Jon Ralston finds Robert Daskas not yet ready to give Porter a run for his money - and there’s little time to spare

By Jon Ralston

Sunday, Dec. 9, 2007 | 2:24 a.m.

It's early but here is what we know about Robert Daskas, the latest repository of all Democratic hopes in Congressional District 3:

He has the acute smarts of a career prosecutor. He has the ebullient earnestness of a political newcomer. And he has the gritty determination of a kid who grew up in an apartment-sized house that held nine people.

But despite his announcement 10 days ago, Daskas is not yet ready to take on Rep. Jon Porter. He may be a few months from now. But not yet.

I say this after Daskas appeared Friday on "Face to Face" and was startlingly unprepared to answer some basic questions, especially about health care and immigration. Granted, it would be patently unfair to expect Daskas to have the same level of policy knowledge as a three-term congressman who has been in public life for a quarter-century. But if Daskas is going to announce his candidacy - and this rankles me about all first-time contenders - he needs to know more than superficialities and banalities. Or he should.

Porter, aka Message Man, sometimes is difficult to dislodge from the safety of his script or his preternatural equanimity. He simply doesn't want to answer the question.

But Daskas on Friday seemed not to know what the answer was - or perhaps what his answer was. That is, he doesn't know enough yet to know what he believes.

Too often, his answers mirrored the hollow rhetoric of his inchoate Web site, www.daskasforcongress.com. He is not fully - or nearly - formed as a candidate, and the question for Democrats is: Can he get there in time?

I was most stunned by Daskas' refusal even to consider any broad policies for illegal immigrants here until the border is secured. He clung to a metaphor he seemed proud of, which was if Hoover Dam "sprung a leak today and thousands or millions of gallons of water were flowing through the dam to the other side, it wouldn't make sense to take a bucket and start emptying out the water that's flowed through. The first step would be to block the dam."

Really? So by this analogy, FEMA folks on the scene of the dam disaster would not worry about all those folks in the path of the flood. They would send everyone to repair the dam while people drowned because of the water that already had gotten through? You're doing a heckuva job ...

When I also pressed him on whether he supported any path to citizenship, Daskas took refuge in what has become the touchstone - and a misleading one - for candidates in this debate: driver's licenses for illegals. Putting on his prosecutor's hat, Daskas said, "It causes me some concern that we could give someone incentive to come here by giving them some privilege like a driver's license ... It defies common sense and logic."

Maybe he can defend that position and maybe he just wants to inoculate himself against GOP attacks on an issue that has been distorted to death. But it also defies common sense and logic that denying driver's licenses to illegals means they will stop coming.

On health care, Daskas started by responding thusly when I asked him if universal health care is a good idea: "No."

"It's not?" I asked.

"No," he continued. "I oppose a single-payer, government-run health care system. What we need is affordable, accessible health care for everyone."

Daskas would only say he supported reimportation of pharmaceuticals, that he backs preventive care and that government should be able to negotiate with Big Pharma on Medicare.

Maybe Daskas is trying to take the tax increase charge off the table. And maybe he truly doesn't believe in universal health care, a true moderate in a moderate district. But he surely will have to do better to flesh out his position.

During the interview, Daskas was clearer on Iraq - he acknowledged the surge is working but said political reconciliation is not close. On education, Daskas said he opposes "rigid requirements on teachers to teach to the test," but his idea of accountability is to "pay teachers what they should be paid so we can recruit the very best."

Eventually, he will have to do better on that, too. And that is generally true.

Daskas may have all the qualities the Democrats were looking for to make the fourth time the charm against Porter. But like a prosecutor who knows what happens if he isn't prepared for a murder case, Daskas will need to get seasoned and fast or the Democrats will have let Porter escape again.