Washington Post columnist David Broder questioned whether Reid could handle his new role, given his "less than commanding" public presence and his sharp partisan comments — he called President Bush "a liar" over Yucca Mountain and "a loser" for his policies in general.

"The risk for Democrats is that Reid may not be up to the challenge," Broder wrote a week after the election.

More recently, the blogosphere erupted when Reid told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos he would be willing to send more troops to Iraq as part of a strategy toward troop withdrawal. The net-roots worried that their hero had missed the point of the November election.

Reid also came under fire from the Post's editorial writers for his unorthodox plan to kick off the new session with a closed-door meeting of all 100 senators, which Reid sees as a way to set a bipartisan tone outside of the glare of the media. The Post suggested that a better start would be to conduct the Senate's business in public.

Yet despite the occasionally unflattering portrayals, the coverage so far seems to reflect accurately the quiet insider Reid has become, and "that helps him," Sinclair said.

The last thing Reid needs now, as he tries to lead with a slender 51-49 majority in the Senate, is the kind of overblown expectations the media give their darlings, like their current crush on potential presidential contender Barack Obama, Sinclair said. "Nobody could live up to that."

Reid's counterpart, California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, is stealing the show as the first woman speaker of the House. The less swooning over Reid, the better, Sinclair said, so he is not set up "for a big fall."

One element of Reid the media have not captured is the fun he is having.

Reid, completely out of character, has been smiling.

"I'm really happy," Reid told Nevada reporters the week after the election. "I know I'm not a smiley kind of guy. This has been so much fun the last week."

He is aware of his image as it has emerged over the weeks and told his fellow Democrats as much.

"I said there are a lot of you out there that are better-looking than I am, smarter, more experienced, but there's nobody out there who will work harder and try harder than I."

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E-mail: lisa.mascara@lasvegassun.com