Jonah nailed it in his column a couple of weeks ago. By protecting Democrats from politically difficult votes, Reid made it hard for Democrats to differentiate themselves from Obama (assuming they wanted to). In addition, in the fallout over the end of the judicial filibuster, Republicans demanded cloture votes on judicial nominees. Those are inevitably party-line votes. So, Democrats were voting over and over with the president, giving Republican candidates one of their most powerful lines of attack in the campaign. Thanks, Harry.