— Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., apologized Saturday for newly revealed racial remarks he made about Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign — comments that could hurt his re-election hopes.
Reid referred to Obama, then a fellow senator, in private talks as “light-skinned” and speaking “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,” according to a new book on the campaign by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann.
“I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words,” Reid said in a statement.
Reid apologized to Obama in a telephone call Saturday afternoon.
“I accepted Harry’s apology without question because I’ve known him for years, I’ve seen the passionate leadership he’s shown on issues of social justice and I know what’s in his heart,” Obama said in a written statement. “As far as I am concerned, the book is closed.”
Obama’s forgiveness was a secondary issue, however, as Reid fights to keep his seat after voters back home have soured on him.
Reid already is in danger of losing his bid for re-election in Nevada, which would make him the second Democratic Senate leader voted out of office after Tom Daschle of South Dakota lost his re-election bid in 2004.
A poll for the Las Vegas Review-Journal out Saturday suggested more than half of the state’s voters are unhappy with Reid, raising new questions about whether he might decide to retire rather than lose.
The poll showed Reid trailing any of three possible Republican rivals.