edge neutrality on the presidential candidacies of his fellow Democratic Senators Obama and Clinton.

This hour, On Point: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Sen. Harry Reid, Democrat from Nevada, Senate Majority Leader, and author of the new autobiography, “The Good Fight: Hard Lessons From Searchlight to Washington.”