Reid Says He Encouraged Obama to Run

Worth Clicking: Blasts from the past wound Romney

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April 27, 2009

Reid Says He Encouraged Obama to Run

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told Barack Obama he should run for president in early 2007, telling the then-freshman senator if wanted the White House, he could win it, according to an epilogue to Reid's autobiography to be released next month.

Reid's advice came unsolicited, the majority leader told the Las Vegas Sun in an interview.

"Reid said he invited Obama to his office off the Senate floor ostensibly to discuss other matters. But actually the majority leader brought the young senator in to tell him, as Reid writes in the book, 'If you want to be president, you can be president now.'"

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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April 27, 2009