You get the feeling that Harry Reid doesn’t want to get much of anything done in the Senate. Rather than negotiate with Senate Republicans to reach a deal on financial reform, he seems bent on bringing it up again and again, and having cloture defeated again and again. He plainly wants a campaign issue, not a deal. Then there is the face-off between cap-and-trade and immigration reform. The former is toxic for lawmakers from energy-producing states, while the latter is anathema to Big Labor. So again, stalling is the preferred route:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rejected a proposal from supporters of a stalled Senate energy bill that would move immigration reform through the regular committee process on a priority basis and allow the energy bill to move forward on the Senate floor. The proposal would tentatively set action on immigration for November, after the midterm elections — a delay that even some Democrats would welcome.

If you sense that the Democrats are paralyzed, you are right. They are in an electoral ditch and realize that just about everything they have done or may think of doing will annoy large segments of the electorate. So instead they prefer to create issues and run on GOP “obstructionism,” which is a bit rich considering that they have jumbo majorities in both houses. Convincing the voters — who are mad at them for running up the debt and passing a noxious health-care bill — that it’s really the minority party’s fault that nothing much will get done for the rest of the year will strain the Democratic spin machine. But with the mainstream media on their side, you can bet they’ll give it a try.