Tuesday, March 27, 2007 | 7:29 a.m.
WASHINGTON - From the outside, the nonaggression pact between Nevada's two senators seems to be firmly in place - they continue to work together on Nevada issues and they meet on most Thursday mornings for breakfast with Nevadans visiting the Capitol.
But just under the surface, Sen. Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader, and Sen. John Ensign, the senator responsible for getting Republicans elected to the chamber in 2008, are battling for their parties more fiercely than ever before.
This week as Reid sets out to try for a third time to stem the Iraq war, he will also be forcing 21 of the more vulnerable Republicans up for reelection to go on record about an increasingly unpopular war. Campaign ads will surely follow.
Similarly, the drama over the firing of U.S. attorneys, including Nevada's, presents another avenue for what amounts to proxy warfare between Reid and Ensign.
Even as both senators stand by Nevada's ousted U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden, the Democrats' escalation of the investigation of the Justice Department and White House keeps a cloud of scandal over the Republican Party.
As Reid keeps that issue alive, his party's campaign arm is delighted. House Democrats are already running ads based on the firings.
When Reid targets Bush adviser Karl Rove to testify about the dismissals, he is also going after the Republican strategist on whom Ensign told The Washington Times he will rely in the 2008 elections.
Reid and Ensign have rarely exchanged harsh words over national affairs. But the narrowly divided Senate, with its single-vote Democratic majority, essentially pits the Nevadans in a proxy war destined to strain the relationship, said Carl Tobias, a former UNLV law professor now at the University of Richmond.
"It's just a warm-up," Tobias said. "Once they've taken these leadership positions, I don't see where they can go. The national parties are so far apart."
Tobias believes it's a matter of time before the hidden battle morphs into the real thing: "They've got to clash."
Reid and Ensign downplay the conflict. Ensign's office insists the relationship remains strong. Reid's office says he's just trying to accomplish what voters put Democrats in the majority last fall to do.
In many ways, their opposing positions on national issues are no different than before they took leadership roles following the 2006 election, said Jennifer Duffy, a Senate analyst with the Cook Political Report.
What does make a difference, though, is that Reid and Ensign are now in unavoidable roles in an ever-polarized Washington. "They both have to be more partisan," Duffy said.
Ensign faces a challenge trying to return the Senate to a Republican majority. He has reportedly set a $119 million fundraising goal to defend 21 Republican Senate seats in 2008.
Ensign's counterpart on the Democratic side is bulldog Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, who raised $1.6 million more than Ensign over the first two months of 2007.
Also, Democrats have just a dozen incumbents to defend, nine fewer than the Republicans, and voter mood is in their favor in large part because of steady opposition to the Iraq war.
"Senators who are not going to vote for change are going to have to explain that to the voters," said Matthew Miller, a spokesman for Schumer's Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Republicans insist that Democrats are stumbling in efforts to stem the war, unable to get enough votes despite repeated attempts for a "surrender date," as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell now calls the withdrawal deadline.
Coupled with Democrats' fervor over the attorney firings, Republicans say , Democrats are overreaching and voters will smell politics.
"I don't see this hurting Sen. Ensign's efforts," Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said last week. "If anything I think it demonstrates the importance of Republicans regaining the majority."
But even Ensign acknowledges that his own outrage at the Justice Department's handling of the ousters probably will not make his fundraising job easier.
"It may have negative political consequences . I understand that," Ensign told reporters two weeks ago.
Duffy believes the Reid-Ensign nonaggression pact remains firmly intact, saying their positions allow them to step aside when needed while members of their leadership team go mano a mano so they don't have to.
"When they need cover, they have it," she said. "On the political stuff, Reid gives it to Schumer. On the policy stuff, Ensign gets McConnell. There's some degree of deniability.
"They're both doing their jobs."
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