Thursday, Sept. 2, 2004 | 9:22 a.m.
NEW YORK -- Nevada voters should look to President Bush's leadership and his plans to protect the country, not Democratic arguments about the Yucca Mountain project, a top Bush aide said Wednesday.
President Bush will take the stage tonight to accept his party's nomination, giving a speech that is expected to lay out his vision.
The Bush campaign has deemed Nevada a "must-win" state and emphasizes his efforts on protecting Homeland Security, continuing the fight in the war on terror, and continuing his natural resources policies in Nevada.
"Do you agree with everything? Not necessarily, but you have to make a judgment on what you want in the president of the United States and in a leader," Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman said.
Mehlman said Bush is the candidate for people who are concerned about terrorism and the economy. And, he said, Bush had taken the politics out of Yucca Mountain and would make sure "that the decision is made on sound science by neutral and objective observers and reviewers."
The government's plan to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is a sticky political issue in Nevada. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has said he will stop the project if elected while Bush is sticking to the "sound science" pledge.
"Since the beginning we have said there are certain principles by which this should move forward and only under those principles," Mehlman said.
He said those principles include the sound science pledge, the state's right to appeal and the pledge to change the project if the scientific review or judicial review calls for it.
"We will totally respect the judicial and the scientific recommendations," Mehlman said. "That's always been our approach and still is today. The thing that you get with the president, again, is you get somebody who tells you what he is going to do and then he follows the process. And that, I think, is what voters in whatever state on whatever issue should want."
For undecided voters who are against Yucca Mountain, Mehlman said President Bush would help make the country a "more hopeful place" and the world safer.
"His is the kind of strong leader America needs at this time to make tough decisions, to reform the government to protect the homeland," Mehlman said. "And because he understands the way Nevada has done so well economically and by trusting the people of Nevada with their own resources and their own decisions."
Attorney General Brian Sandoval spoke from the convention podium Wednesday of President Bush's leadership through his commitment to protect children, drawing praise from his fellow delegates but criticism from Nevada Democrats.
They have complained about the mixed message they feel Sandoval is sending the White House by supporting the president for re-election while fighting the state's case against the project.
Sandoval -- and Gov. Kenny Guinn -- still strongly oppose the project and disagree with Bush on the issue, but feel the president is a leader and the right choice for the state.
"Our disagreement with President Bush is over with and we are doing it now in the courts," Guinn said. "The only way we can stop this is in the court. We are certainly not going to abandon our president because of that one disagreement."
Sandoval also says the White House knows he will not back down on the issue.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., at a press conference in Las Vegas Wednesday, said that Sandoval missed an opportunity to tell a national audience about Nevada's concerns about Yucca Mountain. At the Democratic National Convention in Boston in July, Reid addressed the issue.
Before Democratic delegates from Nevada jumped on Sen. John Kerry's bandwagon, they explained their commitment to Yucca Mountain, Berkley said. Sandoval, she said, is "selling his constituents out for this 15 minutes of fame."
Guinn calls the criticism part the political game and said that, if elected president, Kerry could not simply take a law off the books. Congress could change the Nuclear Waste Policy Act or other laws that guide the project, but why would it since it passed them in the first place, Guinn asks.
Las Vegas delegate Joe Bentz, who watched Sandoval's speech from the convention floor, said the attorney general is doing the job he is supposed to do and saw nothing wrong with him speaking Wednesday.
"There are always going to be disgruntled people, but I feel he (Sandoval) travels the middle road quite well trying to balance all the views of the state," Bentz said.
After his speech, Sandoval sat in the president's box with former President Bush, next to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, who also spoke on Wednesday.
Sandoval learned a short time after his speech that he will be one of President Bush's escorts tonight before his acceptance speech. This will be the third time he has been an escort to the president. He met with him two other times during his visits to Nevada.
"These have given me the chance to personally speak to him on Yucca Mountain," Sandoval said. "He recognizes that I have my position on this. He looked at me and said 'I said I will rely on sound science and the decision of the courts' and he has kept this word."
Sandoval did not know how much time he would have with the president, or if he would bring up the Yucca Mountain project again.
The Latino Coalition named Sandoval one of the 15 most influential Hispanics in the United States on Tuesday.
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