Former Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid retired in December after more than 15 years in office, and he used the final weeks before his departure looking for a way to rebuild the bruised Democratic Party.
For Reid, the solution was Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.):
Reid brought Warren onto the Democratic Senate leadership team in 2014, and she was one of the people he most trusted to keep the Senate caucus on its bearings through the difficult weather ahead. Shortly before Thanksgiving, he summoned Warren to the minority leader's office. When she arrived, the room was littered with art supplies; on an easel was a half-finished portrait of Reid that would be unveiled at his retirement party the following month. Its subject was preoccupied with the future of the party to which he had dedicated decades of his life. Reid told Warren she needed to think seriously about running for president in 2020. "He was worried in November," Warren told me recently. "For me, it was so important to make clear: We will fight back — we will fight back. We're not here to make this normal." [The New York Times Magazine]
Read more about how the Democrats are rebuilding, looking ahead, and learning the word "no" at The New York Times Magazine.