Die was cast for Ensign almost two years ago

By Jon Ralston

Wednesday, March 9, 2011 | 2:01 a.m.

What happened on June 16, 2009, changed everything, and not just for John Ensign.

History may well recall that day went a long way toward re-electing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and making Rep. Dean Heller his partner in the Club of 100, while fundamentally changing the dynamic of the state’s (the country’s) politics. If Ensign had not disclosed his affair that day, freezing Heller’s ambitions to run the following year against Reid, the junior senator might now be the senior senator, preparing a strategy to rush to the head of a lackluster 2012 GOP presidential field.

Of all sad words of tongue and pen …

In the often-serpentine but ultimately circular world of Nevada politics, what happened Monday was less surprising than inevitable after Ensign’s 2009 news conference. Only the timing was at issue. He was worthless as a political commodity the day that story broke, and his value diminished even more as the sordid details emerged.

That it took Ensign this long to finally acknowledge what almost everyone outside his virtual reality knew is simply a sad, almost tragic commentary on his narcissism bordering on delusions of grandeur.

This once rising star’s supernova had little to do with an affair — that is not a disqualifier for presidents, much less for senators, as we know. It had to do with how Ensign, regardless of the pain he caused everyone around him, insisted on pushing forward with his re-election bid as if he were divinely blessed to continue his career.

It was painfully grotesque to see him use his family members as props for his equally brief news conference Monday, saying he didn’t want to cause them the pain of a political campaign, as if he had just experienced an epiphany. No sentient human should have believed him, as Heller was poised to erase him from the political map and the Senate Ethics Committee was ramping up a probe that now, as the senator surely hopes, will ebb.

The earnest, sincere man who orchestrated one of the greatest upsets in Nevada history in 1994 had expired long ago, replaced by this ravenous political animal, unable to contain his appetite for fame and power. His fall from grace is to be mourned but not pitied, scarred by his abhorrent behavior that hurt many, many good people.

So what happens now?

Heller was going to run anyhow and this just accelerates his timetable. I think he wanted to run against Reid last cycle but Ensign’s scandal stopped him in his tracks, casting a pall over the party and taking away one of the GOP’s best assets. I’m not sure he would have run anyhow — he and Reid have been on good terms since, as secretary of state, Heller short-circuited a recount of the senior senator’s narrow 1998 win over … John Ensign. But Heller clearly thought the possibility of an Ensign resignation was imminent after June 16, 2009, and surely thought an appointment or a special election for the junior senator’s seat was a better path than going up against the Reid meat grinder that eventually ground up Sharron Angle.

If Angle is smart and has sane advisers, she will announce for Heller’s seat as soon as he announces for Ensign’s. She cannot win a statewide race, but could win that GOP primary and thus become a congresswoman. At some point soon, you would think, she’d like to win a race.

Heller is the clear favorite, and the Democrats have two serious questions to resolve:

Will Rep. Shelley Berkley run? She could win, but would be the underdog and this development is not good for her. I believe some national Democrats don’t believe she is the strongest candidate, even though she has a southern base and could raise a fortune. But no other Democrat will get in until she makes her decision, except for Byron Georgiou, late of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, who announced his candidacy Tuesday, like a vulture swooping down upon the Ensign carcass. Georgiou, in an interview, derided the “career politicians from both parties” looking at Ensign’s seat and said his real-world experiences make him the best choice. Wonder when Reid calls him to set him straight.

Who runs if Berkley doesn’t? I think the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is most enamored of Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, but either Treasurer Kate Marshall or Secretary of State Ross Miller would be viable. Anyone for drawing straws if Berkley doesn’t run?

Reid will help whomever gets in, mostly because he’d like to remain majority leader. But if Heller wins, it won’t be long before we are talking about Harry Heller just as we once talked of Harry Ensign.

In politics, and in Nevada especially, no permanent friends and no permanent enemies.