Gephardt swings through LV on fund-raising tour

Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2003 | 9:27 a.m.

Two weeks after President Bush made a similar trip, Rep. Dick Gephardt traveled to Las Vegas seeking the funding whales that can keep his presidential aspirations afloat.

Before collecting checks, the Missouri Democrat talked to the press and a small group of passers-by at McCarran International Airport. Gephardt took verbal swings at the Bush administration's domestic and foreign policy, prompting a smattering of applause from the airport crowd.

Gephardt said two parts of the country are important to his political hopes: Nevada and the Midwest, including Iowa, which will host what could be an important Democratic caucus next month. Nevada's caucus will come a month later, on Valentine's Day.

"I'm going to win in the Iowa caucus," he predicted. "The key to the election over George Bush is the Midwestern states."

But Gephardt did not forget where he was.

"This state will have a vital role," he said, noting that Nevada's three electoral votes in the last election would have definitively pushed Democratic candidate Al Gore over Bush. Nevada went instead to Bush, and although Gore won the popular vote he lost the election in the electoral college.

Gephardt said he would win next year's general election because of the importance of the Midwest, where he has a broad base of support, and because of his experience in government, including 26 years in the House.

"The voters are going to be looking for somebody with steady hands," he said.

Among the broad policy points that Gephardt touched on was the issue of Yucca Mountain, the nuclear waste depository approved by the Bush administration and now slated to open in 2010. Local leaders of both parties have been steadfast in their opposition to the waste dump.

Gephardt touched on the transit issue, which opponents have focused on as a way to broaden the national debate over the dump. Radioactive waste would have to travel by rail through much of the United States, and potentially through Las Vegas, to head for the dump site about 90 miles north of the city.

"I have consistently voted against Yucca Mountain," he said. "I think it's a problem in all the states that this radioactive material will have to travel through."

He noted that a derailment of a coal train happened recently in his congressional district.

"If that had been radioactive material, that would have been a much, much more dangerous situation," Gephardt said.

He said the Yucca Mountain approval granted by President Bush was a favor to the nuclear industry, one of many Bush has granted to special interests.

Gephardt also took shots at the Republican-backed Medicare overhaul bill, which Bush has promised to sign.

"I think it's a bad bill," he said. "I think it was written by the pharmaceutical companies."

Among the impacts, the bill would ban importation of lower-cost prescription drugs from other countries such as Canada and sets the stage for privatizing the Medicare system, Gephardt said.

"This is a Republican dream come true," he said. Although none of Nevada's Democrats in Congress supported the bill, Gephardt noted that the AARP, a nonprofit group which represents seniors, backed the bill.

"I think that the AARP let down senior citizens in this country," he said. Gephardt added that the best part of the bill is that it does not take effect until 2006.

"We still have time to fix it," he said.

Gephardt also criticized the administration's use of the Patriot Act's security measures to go after nonsecurity related crimes. The act was recently used to look into the financial records of several local politicians, including one current and three former Clark County commissioners, indicted for corruption.

"I think the Patriot Act was something we all thought was necessary after 9-11," Gephardt said. "It is really being used for things for which it was never intended."

"In my first five seconds as president, I will get rid of John Ashcroft," Gephardt said of the chief architect and advocate of the act, Bush's attorney general.

Gephardt said he supported the invasion of Iraq, but criticized Bush's current policy, arguing that the country's civil reconstruction should be turned over to the United Nations. International help to reconstruct Iraq is critically important for both the United States and the Mideast nation, he said.

"Inexplicably, (Bush) has not gotten the American people and the American soldiers the help that we need," Gephardt said. "Terrorism is not just an American problem.

"He's arrogant, he's a cowboy and he acts unilaterally," Gephardt said of the president. Gephardt added that Bush's report card as a youngster probably noted that he did not "play well with others."

Republicans struck back, focusing on taxes and national security issues. Republican National Committee television ads recently have slammed Democrats for "attacking the President for attacking the terrorists."

While Gephardt at McCarran said the nation has "a long way to go in homeland security," the Nevada Republican Party alleged that Gephardt supports "higher taxes and a weaker national defense."

"Nevadans I speak with are interested in are interested in neither," said Nevada Republican Chairman Lia Roberts.

"Dick Gephardt and his fellow Democrats want to raise taxes which would be crippling for an economy on the rebound and following the lead of (fellow Democratic presidential candidate) Howard Dean are advocating for a weak national defense," Roberts said.

Gephardt said he came to Nevada to raise funds among local backers, among them Mandalay Resort Group Senior Vice President Mike Sloan.

"We come here fairly often," Gephardt said.

Sloan, contacted by phone Monday evening, was out of town but hoped to fly in before Gephardt left last night.

Sloan said he has been involved with several Gephardt fund-raisers before, and Gephardt said his support in the Silver State is important during a "very competitive" campaign.