Harry Reid, the former Democratic senator from Nevada, he's a bit of a paradox, reserved, quiet, but also something of a brawler.

Literally, it was Reed's high school boxing coach who drafted him into politics.

First of all, I had no parental supervision.

I was alone.

And I probably did some things that if you had parental supervision, they would say,

why would you get involved in that?

You're going to get hurt.

But I never had that.

Reed was raised in a small town known more for its brothels than anything else.

As a kid, he tried the usual sports, baseball, football.

But then he got hurt.

So fighting was something I had to do to show that I still had the ability to do something

athletically.

You're trying to prove yourself.

That's right.

Huh.

Being willing to take someone on became part of Reed's identity.

His autobiography is called The Good Fight.

He's in the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame.

And when he moved to D.C., eventually becoming a Democratic caucus leader,

he got a chance to hone his particular style of combat.

In the Washington Reed describes, his political fights sound like games of one-upmanship.

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