The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Reid racked up $125,000 in expenses at a Las Vegas hotel paid for through a leadership political action committee, or PAC, during the past four years. With the help of PoliticalMoneyLine, a nonpartisan organization that tracks money in politics, the Journal found that the PAC also spent $21,000 on gifts for political supporters, including $3,082 for bracelets and cuff links, $1,000 for art, $1,592 for chocolates, $803 for a pair of iPods, and hundreds of dollars for merchandise at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com.

Reid's office maintained that the expenses were a "normal part of every fund-raising operation."

The political life

Reid has had a varied political life, one much different from his childhood growing up in Searchlight.

Reid became city attorney in Henderson, Nev., after he graduated from law school; served as a Nevada state assemblyman in 1970 and then became the youngest lieutenant governor in Nevada history, winning as Gov. Mike O'Callaghan's running mate.

He won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982 and moved in 1986 to the Senate, to which he has been re-elected three times. He had a close call in the 1998 election — he only defeated his Republican challenger, John Ensign, by 428 votes. Ensign went on to win his own Senate seat in 2000.

But Reid's life has made him no stranger to close calls.

In August 2005 he suffered a transient ischemic attack, an episode often characterized as a ministroke. He canceled public appearances, and his staff assured the media he was fine, highlighting that Reid does not drink or smoke, behaviors often associated with a stroke.

Between 1977 to 1981, when he was chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission, he was the subject of numerous death threats, and at one point his wife found a bomb attached to their car.

When he first learned of his appointment to that panel, Reid said he went to his LDS bishop in Nevada to ask for advice. The church prohibits gambling, and Reid wanted to know if he could do the job. The bishop told him that if Reid didn't take the job, he would consider it himself, to illustrate that there was nothing wrong in taking the position.

"I don't gamble," Reid said. "But gambling is a legal business."

Reid knows the boundaries between his profession and his faith, even to the smallest detail.

In 2005, Mary Ann Akers, a reporter for Roll Call, a publication that focuses on Congress, wrote in her "Heard on The Hill" column about Reid accidentally grabbing the wrong suit jacket in a rush to get out of the green room at CNN and went on live television in an "ugly charcoal gray suit" that belonged to someone else.

Reid's press secretary at the time, Tessa Hafen, who is also Mormon, quickly contacted Akers about a correction. Hafen was not complaining about the story on the wrong jacket — but Akers wrote in her column that Reid had "sipped some coffee," which he had not.

Two days later, Akers wrote another column assuring readers that Reid was not drinking coffee. Reid had told reporters he had been in the green room, where "you can get some fruit, drink coffee ... whatever."

"Just because you 'can' doesn't mean you 'do,'" Akers wrote.

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E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com