Monday, Sept. 27, 2004 | 11:04 a.m.
Danny Tarkanian has a name recognized by many Las Vegas Valley voters, but that doesn't mean he has a home-court advantage.
The 42-year-old Republican is running in Senate District 11, where Democrats outnumber Republicans by 4,365 people.
Some have written Tarkanian off, saying Democratic forces in the district are too strong to overcome. But the former University of Nevada, Las Vegas basketball player and son of former UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian plans to be the shoe-leather candidate who surprises everyone.
"I'm going to go out and meet thousands and thousands of people," said Tarkanian, who estimates he and his family meet 700 voters a week. "They are going to meet me personally."
Tarkanian's opponent, four-term Sen. Mike Schneider, D-Las Vegas, points to his own experience, however, and also said theirs isn't your average Democratic district.
The working class area overlaps County Commission District F, where the Culinary Union has geared up its voter turnout machine for Assemblyman David Goldwater, D-Las Vegas.
And it contains portions of the targeted congressional District 3, where Democrats intend to turn out voters for Tom Gallagher.
"This shouldn't be a targeted district for Republicans," said Schneider, a 54-year-old real estate investor.
Tarkanian estimates that about 15 percent of people he meets on the campaign trail know his family name. His father led the UNLV basketball team to a NCAA championship in 1990 before resigning amid controversy over alleged NCAA violations in 1992.
His mother, Lois, spent 12 years as a Clark County School Board trustee and narrowly lost the Clark County Commission District C seat to Chip Maxfield in 2000.
The San Antonio Spurs drafted Danny Tarkanian in a late round, but he failed to make the team. He went to law school, coached with his dad at Fresno State University and returned to Las Vegas to help run the Tarkanian Basketball Academy and build a sports complex near Palace Station.
On the campaign trail Tuesday, Danny Tarkanian was recognized by Las Vegas resident Connie Hayes before she opened her screen door.
"You're Danny Tarkanian," she said excitedly. "I've been following the Rebels since the 1960s."
Tarkanian politely asked Hayes to help send him to Carson City, despite her Democratic registration.
"I'll work just as hard up there as I did when I was playing," he told Hayes.
Later, Hayes, a 63-year-old waitress, said Tarkanian won her over.
"Just knowing of his background and his parents' background, they're family- oriented ," she said. "I just think he'll be a honest person and we certainly need honest people."
Still, at another house on Tuesday, a woman refused to open her screen door until Tarkanian answered one simple question.
"Are you a Democrat or a Republican?" she asked loudly.
Tarkanian hesitated, sensing danger.
"It's a yes or no answer," she said.
"Republican," he answered.
"See you around," she said as she slammed the door.
Tarkanian said he joined the race because he sensed vulnerability in Schneider, who often squared off with Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas.
Schneider counts most of his support among builders, developers and real estate agents but has made enemies among unions and the gaming industry.
It's well known in political circles that the ambitious Tarkanian shopped around for a seat this spring, flirting with a run against Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and even the Las Vegas City Council before settling on District 11.
Tarkanian said he doesn't regret talking to top Republicans about a possible U.S. Senate challenge, though he ultimately decided it would be difficult to raise money against Reid, the assistant senate minority leader.
"Obviously when someone dangles the top position in your profession in front of you, you look at it," Tarkanian said.
Tarkanian dropped the idea, and in March he bought a home in Senate District 11.
But his interest in Washington might prove critical in the election -- not because it made Tarkanian look like a political opportunist, but because Reid's team took notice of the political novice.
Not long ago, Titus and Schneider met for breakfast to mend fences, and Titus handed over a folder of opposition research gathered by Reid's team.
"I put out the olive branch to say he needs help to win, and I want to help him," Titus said. "We don't want to lose that Democratic seat."
Titus said she didn't make Schneider promise to vote for her as a senate leader, but she did ask him to promise not to switch parties, as one rumor had suggested.
The dirt on Tarkanian mostly included information about former clients that Tarkanian represented in the early 1990s. He was a civil attorney for a telemarketing company that was indicted on fraud charges.
Tarkanian said he was merely a corporate lawyer for businessmen who "did some bad things." He said he was never questioned, officially investigated or charged in connection to his clients.
Schneider, for his part, said he wouldn't use the opposition research unless Tarkanian "gets dirty."
"We never ever had to do any of that stuff," Schneider said of his previous races.
If the campaign gets nasty, it could be in the same vein as another drag-down race in the primary election, when the gaming industry targeted Sen. Ann O'Connell, R-Las Vegas, with a series of ads criticizing her position on last year's tax increase.
Schneider is disliked by the casino industry, and last session he proposed allowing slot machines at timeshare properties and bucked the industry's recommendations on tax increases.
Word had spread that the Citizens for Fair Taxation, the third-party group that went after O'Connell, planned to attack Schneider with the same venom.
Political insiders, though, said Reid personally called to warn the industry from interfering in Schneider's seat, which is a Democratic stronghold the party wants to keep in line.
It's now unclear if Citizens for Fair Taxation will jump in the race.
Schneider points out that he is the experienced candidate, and says he still has much to accomplish in Carson City. He hopes to shed light on the issue of long-term health care, saying so many people are moving to Las Vegas to live out retirement that the state could be facing a crisis.
"We have a time bomb looking at us right now," Schneider said. "I want to bring that to the forefront."
Schneider said he also has strong support in the Hispanic community, pointing to a bill he sponsored that allowed people to take the cosmotology exam in Spanish. That effort helped him win a front-page endorsement recently in the local newspaper La Prensa.
Schneider wants to explore a property tax cap in the next session and talk about ways to increase funding for education. He pointed out that he first proposed bills to fund education at the national average, an idea going before voters this November in Question 2.
Noting his mother's long tenure on the Clark County School Board, Tarkanian emphasizes education on the campaign trail.
He favors looking at education funding from the bottom up, saying he would start with ensuring all students have books, then look at class size reduction, then study to see if teachers need salary hikes and finally examine funding of administrators.
A lot of teachers, Tarkanian said, are taking money out of their own pocket to buy basic supplies.
He also wants the Legislature to enact a property tax cap next session.
He brings his family on the trail, including his toddler, Lois, who often is a big hit, and his wife, Amy, who is pregnant with twins. His mother campaigns for him in the neighborhoods where she for the school board.
Each night, after walking the district for a few hours, Tarkanian sends handwritten postcards to constituents he met that day.
It's a work ethic that attracted supporters like Sen. Sandra Tiffany, R-Las Vegas, who coaxed Tarkanian into running for office, and Republican consultant Sig Rogich, whose company gave Tarkanian a $1,000 contribution.
"He's energetic," Rogich said. "He'll certainly put in the time. And it doesn't hurt for name recognition."
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