Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Spurned candidate sets sights on primary

Andrew Martin

Tiffany Brown

Accountant Andrew Martin is challenging Robert Daskas for the chance to take on U.S. Rep. Jon Porter in November.

As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was musing last year about recruiting boxer Oscar De La Hoya or tennis great Andre Agassi to run for Congress, Andrew Martin was burning up the phone lines and making his case as a candidate:

Wealthy businessman.

Certified public accountant.

Economic policy chops.

Big checkbook.

But, Martin said, no one wanted to listen. Democratic leaders had their own list — and Martin wasn’t on it. After a series of potential candidates refused to run, the party establishment settled on its fourth pick: Robert Daskas, former lead homicide prosecutor for the Clark County district attorney.

Martin decided to run anyway for the seat now held by Republican Rep. Jon Porter, the three-term incumbent representing Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District.

“I have a calling to do this,” Martin said last week. “I care about our future and I’m cursed with understanding what they’re doing to us in Washington.”

But first, there’s the matter of what Washington did to Martin.

Martin had reached out to party elders — Reid and Rep. Shelley Berkley — and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in January 2007. He said he left 27 messages. No one returned his calls, he said.

So he met with the party’s chosen candidate in 2006, Tessa Hafen, and received her blessing, he said.

His filing of candidacy papers with the Federal Election Commission in May apparently caught the attention of the national campaign committee, whom Martin says finally scheduled a meeting, for July 23 at 4 p.m. The committee later canceled, citing a scheduling conflict, he said.

Indeed, Martin’s odyssey seems as much a reason for his candidacy as anything else.

“I think they made a terrible mistake in not handling me,” Martin said. “If it was meant to be that Robert Daskas would run for this seat, then call me in. Offer me a reason not to run. I may not have accepted it, but at least it would have been a respectful process.”

National Democrats and Republicans see the district as among the most competitive in the nation. Democrats have a 21,400-voter registration edge, a huge swing from 2006, when Porter won by just 3,900 votes.

As the party schools Daskas about campaigning, Martin is speaking at Democratic clubs and walking the district, pitching himself as the anti-establishment outsider.

“I had this idea about politics that when you run for office, a contested election is OK,” Martin said.

Some party leaders disagree. Martin’s war chest may force Daskas to spend money that will be valuable in a general election against a well-funded incumbent.

Martin’s year-end campaign filing reported $74,400 in cash on hand, with more than $100,000 in personal loans. (That compares with Daskas’ $310,000.) Martin said his first-quarter filing, however, will show he’s raised a total of $380,000 from 250 donors, and now has about $200,000 incash on hand.

Doug Thornell, a spokesman for the national campaign committee, said its backing of Daskas is based in part on financial and other kinds of support from voters.

Martin’s campaign, now on its second campaign manager, is still trying to find its footing. The year-end filing reported that more than 40 percent of the campaign’s expenditures, or $45,000, is for campaign staff and advisers, including two fundraising consultants. The filing also shows entries for a campaign manager, an event director, a communications director and a field director.

Becky Isais, Martin’s new campaign manager, is a former bartender whose previous political experience includes volunteer posts on failed campaigns — Hafen, Jack Carter and Dina Titus. She served as state director for former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel’s presidential campaign.

Nevertheless, the campaign has a list of 150 volunteers, Isais said.

As Martin campaigns, he is fine-tuning his criticisms. “He’s a nice man, but he’s a capital murder prosecutor,” Martin said of Daskas after a speech to a sleepy crowd at a Las Vegas restaurant. “Congress doesn’t try people for murder.”

The Daskas campaign declined to comment.

Martin supports an immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq. He’s billing himself as an expert on the economy. He advocates reducing the payroll tax and raising the income cap for Social Security. Nevada, he says, can be an energy exporter if it takes advantage of its renewable energy potential.

And yet there’s one hulking vulnerability: Martin is a Washington, D.C., transplant. He moved to the Las Vegas Valley in 2005.

Daskas is a native Nevadan who grew up in the district.

“I understand the sensitivity, but I’m not a carpetbagger,” Martin said. “There’s a difference between living in a community and being active in a community.”

He said he’s been involved in a number of causes in the district. And, he added, if party leaders don’t like his run, “that’s just too damn bad.”

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