WEEK IN REVIEW: WASHINGTON, D.C.

Sunday, Aug. 5, 2007 | 1:14 a.m.

WASHINGTON - The same way a Las Vegas casino can play tricks on your sense of time as faux daylight and nightfall course through a nice meal, so too can Washington dupe you into thinking the 2008 election is happening in 2007.

Signs of campaigning are dominating August as if this were an election year summer.

In Washington last week, another round in the proxy war between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Sen. John Ensign was under way in meeting rooms in the U.S. Capitol.

Republican Senate leadership criticized the Democratic-controlled Senate for engaging in an unsportsmanlike way of pressing its agenda, when Ensign piled on.

"The American people, based on all of the research and exit polls and everything I have seen, didn't elect the Democrats to enact their agenda, they elected the Democrats to work together to bring something different to Washington," Ensign told reporters. "The exact opposite has happened."

Ensign, remember, is chairman of the committee trying to elect Republicans and retake the Senate majority - essentially toppling Reid from his perch.

Ensign has proved he can play hardball in a job that few in Washington would envy. Democrats outraise Republicans 2-to-1, and Ensign has nearly two dozen of his own party 's seats to defend.

Last week Ensign said he is ready to target Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota, who has been out all year recuperating from brain surgery.

"It's been time, it's been enough time," Ensign said. "We're in a heavy recruiting process."

Reid, meanwhile, was down the hall with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi listing Democratic accomplishments in hope of convincing voters their ballots were not cast in vain when they lifted the party to power in 2006.

Now the question is, will the state be big enough for the two senators when the delegation returns home for the August recess?

Nevada's House members will find it easier to steer clear of one another this month as Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley has planned travel to Israel and Republican Rep. Jon Porter is scheduled to make his fourth visit to Iraq.

Berkley will be able to tell her Israeli colleagues she was looking out for them after she joined lawmakers in protesting the Bush administration's plan to give Saudi Arabia military aid. The Saudis do not recognize Israel's right to exist.

Berkley believes it's only a matter of time before the American military hardware falls into the hands of terrorists and is turned against the U.S.

"I am emphatically, emphatically opposed to giving $20 billion of state-of-the-art military equipment to the Saudis," she said. "They are the largest supporters of terrorists on the planet, bar none."

Porter will be heading out to the war zone just as anti-war protesters are escalating their summer campaign to get him to rethink his support of President Bush's strategy.

As if on cue, Democratic TV ads will start running nationally on Monday reminding voters of the difference between their party and Republicans. Featured in the ad will be the vote last week to expand children's health care. Bush has threatened a veto.

Voters will have to decide which argument they like better - that Nevada's Democrats in Congress voted to raise cigarette taxes so another 60,000 kids from working-class families can have access to health care, or that Republicans voted against the bill to avoid putting the country on a road toward socialized medicine.

If you miss the ads this time around, don't worry. This will be an issue that campaign strategists won't forget.

And there's plenty of time to replay those votes between now and November 2008.