Democrats look north

By J. Patrick Coolican (contact)

Wednesday, July 5, 2006 | 7:18 a.m.

RENO - The neighborhood looks Republican: spacious new homes, nice mountain views, pricey cars in the driveways. But Democrats can be found here and there, and Julie Wedge knows exactly where.

Wedge ran the state Democratic Party's grass-roots operation in Reno in 2004. She is now the field director in Northern Nevada for Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson, who's running for governor as a Democrat.

Wedge and her paid staff and crew of volunteers have been walking precincts since early June, getting a big head start on Gibson's Democratic primary opponent, Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, whose smaller staff will begin precinct walks with volunteers this weekend.

Wedge's door-knocking dovetailed with Gibson's big TV advertising advantage in Northern Nevada thus far. With the Aug. 15 primary less than six weeks away and early voting to begin July 29, Gibson is flexing financial muscle, while Titus is hoping a volunteer effort will find and deliver her voters.

Political analysts think Gibson's big spending has made him far more of a presence in that part of the state.

"A month ago, I was criticizing Gibson for being invisible," said Eric Herzik, a political scientist at UNR who's been tracking the campaign. "It's like the campaign was stuck in the sand."

Now, however, Gibson "is everywhere," said Herzik, who added that Gibson is getting positive press from the many small newspapers and other media outlets of rural and Northern Nevada.

Gibson has spent more than $100,000 on TV advertising in Northern Nevada since Memorial Day, according to local networks. That's a significant amount of money in the inexpensive Reno market, where ads cost about one-fourth what they do in Las Vegas.

Jennifer Duffy, who analyzes governor campaigns for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said Gibson needs TV more than Titus, with her activist base and long history in Nevada politics.

Although Gibson believes that his major television buys give him an advantage, this year promises to test the degree to which TV is still critical to winning elections.

Even as network TV ratings have plummeted, technology has opened new opportunities for campaigns - although the methods are unproven. For instance, the Internet has become a cheap new tool for organizing campaigns and communicating with the most fervent supporters. Also, databases allow candidates to track and find voters, which can make volunteers more efficient and effective.

It's not clear which campaign has an advantage in this kind of organizing.

Because campaigns don't have to report their finances until Aug. 8, it's impossible to know how much money they have.

On television, Gibson recently began airing an attack ad in the Reno market that quoted Titus in the 1990s making impolitic comments about Northern Nevada and its politicians, calling them "rascals" and the north a "sponge" that would soak up Southern Nevada money.

"Both candidates are really unknown in the north and rural Nevada," Herzik said. "So what Gibson is doing is defining Dina Titus and doing it effectively in a negative way."

Titus, the Senate minority leader, responded with ads that attacked Gibson for attending the inauguration of President Bush and saying he would criminalize abortion. (Gibson has since said the abortion question is settled in Nevada, and he would not in fact criminalize it.)

The ad demonstrates that Titus is hoping Nevada's Democratic primary voters are the issue-driven, true-blue liberals who would be appalled by a Democrat at a Bush inaugural and consider a women's reproductive rights absolute and not to be trifled with.

The strategy would be obvious and would likely succeed in many states, but Nevada - north and south - has a large contingent of moderate Democrats, who are currently being inundated with Gibson TV ads and precinct-walkers.

Adding to the mystery of the race, the primary is in August this year, which raises all kinds of questions: Will volunteers be as willing to walk and knock on doors in the final two weeks of the campaign, during the summer heat? Will vacationing voters remember to vote absentee? Will seniors, who vote in large numbers, also want to avoid the heat?

Other factors make the task of predicting turnout and voter behavior quite difficult. For instance, new residents don't know the candidates, and probably will get to know them through their television sets.

Herzik said Gibson's TV advantage may not be enough to win Northern Nevada, where on the ground, door-to-door campaigning wins the day, he said.

The Titus campaign says it has 350 volunteers up north, not including support from labor unions.

They are being led by Mistia Mullins, a young field director who spent the last two years doing constituent service for Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb.

As a veteran of the intense battle of 2004, Wedge has a deeper knowledge of northern precincts. Although she has one-fifth the volunteers Mullins has right now, the Gibson people have already knocked on thousands of doors. The question is whether they can recruit enough volunteers for the crucial last weeks of the campaign.

Although about 70 percent of the state's Democratic voters are in Clark County, Nevada history shows that voters in the other counties are far more likely to vote.

The key may be finding volunteers to energize voters in August.

During a precinct walk last week, Wedge was using a database to knock on Democratic doors. Many weren't home; so she left a campaign flier.

Between houses, Wedge talked about why she likes Gibson. She didn't mention issues.

"He has a sincerity about him," she said.

The abortion question seemed to make her uncomfortable. She said she'd had long discussions with Gibson about it and is confident that he has no intention of criminalizing it.

If the Gibson campaign is trying to sell his sincerity, it's working. Shane Williams, a general contractor, opened his door and pledged his support for Gibson. "I've seen him, and he's sharp and sincere."