Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

jon ralston:

Tarnish on the glitter of Lowden and Sandoval

For most of this campaign season, no one other than blind adherents to alternatives has seriously believed the Republicans would nominate anyone other than Sue Lowden for the U.S. Senate and Brian Sandoval for governor.

GOP insiders have salivated at the prospect of the telegenic duo driving female and Hispanic voters to vote Republican in November, matched up against the slightly less camera-friendly Reid père and fils. On such a ticket GOP dreams were made of.

But as the first Nevadans start going to the polls two weeks from Saturday, the Lowden and Sandoval campaigns are frozen in place, not quite sure which way to go to close out the primary season. The anointed ones have become the disappointed ones, unable to swat away challengers that once seemed mere nuisances, but now seem to be brandishing slingshots.

Lowden has been the darling of the GOP elite in DC — she was feted by lobbyists on Tuesday at Charlie Palmer’s in Washington — since the race began. Republican National Committeeman Bob List long ago telegraphed the capital wishes by discouraging Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki from running and occasionally forgetting to remove his Lowden jersey. He acknowledged last week on “Face to Face” that he had been fielding concerned calls from GOP folks in the capital after all the national clucking about Bartergate, confirmation the former TV anchor and state senator was The One.

Similarly, Sandoval shed his black robe last year to reveal the garb of a savior, the man the state’s Republican elite had genuflected to head off a disastrous Jim Gibbons nomination for a second term. The Republicans brutally turned off the fundraising spigot for an incumbent governor, Gibbons’ “friend” and fundraising chief Monte Miller defected and Sandoval was christened as The One.

But a funny thing happened on the way to these anointments — a chicken-pecked Lowden metamorphosed into a national laughingstock and a schizophrenic Sandoval mutated into a vulnerable windsock.

Now the dream duo is shaping up as a potential nightmare for Republicans, who must be wondering how a Gibbons-Tarkanian or Gibbons-Angle might compare to Sandoval-Lowden. On such tickets Democratic dreams are made of.

Or are they?

Neither Rory nor Harry will be considered a strong favorite against any GOP nominee, and the issue of two Reids topping their ticket has yet to be fully exploited by the Republicans. But even if Lowden and Sandoval survive, as conventional wisdom says they will, each will have been substantially damaged by the primary.

Reid the Elder’s folks still clearly fear Lowden the most, even going so far Tuesday as to assail her campaign for running an old ad that touted her defeating then-state Senate Majority Leader Jack Vergiels. The original timing was unfortunate — Vergiels had recently died — but the outrage by the Reidites over the recycling of the ad was a little much to take.

Much more interesting is why the Lowden folks would do what is rarely done as a campaign progresses — put a previously aired ad back in the rotation. The answer, I’d guess, is that with the furor over Bartergate and attacks coming daily from Danny Tarkanian and Reid, they are frozen in place waiting to decide on the campaign’s closing commercials. So why not put up an ad, that despite the Reid bleating, has probably helped her a lot?

My guess is Sandoval’s campaign is similarly in a holding pattern trying to discern just how much their man’s protean positions have helped or hurt him vis-a-vis Gibbons. He probably still has a lead but if it’s not substantial, expect Team Sandoval to eviscerate the governor when the ex-judge starts a new ad campaign today. (Gibbons probably has not helped himself with a series of ads on Reno talk radio this week that are amateurish at best and inane at worst — but who am I to judge what appeals to the Northern Nevada GOP primary voter?)

The election is still five weeks less a day hence, and much can happen. But after the two weeks of early voting, it’s likely, based on past trends, that half of the primary universe will have cast ballots. So Lowden and Sandoval have to make their decisions fairly soon as their opponents get more and more aggressive in their attacks

I still can’t see Democrats swooning before a Reid-Reid ticket. And that combination might be enough of a voter turnout incentive for the GOP, no matter who primary voters nominate. But what’s clear is that the horses the Republicans nominate June 8 to carry them to victory are not nearly so clean as they hoped and their thoroughbreds are limping toward the finish line.

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