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Senate Majority Leader explains what this primary season has meant for the Democratic Party. (1:40)
 

Tavis: Pleased to welcome Senate majority leader Harry Reid back to this program. The four-term Nevada Democrat has penned a critically acclaimed memoir about his unique journey from a small mining town to the halls of Congress. The book is called "The Good Fight: Hard Lessons from Searchlight to Washington." He joins us from our nation's capital. Senator Reid, nice to have you back, sir.

Senator Harry Reid: Thank you very much for letting me be on the show again.

Tavis: Glad to have you. We call -- you call the book "From Searchlight to Washington" because you grew up in a little small place called Searchlight, Nevada. We'll talk about that more in just a moment. But one of the things that gets one's attention, at least mine, the minute one looks at this book is your notion that you grew up in a place and had the kind of childhood that no child in America ought to have. Unpack that for us.

Reid: Well, as I was growing up, of course, I thought all kids were raised like I was. We had no inside toilet, no hot water, my parents were uneducated, my dad didn't graduate from the eighth grade, my mother never graduated from high school. Mining had long since left Searchlight. The number one industry as I was growing up in Searchlight was prostitution.

We had 13 houses of ill repute in Searchlight when I was growing up. One teacher taught all eight grades. It was kind of an interesting situation, as I look back. I learned -- it's interesting, one of the bordello owners, nice man, Willie Martello, he was good to the kids, in Searchlight, it was a town of 200, 250 people.

And he built in that town at back of his little casino-bordello, a beautiful swimming pool for the girls. The prostitutes were referred to as girls. And one afternoon a week he cleared that out, the girls weren't there, and the little waifs of Searchlight swam there, would play around the water. That's where I learned to swim, is in a whorehouse swimming pool. (Laughter.)

Tavis: Aside from the access to the whorehouse swimming pool once a week, how does a child grow up in a community like that that is that small, where prostitution is the only industry, really, and come out even reasonably well-adjusted?

Reid: Well, one of the reasons I wrote the book, I've told these stories off and on over the years, and my chief of staff said "Why don't you do a book on this?" And I've already written one book, one of which was published, I wrote a history book on Searchlight. I know how much work it is. So I did this. It was a lot of work, it was to show people in America that in spite of where you grow up, whether it's a desert town like Searchlight or some rural community around America, or if you're a kid lost in one of the big cities, in America, you can make it.

You have to look for a mentor here and there, but there are no excuses. We can do it in America, and that's one of my goals as a legislator, is to continue working to make sure that the Harry Reids of the world can make it. I tell kids in Nevada, if I can make it, boys and girls, you can make it -- anybody can.

Tavis: To your earlier formulation about the fact that all we need is a few good mentors, you talk about it in the text but tell me about your mentors.

Reid: Well, one I had in Searchlight -- let's talk about two -- was a schoolteacher. She taught all eight grades and she taught me that it was good to read. Until I was a teenager I never traveled out of Searchlight. I didn't go anyplace. But in my mind's eye, because I had learned to read, I could travel all over. My favorite place was the Yukon. Jack London stories, the "Call of the Wild," "White Fang."

Another mentor I had was a deputy sheriff, and his name was Big John Silveria. And he couldn't do this today, perhaps, but here's what he did to us. On the road between Las Vegas and Searchlight, a drunk flipped his car over, died, killed himself. So Big John came to me and my friend Leland, he said "Well, I'll take you for a ride."

Drove out of town about 10, 12, miles; on the side of the road was a dead man. He said, "Come and look at this guy." He said, "That's what happens when you drink and you drive," and I've always remembered that. I've never driven while having had drink. I don't drink now anyway, but even as a kid, I didn't.

Tavis: Beyond that one schoolroom where kids up through eighth grade were being taught, tell me about your education. One does not ascend to become majority leader without having some bona fide education.

Reid: I went away to high school. In those days, you either went or you didn't go. I went, and I stayed with people during the week and would come home weekends. And Tavis, a lot of the time I would hitchhike back and forth. And then I went on, I had some people there in high school who recognized that maybe this kid from Searchlight that dressed differently than the other kids, didn't comb his hair the same, they thought I had a little bit on the ball, maybe.

And so I had a teacher, his name was Michael Callahan, Mr. Walker was another teacher, they reached out to me. And I got a scholarship when I left there to go to college. I wanted to be an athlete, but I learned my freshman year in college, I got hurt, but I realized realistically that I was not fast enough, big enough, or good enough to be the athlete of my dreams, but I could still make good grades, I figured.

I would try. I'd never made good grades before. But I worked hard, got an academic scholarship, graduated college, went to law school back here in Washington, D.C. I went to school all day, full time, worked at night. I was married, had a child. Before I left, I had two children. It was a difficult situation, but I made it, and anybody can make it.

Tavis: As I sit looking at you now with that picture of the Capitol dome behind you, your first job in Washington was not as a legislator, as far as Capitol Hill goes. What'd you do before you became a legislator?

Reid: I was a Capitol policeman. I worked (laughter) at night as a Capitol policeman. I'd like to think I solved a lot of crimes, but the most dangerous thing I did in Washington, D.C. at that time is direct traffic. But I did direct some traffic, I carried a gun, I have a great respect for law enforcement, but that's what I did. It was a hard job. I worked long hours, I thought I would come back to -- there's no law school in Nevada, so you have to go someplace to go to law school, you can't go in Nevada.

And you couldn't at least then. And I thought I would be in Fat City back here. I think I made $5,500 a year, but it was so expensive, and to be honest with you, Tavis, my time in Washington, D.C., my first tour of duty was as miserable as life could be. I hated this place when we left. But here I am.

Tavis: Why'd you hate it so much?

Reid: Oh, it was tough. I worked six days a week. I went to school five days a week. I had a baby, we had another baby. I had no money, it was just an extremely difficult time in my life. But my wife was tough and she wouldn't let me quit, and we made it.

Tavis: What do you make of -- and I don't even know, as busy as you are, if you have time to even think about this, but I suspect from time to time you have, what do you think when you consider that you started out as a Capitol police officer and now you are not just in the House, not just in the Senate, but indeed the number one guy in the Senate, the majority leader. You ever think about that journey?

Reid: Oh, Tavis, I think about it a lot. When I come up this hill to Capitol Hill every day, I think can you imagine this? I wish my mother could be here. My mother, Tavis, my mother had, from the time I was a little boy, she had a few teeth and then she wound up with no teeth, and the first job I got, first job I got out of high school, I worked in a service station.

I saved enough money to buy my mother some teeth, and so she -- I gave her teeth, that gave her some dignity. Oh, would she like to be here. And I think of my mother a lot of times coming here. I think that she -- the one thing my mother gave me, even though I look back, I had nothing, we had nothing. But my mother always told me, you're the toughest guy physically, don't you -- you're not afraid of anybody -- and I wasn't afraid of anybody.

She said, "You're as smart as anybody." I wasn't as smart as anybody, but I thought I was. So I wish my mother were here. So I think about that often. And we had no religion in my home. The closest thing we came to religion was Franklin Roosevelt.

My parents had on the wall, my mother put on the wall a pillowcase, a blue little pillowcase, had gold fringe on it, and no pillow in it but it said "We can, we will, we must -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt." There were no churches in the town of Searchlight, no church services, nothing. That was as close as I came to religion. But I think here I am, and I repeat what I said earlier: We have to realize that government is here to help people.

I have been so disappointed in the last seven years and even before that, people denigrating government. Nine-eleven, who do you look to for help, your family? I can't do anything about your family. I can't do anything about God, your god. I think it's a personal, private thing. But the one thing I can do that people look to for help is government, and we have to have government that's responsive to the needs of this great country.

Tavis: Indeed we do, and what you're really talking about is a government that has integrity. Let me close our conversation, then, by asking a question about your integrity. It seems to me, and this is not at all to cast aspersion on any Nevada lawmaker, but certainly if there were ever a lawmaker now at the top of our government who's had his temptations along the way, I would think that as a child growing up in a town where prostitution is the number one industry and then at one point in your career being the head of the Nevada gaming commission, we've heard all sorts of crazy stories about that commission over the years.

And money being passed around, this, that, and the other. You've certainly been around temptation. How does one end up as a majority leader with integrity throughout his life?

Reid: Well, I appreciate that. I think that my faith I developed much later in life has been very important to me. When I was on the gaming commission, Tavis, they tried to kill me. We went after organized crime, we went after them. We closed hotels, we put people in jail. They put a bomb not on my car, on the family car -- my station wagon that my wife was driving with our little kids. And fortuitously, as fate would have it, she lifted the hood of that car.

She knows as much about mechanics as this camera in front of me, but she knew something was wrong. She lifted that up and she could see that there were a lot of wires down there that weren't supposed to be there. These are bad people. Organized crime does exist. It existed then, it exists now. And when you're dealing with a commodity of cash, that's gambling, you have to be very careful.

Tavis: Let me close with one quick question. I'd be remiss if I didn't ask the majority leader of the Senate, given that three members of his body are the three finalists for the Oval Office, what you make of where this race is right now and when's this thing going to be over?

Reid: Well, I've felt so good about this primary campaign, I still feel that way. We have three and a half million new participants. This primary has been good for the country. And campaign financing, we didn't change it back here, they did it on the Internet. We have raised so much money. The average contribution of Barack Obama is less than $90. That's wonderful.

And after June 3rd, the last day of the primary, they're going to have two days to make their case to the uncommitted superdelegates, and this election will be over. Could be over before then, but let's say it doesn't end till then. Clinton didn't cinch the nomination till June 2nd. June 3rd's not a bad date. We'll have five month general election.

I believe, personally, I've served with John McCain, I came to Washington with him. I think he's a flawed candidate. His temperament is wrong to be president, he's wrong on the war, he's wrong on the economy.

Tavis: We'll get the majority leader to come on his shell next time he comes on the program, tell us how he really feels about this race. (Laughter.) He is, of course, the majority leader in the U.S. Senate, Harry Reid out of Nevada. His new book is called "The Good Fight: Hard Lessons from Searchlight to Washington." Mr. Leader, always a pleasure to have you on the program.

Reid: Thank you very much.