Columnist Jon Ralston: Demise of the Democratic Party

Friday, May 3, 2002 | 4:08 a.m.

FILING FOR OFFICE begins Monday, a fortnight when hope springs eternal for parties and candidates, when anything can happen, when non-races suddenly become races and vice-versa. So in this spirit, let us begin with a dirge.

Bow your heads in a moment of prayer for the corpse known as the Nevada Democratic Party. It lived a good, full life, once even thriving as the dominant party in terms of voters and officeholders. But on the eve of filing, this is a political party relegated to irrelevancy, bereft of any hope to go on and ready for entombment.

Absent any surprises during the next fortnight -- and the problem for the Democrats is even a surprise at this point would be a sham -- the Democrats will be favored to lose all the statewide offices while losing ground in the one Carson City chamber they control and remaining in the minority in the other legislative house. The future is not just bleak; it's nonexistent.

Oh, I know what the partisans will bleat: Wait a minute, Mr. Know-It-All pundit, what about Shelley Berkley and Dario Herrera? Well, let me respond: The latter candidate for CD3 is an underdog after undermining his anointment with self-inflicted wounds. And the former, while a heavy favorite for re-election, does nothing for the future of the party because she has no statewide ambitions and will be a target almost every time she runs.

Couch it any way you want, but when your standard-bearer is a deputy attorney general whom party doyens would rather see not file for governor (Matthew Dushoff), it's going to be a long year. This is a Dead Party Walking.

The Democrats are suffering now because of their own infirmities -- a farm team with no political animals, a lack of foresight since 1998, an overabundance of caution from those who should be stepping forward. But the party also is teetering on a precipice because of systemic afflictions that infect the body politic, causing possible candidates to decide it's just not worth it.

Media obloquy and invasiveness have dissuaded many quality candidates. Pay ranges, especially for the Legislature, rarely entice qualified people from the private sector. And it's a vicious cycle because the ability to get anything done is hampered by the pettiness and egomania of colleagues who care more about preening for the media or playing a zero-sum game.

And so the virus has resulted in Nevada governments, especially the Southern local ones, to be populated by too many narcissists and dummies whose gargantuan egos or gray matter deficiencies blind them to any concept of sensible ethics or substantive policy.

This general lament for the quality of politicians not being strained has had a disproportionate effect on this filing's eve on the Democrats, whose putative up and comers (Richard Perkins, Barbara Buckley, Erin Kenny and others) would rather wait than fight. And who can blame them? I think the answer is Harry Reid, the party's anointer-in-chief, but that's another story.

But the Democrats have failed at a more basic level than an inability to find candidates. At least the Republicans have a message -- one that includes homophobia through the anti-gay marriage initiative, one that embraces fiscal conservatism at the expense of education and social programs, one that values the status quo and finds change unbearable. But at least it's a message.

What's the Democratic Party stand for these days? The party leaders have failed to articulate any consistent themes of disagreement with Gov. Kenny Guinn because their knees knock when they see the chief executive's poll numbers. And how do they deal with the offensive anti-gay union initiative? They either mumble support or they weasel around it by saying they are against it but support the state law defining marriage as being between a man and a woman. Now that's brave.

So on the eve of filing, the Democrats have no chance to be even competitive against Guinn or Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt and have an aggressive but untamed attorney named John Hunt against the anointed Brian Sandoval, who is well-liked and even better funded. They are likely to lose all six constitutional offices.

In the Legislature, Minority Leader Dina Titus, who should be in the race against Guinn, will be aggressive as usual and has her best chance in years to take over the state Senate. But she will need everything to break right -- and where is the help from the top of the ticket? In the Assembly, Speaker Perkins & Co. already have lost two incumbents, whom they hope to make up for with two new open seats down here. But the Democrats now surely will lose seats in the lower house.

So what's left? Not much.

To make matters worse, the Democrats also are bound to suffer this cycle because of a distracted Culinary Union, which can make the difference in legislative and local contests. If the negotiations with the casinos break down and there is a strike, the economic consequences will be devastating. But so, too, will the political fallout for the Democrats, who will lose walkers and phone-dialers to picket lines.

Fortunately, none of this is that important because the issues confronting the state -- hemorrhaging budgets, barebones services, urban-life conundrums -- are not that serious. There is comfort in that.