Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

jon ralston:

On to the next round of campaign themes

Now that the long overture has faded away — like one of those comic interpretations of the William Tell — the various lone rangers have emerged from the strains of the primary to face the general music.

But before the main opera begins, consider the following five questions — the major themes of the general campaign — and you will know who will be singing the arias come November and who will be in a dark bar drinking away their sorrows to karaoke:

No. 1 — Can Harry Reid make the election about anything but him? Starting today, Reid’s machine, which showed in the primary it is one to make the Carville war room envious, will try to turn the GOP nominee (written before polls close, folks) into someone who elicits screams from small children — and, they hope, moderate voters. It’s his only path to victory. Voters are not suddenly going to start feeling the love for Reid the Elder. But less hate toward him or disgust with both major party candidates? That he could live with — and win another term with.

No. 2 — Does Rory Reid have a path to victory? He has the money advantage ($2 million more than Brian Sandoval). But he is down by double digits in polls and has to lug around Dad’s baggage. Sandoval, scared of a corpse named Jim Gibbons, made a frightened dash to the right and alienated Hispanics with his Arizona immigration law affection and driver’s-licenses-for-illegals flip-flop. He also was forced to spend money after that third-party group funded by Democratic interests attacked him, so his coffers are depleted. The former federal judge is now vulnerable if a campaign is executed against him, but the two-Reids-on-the-ballot issue could save him.

No. 3 — Could the Democrats, in a year in which Republicans should dominate, actually achieve veto-proof majorities in both legislative houses? It’s possible, folks. Democrats remain likely to lose a seat or two in the Assembly, thus robbing Speaker-in-Waiting John Oceguera of what Barbara Buckley had — 28 votes on any major issue. But with GOP recruiting efforts not wonderful in the lower house races, Oceguera has a chance to hold the two-thirds. In the Senate, Majority Leader Steven Horsford knows unless he gets to 14, it’s over so far as any, ahem, “revenue reform” goes. Fewer GOP senators are likely to cross over to vote for taxes in 2011. Horsford needs to hold Joyce Woodhouse against a savvy newcomer (Michael Roberson), and he now has upset potential thanks to the embarrassing performances of Dennis Nolan and Elizabeth Halseth, and the Democrats will go all out to defeat Barbara Cegavske, who probably thinks she will depose Bill Raggio as minority leader. Long shot for Democrats to Count to 14 in the upper house? Maybe. But an even longer shot — read: impossible — is for the GOP to pick up any state Senate seats. Don’t underestimate how important these races are for the state’s future — perhaps most paramount of all, including the governorship. If Democrats control two-thirds of both houses, the governor’s relevance is greatly diminished because they essentially can do anything they want. And that would be a crushing blow to Republicans not only on fiscal policies but also in the mandatory redrawing of political lines for federal, state and local offices.

No. 4 — Which will be used more effectively in Nevada elections: The three-headed Obama-Pelosi-Reid Cerberus, Democratic guardians of a D.C. hell, or the Gibbons-Ensign monster, twin symbols of GOP ineptitude/corruption? If the presidential approval rating doesn’t tick upward — you can be almost certain the congressional happiness polls won’t — Democrats are going to be bracing for a large wave. But in Nevada, a lame-duck Gibbons creating mischief and a dead-but-he-doesn’t-know-it Ensign, who also could be indicted or in the Ethics Committee stocks, could provide some prophylaxis for the Democrats.

No. 5 — How bad will the economy be and who will be blamed for it? This is the real conundrum of the general election. No one expects some miraculous rebound in the next five months. But if the economy gets incrementally better, do the Democrats get any credit? And if it gets appreciably worse, how much will it cost them? It is going to be quite the spectacle — the reverse of the end of the 2008 campaign when Democrats were quietly praying for a delayed recovery. Never has Carville’s dictum about the economy been so true as it is this year — and we will see just how stupid candidates and voters are as they react to the campaigns.

When all is said and done in November, the answers to these five questions will show why some candidates are singing the blues and others are warbling victory tunes.

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