Columnist Jon Ralston: Energy is key topic for next year’s campaigns

Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2001 | 9 a.m.

Jon Ralston hosts the public affairs program "Face to Face" on Las Vegas ONE and also publishes the Ralston Report. His column for the Sun appears on Sundays and Wednesdays. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or through e-mail at ralston@vegas.com

IT'S THE ENERGY, stupid.

Like the famous reminder about the economy plastered in Bill Clinton's headquarters when he first ran for president, this analogous slogan could festoon many a Nevada campaign next year. The state's power crisis could dramatically change the political dynamic in this state next year, providing ammunition for rhetorical guns that otherwise might be loaded with empty words. And even if they are shooting substantive blanks, the words might not ring hollow, but have the impact of a hollow-point bullet -- that is, explosive and deadly.

This comes to mind in the wake of Sierra Pacific Walt Higgins' comments last week that power bills are likely to be 20 percent to 30 percent higher one year from now. So in the heat of the campaign season -- literally and figuratively -- incumbents will have to explain what they are going to do to lower voter temperatures that will be close to the boiling point.

This is especially true for Gov. Kenny Guinn and state lawmakers, who set the state's energy policy. But congressional candidates, constitutional office wannabes and local elected officials running for higher office will have to have answers, too.

One political consultant confided that he plans to advise all his clients to be ready to answer questions next year about the energy problem in Nevada.

And, he is telling them, they better have plans at the ready.

This has all kinds of possibilities -- and some of them could, through the Law of Unintended Consequences, wreak even more carnage. When politicians or would-be politicians operate on the principle of fear -- the elemental terror of not being elected, that is -- they are likely to say or do almost anything.

Politician X's Plan to Make the State Safe From Rate Increases might sound great on the stump. But if it's not well-thought-out, it could cripple Sierra Pacific and its southern partner, Nevada Power, and force the other politicians in the alphabet to play a demagogic and potentially devastating game of one-upmanship.

The Democrats are salivating over the possible, ahem, utility of this issue, which they presaged before the 2001 legislative session when they pummeled Guinn and other GOP proponents of deregulation, insisting a backroom deal had been crafted between meetings of the Gang of 63. Suddenly the Republicans were no longer such free marketeers and instead, with power rates climbing, they jumped on the re-regulation bandwagon.

Now most of the Democrats have shaky substantive ground beneath their feet because they voted for deregulation. But some -- notably two key Democratic leaders, Barbara Buckley and Dina Titus -- have all but gleefully pointed out their opposition to efforts to open the markets.

Still, this coming debate will have little to do with substance and everything to do with politics. And with the public looking for someone to blame for their higher rates, someone to punish the utility and someone to make their bills go down, the potential for a rhetorical overload is, well, powerful.

And what's more, the climate by next summer, with the power crisis perhaps intensifying, is to all but black out The Great Tax Debate, which Guinn and others insist will take place. How do you talk about the possibility of higher taxes when people are fuming about their power bills? Answer: You don't.

For Guinn, this is the ticking time bomb that even Anointment II might not be able to fix. If the Democrats actually had someone viable, someone with deep pockets, someone with a populist streak, someone with a taste for the political jugular, they could run a campaign against Guinn almost solely on this issue. Not because Guinn is to blame for the problems, necessarily. But because people need a bogeyman when things go badly.

And the former utility executive and former proponent of deregulation would make a fat target. But who could the Democrats find that is a populist, has charisma and would be, ahem, happy to take on the issue?

Unfortunately, for the party, a good man is hard to find.