The big news yesterday was this “private” remark from Harry Reid, which appears on page 37 of Game Change

encouragement of Obama was unequivocal. He was wowed by Obama’s oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama — a “light-skinned” African American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,” as he said privately.  Reid was convinced, in fact, that Obama’s race would help him more than hurt him in a bid for the Democratic nomination.

An utterly stupid comment, which Harry Reid has apologized for, but still should cost him his career. I’ll get on to the reason it should cost him his career in a minute, but first I want to address the race issue.

While surfing the blogosphere for reactions to this, one post stuck out. It was by none other than Michelle Malkin, in which she asks the following question:

Trent Lott resigned his leadership post over his birthday party pandering in praise of Strom Thurmond’s racial segregationist presidential platform. Many conservatives (myself included) put pressure on him to resign. Where are the “progressive” Democrats who will apply the same standards to Reid?

Comparing a stupid comment to support of segregation is absolutely mind boggling. Does Malkin even know what segregation is and what it did to this country? I would hope so, but after reading that, it doesn’t seem likely.

Like I said, this should cost Reid his career. He made a stupid comment, but this type of comment is also very common from people in Reid’s generation. Face it – they grew up in a very different America. That’s not making an excuse, but rather stating a fact.

The best thing for Reid now is to follow in the footsteps of Byron Dorgan and Chris Dodd and hang up his soapbox. A new Mason-Dixon poll paints a very bad picture for Reid:

52 percent had an unfavorable opinion of Reid, 33 percent had a favorable view and another 15 percent said they’re neutral. In early December, a Mason-Dixon poll put his unfavorable-favorable rating at 49-38. The lowest Reid’s popularity had slipped before in the surveys was 50 percent — in October, August and May of 2009, when Mason-Dixon started tracking the senate race for the Review-Journal.

The poll also took a snapshot of how Reid would do against three potential GOP opponents. In each case — as in past Review-Journal surveys — it showed the senator would lose with only four in 10 voters supporting him.

This isn’t the first poll to show Reid losing to all the Republican possibilities – it has become a trend. Chances are Harry is going to be gone after November.

This is why Reid should retire. Politicians never want their careers to end on a loss, but rather end when they say it is over. Reid would do his legacy a lot better if he took the same path and threw in the towel. Get with state Democrats and find a popular Democrat who is known state-wide and get them to run.

Republicans are looking at a big pickup in Nevada, like they were in Connecticut. If Reid follows his friend Chris Dodd, then it will become another big blow to Republicans. I don’t know enough about Nevada politics to know if there is any such candidate out there, but if there is then now is the time to talk them into running.