I Heart Harry Reid

Senator Harry Reid spoke at BYU's Barlow Center last night. It was pretty good. I like that he is no non-sense and says what he means. You'll remember how excited I was the first time to meet him, so you can only imagine how ecstatic I was to get a picture with him!


In the question and answer portion of the night, someone asked Senator Reid why he was a Democrat ... he responded with the following reasons:

• Upbringing - his father was affiliated with unionized labor
  
• He wants to help people from the bottom up because he does not believe in the "trickle down" theory. Society must be improved and helped from the bottom up.
• The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer in America - "its not right"
• He believes in government and that it needs to be improved and not denigrated
  

I thought it was interesting too that he made some very strong statements against Republicans and in favor of the Democratic Party:

"The economy is always better under Democrats"

"Republicans are more concerned about the rich than they are about the poor"

It was good for me to hear his convictions behind the democratic party. The issues that he mentioned are things that I often find myself turning to when people in the Church make me second guess my political feelings and their alignment with the principles of the gospel (not necessarily on purpose, but just by being themselves). I really liked how he said that there are issues more important that gun control and abortion ... that is definitely how I feel.


The saddest statement he made of the night had to do with how members of the church often treated himself and his family. He said in response to a question on how his religious convictions were received by other politicians or dignitaries, "the most un-Christian and hurtful comments are made by members of the church". Sigh. Very sad. When relaying the details of the night to my father (who is extremely jealous of my interaction with the Honorable Harry Reid) we had to remind each other that the knife cuts both ways ... when we say negative things about Orrin Hatch's politics its just as bad as when conservatives say negative things about Harry Reid's ... its important to not become the very things you are fighting against.