Thursday, Sept. 9, 1999 | 11:40 a.m.
CARSON CITY -- Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa, who has never lost an election dating back to her days in college, has thrown in the towel in her race for the U.S. Senate, possibly sounding the death knell for her once-rising political career.
Rumors have swirled around for months that she would withdraw, but there was always a denial from the three-term attorney general.
Wednesday Del Papa, 49, announced in a prepared statement that she pulled out of the race because she cannot raise enough money. She has about $320,000, while her Republican opponent John Ensign has amassed more than $1.2 million.
"I was told the other day I would have to raise $250,000 a month between now and the election," she said. "I am not willing to put the kind of time in and do what it takes."
This is another instance of her on-again off-again decisions on her future career choices. She applied once to become chancellor of the University and Community College System of Nevada and then withdrew. She was being considered for a high post in the Interior Department but changed her mind.
In 1998 she formed an exploratory committee to run for governor. But then she dropped out, citing her failure to collect enough money to challenge Republican Kenny Guinn, who had raised millions of dollars.
Asked if this history of indecision will hurt her future political career, she replied, "Absolutely." She intends to serve out her term of three years as attorney general and said she was "light years away from making a decision."
But her ascent up the political ladder may be slowed by her fickle behavior. She was elected student body president at the University of Nevada, Reno. After law school, she won election to the board of regents of the university from Reno, served one term and then became the first woman elected secretary of state. After one term in that office, she was the first female elected attorney general and is now serving a record-tying third term in that office.
Her decision to drop out of the Senate race came after "heavy duty thought," she said. There were no recent political polls showing how she fared against Ensign, a former two-term congressman from Las Vegas. But when she announced she was entering the race, Del Papa was about 5 percentage points behind in one poll.
Asked if this kills the chances of the Democrats to retain the seat of retiring Sen. Richard Bryan, she said, "It's not over until it's over. There's a long way to go before November 2000. A lot can happen."
Bryan said he was disappointed by the news. "I would have been proud to have her replace me. She has a distinguished record of public service."
As Del Papa told Bryan of her decision, he said, "She talked about fund raising. She is a testimonial to campaign finance reform. The public knows it, but apparently we haven't figured it out yet here in Washington."
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., agreed. Appearing sullen as he talked about Del Papa's withdrawal, the Senate Minority Whip said, "It shows that we must do something about campaign finance reform. She is one fatality of it."
Del Papa, when asked to name other possible candidates, mentioned Manny Cortez, who heads the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, and Ed Bernstein, a lawyer who pioneered television advertising for attorneys in Nevada. Steve Cloobeck, a time-share executive in Las Vegas, has been looking at entering the race also. Brian Greenspun, editor of the Las Vegas Sun, has also been mentioned, but he is a Republican and did not change his registration to Democrat prior to the Sept. 1 deadline.
"There may be someone out there that we are not aware of," she said.
When former Gov. Bob Miller decided not to run, she was the Democrat given the best chance of beating Ensign, who lost in 1998 to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., by 401 votes. She was viewed as a tireless campaigner who had wide name recognition.
Del Papa believed she could beat Ensign in Washoe County where she has a strong following. Ensign defeated Reid in Washoe County by about 2,000 votes. And she thought she would not lose in rural Nevada as badly as Reid had. Reid won only two of 17 counties in the Ensign race. That left only Clark County, where Democrats outnumber Republicans by about 35,000 voters.
When she told her supporters of her decision to withdraw, she said many were disappointed and urged her to continue.
But she said, "This is a race where you have to sell your soul, and I wouldn't do that."
Adding to Del Papa's difficulty was the death of her sister in Albuquerque last weekend. She said she learned of the death while she was in a Labor Day weekend parade and flew to New Mexico to attend the memorial service.
"This is very painful," she said.
But the decision to withdraw was clearly about money.
"The anticipated financial support for my candidacy has not materialized. Basically these seats are being auctioned off to the highest group of bidders. The political process in our country is suffering and is not going to attract the best and the brightest of our youth," her prepared statement said.
Raising money, she said, "is not my cup of tea. I was not raised that way. Unfortunately that's the way you're measured."
Without campaign funds, she said she would not be able to buy television time and the "opposition could define you how they want."
"It has become a game for which the price of entry is no longer experience or ideas or energy, but simply millions of dollars. It rewards those who will spend hours and hours each day raising money, rather than seeking solutions to the complex problems that confront our society.
"I once thought that to be a U.S. senator from Nevada would be the greatest job one could ever have. I still believe that, but the price I would have to pay is something regrettably I am unwilling to do. I care more about serving the public than I do about raising money."
She said she will return the unspent funds to the contributors. She estimated she has about two-thirds of the $320,000 remaining.
Her withdrawal, she said, had nothing to do with lukewarm support from organized labor. She said she expected the endorsement of the Nevada state AFL-CIO. And a number of labor officials have publicly backed her. But the Culinary Union in Las Vegas had not jumped on her bandwagon.
She also said the controversy in Las Vegas over her office's investigation of the state Gaming Control Board played no part in her dropping out of the Senate race.
In her past, she has raised sufficient but not overwhelming amounts of money to support her election efforts. In her campaign last year for re-election, she received $403,782 in contributions compared with $657,499 collected by Scott Scherer, a Republican. But she enjoyed greater name recognition statewide than Scherer, who served two terms in the Assembly from Las Vegas and who is now Gov. Kenny Guinn's legal counsel.
In 1994, she collected $261,472 in her re-election campaign compared with $131,035 compared to Bill Maddox, a former U.S. attorney for Nevada. Sun reporter
Ben Grove contributed to this report.
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