A man on a mission, pressed for time

By Lisa Mascaro

Sunday, Feb. 3, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Republican Sen. John Ensign comes bounding down the dimly lighted hallway in the Capitol basement. He is flanked by an aide, and three others are waiting by his office door. Somehow, no matter how swiftly he moves, not a hair falls out of place.

Ensign is extremely busy these days as chairman of the National Senatorial Campaign Committee, which is trying to elect Republican senators in 2008. It’s like a full-time job, he says. He’s out late most weeknights at dinners and meetings, and travels the country to raise money and recruit candidates. His three children — ages 15, 12 and 10 — say they’d like to see him more often, back home in Las Vegas.

Today he’ll sit down with the Sun.

Ensign is perhaps the most popular statewide elected official in Nevada, with approval ratings in the 50s. As he ascends within the Republican leadership in Washington, he has escaped the home-state backlash that has accompanied fellow Sen. Harry Reid’s rise to Democratic majority leader.

Ensign enjoys a Capitol hideaway, one of the tiny offices allocated to lawmakers once they reach certain seniority. They’re more convenient than their regular offices, a few blocks away. Accompanied by some of his aides, we duck into a room painted golden mustard, with dark furniture and the seal of the U.S. Senate in the rug on the floor.

Framed pictures of Ensign with the president, the vice president — and is that Angelina Jolie? — hang on the walls. He offers beverages from his stock of bottled water and Diet Dr Pepper.

Only when he sits down does a slight imperfection become clear: Brown shoes with a black suit. How that happened will not be discovered today.

This interview will last just 12 minutes, 44 seconds. We have ground to cover, and wardrobe choices won’t make the cut.

He opens with an answer, almost an apology. The rest has been edited for length and clarity.

Ensign: This job is just so consuming.

Q: Tell me a little about that. How your life has changed on a practical basis, running the effort to elect Republican senators.

There are aspects of it that are kind of a pain. You’re having to ask for money all over the country constantly. Another frustrating part is just getting your colleagues to work. That’s very difficult, to get them to understand the importance of what’s going on. The Democrats have always accused us of being the party of the rich, but when you really look at the rich, most of them are Democrats, and they’re pouring their money in. The George Soroses of the world. There aren’t as many on our side.

How does the 2008 landscape differ from 2006?

Iraq, I don’t believe, will be nearly the significant issue that it was as far as a negative — it was a very negative issue for us in 2006. It’s going a lot better over there.

But people are still incredibly against the war.

But you see where it lies as far as importance now. It reminds me a little of the economy: When the economy recovers, it takes a year, really, for them to realize the economy has recovered. Well, they’ll have 14 months of fairly good news, I think. We’ve had a lot of good news in Iraq.

How long do you think we’re going to be in Iraq?

It’ll be phased out. The faster the political problems can be solved, some of the infrastructure, the faster we can get out of there.

Do you agree with Sen. John McCain that we’ll be there for 100 years?

He believes we’ll be there for 100 years? If it’s in our national security interest to be in there for 100 years — I guess we have felt it has been in our interest to be on the Korean peninsula. I can’t make that prediction.

Back to ’06 versus ’08.

It depends on who the two top of the tickets are. This election is going to be a lot about independents. It depends on if Hillary’s at the top of the ticket. It’s not that Barack won’t motivate our base, but not as many people know about him. If they find out, I don’t think they’re going to like nearly as many things about him. But right now they know about Hillary, and they don’t like her.

Is this the year we will see the actual end of Yucca Mountain?

It’s too premature. But the writing is certainly on the wall.

Sen. Reid is playing this role in-state as the father of his party. Why don’t you play that role for Republicans?

I actually do play that role, just not this year. I was the No. 1 fundraiser for our state party for many years, but we can’t raise soft money anymore. I funded a lot of our state races. Luckily, I’ve always had another top Republican, Kenny Guinn and Jim Gibbons, to help in that role. Harry is — he’s the only top Democrat. These two years, I just don’t have the time. I just had a conversation two days ago with somebody who wanted to think about running for office. I got a request yesterday for a school board endorsement. People talk to me all the time.

Do you meet regularly with Republican Reps. Jon Porter and Dean Heller?

Not as regularly as I’d like. I actually probably talk to Shelley (Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley) more than I do either one of those because we sit next to each other a lot on the plane — we take the same flight a lot.

Tell me the first words you associate with these names. (Ensign, like Reid, is staying out of the presidential race.)

Hillary Clinton? Polarizing.

Mitt Romney? Successful.

Barack Obama? Charismatic.

John McCain? Principled.

Mike Huckabee? Health care.

What does your party need to fix?

I would like to see us get back to the principles we came in with in 1994 and the Ronald Reagan principles about actual true fiscal conservatism.