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It’s boilerplate vs. ethics in federal races
Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2011 | 2 a.m.
For months now, Democrats have been bludgeoning Sen. Dean Heller and Rep. Joe Heck with familiar and tiresome rhetoric to frighten old people into voting for their opponents.
Cutting Medicare. Cutting Social Security. Cutting their oxygen, too, I suppose.
The Republicans apparently also adore millionaires and despise the middle class. Who knew?
This is all too obvious and, Democrats know from history, all too effective. So they will not shut up for the next 334 days. This is nothing new.
But here’s what is different in Campaign ’12: In those two nationally watched races, for John Ensign’s Senate seat and Heck’s congressional seat, the battle will be between Democratic talking points and Republican ethics assaults. I believe this pattern also will hold true in the new congressional district, which national Republicans will have only a mild interest in unless state Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford falters.
Yes, other factors will be crucial — the president’s relative unpopularity, the Democratic ground game, the GOP party of chaos.
But it seems clear to me as Democrats pound away at GOP proposals to cut spending, framing them as a binary choice between protecting and preserving (get used to that construction) Medicare and Social Security or gutting the entitlements, Republicans will combat these attacks by raising the ethics of their opponents. It’s not just all they have, but each of those federal races provides ample ammunition for them to load their weapons.
Before I go on, I must note the irony of the party whose most recent not-so-voluntary departures were two of the most scandalized elected officials this state has seen — John Ensign and Jim Gibbons — using the ethics sword to slice up Democrats.
• U.S. Senate: Rep. Shelley Berkley, in yet another release like so many we have already seen, pummeled Heller on Tuesday for his “reckless support for Wall Street over Nevada’s middle class …” I’ll spare you the rest.
Berkley and the campaign nonpareils lent to her by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid know what works: Repetition of familiar themes, so enough voters are swayed a year from now that Heller loves rich folks and hates old folks.
Team Heller realizes this stuff cuts, so beyond the occasional “Obamacare” and tax-and-spend boiler plate of its own, its counterpunching will involve a trifecta of putative scandals: Berkley’s 1990s advice to her then-boss Sheldon Adelson to give campaign contributions to judges to influence their decisions and slip county commissioners financial help in their nonelected lives, her advocacy in Congress for causes that helped her doctor-husband’s business (as reported by The New York Times) and her doctor-husband’s flipping of foreclosed homes while she crusades for oppressed homeowners.
Forget the relative merits of each of these stories. I will address those when Heller fires his guns. But Heller clearly intends to try to make Berkley, who has not faced real scrutiny since her first campaign in 1998, look unethical.
• CD3: Heck’s unfortunate description of Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme” will haunt him like a Sharron Angle video clip come next year. And like Heller, he will have to defend votes Democrats will characterize as a senior citizen apocalypse.
The congressman’s opponent, Assembly Speaker John Oceguera, will have to deal with his legislative record, which Republicans surely will point out involved a less than Norquist-sanctioned level of spending. But even more so, Oceguera will have to deal with the issue of being a public employee (he just retired as a fireman) and taking pay while in Carson City. The so-called double-dipping issue could be potent and will be used as an ethics issue by Heck, I am quite certain. I can write the ad in my head (no, Congressman, I won’t help).
• CD4: This is a heavily Democratic district and state Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford is favored. But the GOP has been eyeing the seat for a couple of reasons.
First, it has a significant rural component, which may turn out in higher numbers and is where a Republican could run well. Second, Horsford will not just have to deal with being the frontman for a billion-dollar tax plan, he will also have to defend ethics questions about pay-to-play meals he proposed and then canceled and a PokerStars-financed trip to Nassau. Those ads by either state Sen. Barbara Cegavske or Danny Tarkanian will be ugly and will portray Horsford as DeLay-like.
What’s immutably true about these kinds of ethical issues that look good on paper is that they are only as powerful as the execution. That will be fascinating to watch as the GOP contenders in those three races try to peel away independents and soft partisans by using character issues over pocketbook worries.
Lose your Medicare and Social Security or elect a crook. Ah, choices.
I wonder who wins that one.
Discussion: 5 comments so far…
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As one of the "old folks" here in the valley, I can assure you that I won't cast my vote for any candidate who has signed Norquist's hamstringing pledge. Oh...that would be Heller for Senate and Joe Heck for congress. I'm sure that any other republican wannabe that enters the free for all will sign the pledge as well. Flipping houses has been going on here for a long time..who cares? I'd rather see an occupied flipped home than some derelict uninhabited eyesore any day. Berkeley gave some questionable advice to Adelson 20 years ago..who cares? Let the games begin. That's all politics is..a game. Too bad the population at large are the ones getting "gamed".
Step number one: stop voting for Democrats AND Republicans!
Re: RoboGod. Who would I vote for then?
It always makes me laugh when republicans talk about ethics - as if THEY had any. Their current standard - bearer is none other than Newt the Hoot. The only Speaker of the House to be censured and run out by a vote of BOTH parties - in this case, every Congressional representative with the exception of a handful.
And then we have republicans Gibbons and Ensign. Oh yes they were wonderful shining examples of family values. Give me a break. The GOP wouldn't know the first thing about ethics. They're the party of crooks like Richard Nixon and con men like George Bush.
As a registered nonpartisan, I can see Berk as nothing more than Harry Reid in a skirt.
Or she could be considered Reid's own Charlie McCarthy puppet.
Any way you cut it, she has the Reid stench about her and THAT's all Heller needs to run on.
Democrats will take your state and my country into bankruptcy. Democrats claim nothing wrong with social security and to prove they want to reduce contributions to the so called trust fund. Hello! Even Harry Reid can figure out this will make the situation worse. Ralston insults involving millionaires and middle class are just more proof of Democrat dishonesty. Obama sucks up to this hated class and has no idea how to improve middle class structures. Sorry, Jon, you are just another phoney liberal member of the media. Obama will lose in 2012.
The Democratic leadership has NO intention in cutting any spending. All they have left is class warfare which is not true but tired out anyway. The increase in spending is breaking all of us. The interest on the national debt costs $125.00 per day for each individual living in the United States. Since half don't pay taxes this means those that do pay $250.00 per day in interest on the national debt.
In addition to social security reform Republicans have medicare reform on the table but by reading the Sun you wouldn't know it. It is supported by Alice Rivilin a Clinton appointee.
Under the leadership of Harry Reid the Democrats have failed to offer a budget since 2009, over 350 days. If you think this is responsible government you are not worth trying to reach.
All that is left is to have some clown say, "prove it".
Thank you Jon for opening a Pandora's box.
Under Obamacare there will be heavy duty rationing of medical care. I will vote for the Republican candidate since we need to rein in this horrible program. Wait until your mother of 90 needs a hip replacement and is denied that benefit due to her age. It is going to happen under Obamacare. The Democrats are living in never never land. Who needs that.
Unfortunately, you're probably right. The establishment politicians on both sides really can't run on accomplishments, so they're left with fear-mongering, character sniping, and focusing on comparatively minor diversionary issues. Meanwhile, you & I struggle with double digit unemployment, a "crony" tax code, a depressed housing market, failing schools, burgeoning national debt, and inept but self-protecting bureacracies.
Enjoyed the article. I too can write the Tea/Republican Party ad for the next election, Jon.
"If you vote Tea/Republican Party candidates, it is guaranteed the sustained beatings on the entire middle class will continue relentlessly. At least til morale improves..."
To Heck with Heller and to Heller with Heck.