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June 4, 2012

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Jon Ralston:

Nevada GOP could give Democrats fits in 2012

By (contact)

Friday, Sept. 2, 2011 | 2 a.m.

In 2008, the state Republican Party was a painful joke.

The GOP had a governor (Jim Gibbons) who was a national laughingstock, and a senator (John Ensign) who was, ahem, otherwise occupied. The party had no money and no credibility.

Result: Barack Obama won Nevada by 12 points as Democrats down the ticket swept to victories, powered by a formidable Democratic machine that also helped drag Harry Reid to victory in 2010 (yes, Sharron Angle helped).

As 2012 looms, with Nevada again potentially pivotal in the presidential race, another nationally watched Senate seat in play and control of the Legislature at stake, this is not your Gibbons-Ensign GOP. Indeed, both men have been forcibly retired and early harbingers are that the Democrats will not have the field to themselves next year.

Why? The elected officials and the political pros — what, in the GOP? — are very different.

Let’s break it down.

The man who replaced Gibbons, Gov. Brian Sandoval, has promised to help the party raise money. When Gibbons dialed up the folks, especially on Las Vegas Boulevard South, he might not have had his calls returned. But when Sandoval, nearly universally liked on the Strip, dials the gamers, he will not only have conversations, he will extract cash for the GOP. (Yes, it is a coincidence that the governor appoints gaming regulators, who oversee casinos.)

The man who helped force Ensign out of the Senate and took his seat, Dean Heller, has a lot invested in 2012 success. Heller knows he is not just running against Rep. Shelley Berkley but the frightening Harry Reid machine, which grinds up Republicans into tea leaves. Heller, too, will assist the GOP fundraising efforts and few will say no to him. (Reid will, inevitably, try to cut off money from the Strip — mirror, mirror on the wall, he is still the scariest one of all. But the gamers cannot say no to the Sandoval-Heller GOP.)

Don’t forget, too, that skillful GOP consultants Pete Ernaut and Mike Slanker, who know how to win elections, are the top advisers to both men. Ernaut has ties to most of the state’s major business interests and Slanker, having escaped Ensignworld, has a stellar track record.

Below those two relatively popular elected officials, the GOP has begun to do something it has not done in years — if ever: Professionalize the party. It is a classic case of imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, as the GOP is mimicking — as it did in ’08 by moving up its caucus — what the Democrats have done.

It augured well when the party hired a pro, David Gallagher, as executive director, a great backstop for new Chairwoman Amy Tarkanian. Tarkanian, whose husband, Danny, lost to Sharron Angle in that GOP Senate primary last year, was seen as the choice of the grass-roots faithful when she defeated Patrick McNaught, who was seen as a stalking horse for his friends at Gondolier Numero Uno Sheldon Adelson’s adjunct GOP headquarters.

But Tarkanian is sending a message — surely with Gallagher’s help — that she knows what it takes, hiring experienced folks to run the Nevada presidential caucus. Alan Philp has worked for the Republican National Committee and his partner, Gentry Collins, is a former RNC political director. Another key player, Cory Drumright, worked for the Mitt Romney Nevada campaign in 2008 and knows the state.

The combination of the Sandoval-Heller rainmaking and the experienced hands on the ground could change the state dynamic that has favored the Democrats for several cycles. Money begets organization begets voter registration — it’s a redoubtable formula.

So is a Republican resurgence nigh? Let’s not get carried away — at least not yet. Republicans still must shuck their tendency to eat their own. And there’s always the possibility that the presidential caucus becomes a non-event, with the national media ignoring poor lil Nevada and Romney winning in a rollover.

The Democrats also won’t just raise a white flag. I don’t think Reid owns one.

And Rebecca Lambe, the de facto head of the party, is one of the country’s better political operatives. The state GOP has no one to match her, although she will not be as laserlike as she was for Reid in 2010 because she has become a national player with a new super PAC. But the Democrats still have an unparalleled infrastructure and some top talent, not to mention a head start.

It’s also early to tell what the national atmospherics will be, how Heller-Berkley will develop and what in the world the congressional races will look like (we may get lines one of these months). But 14 months away from the general election, Nevada Republicans are serving notice that they are no longer a joke and plan to inflict plenty of pain on the Democrats in 2012.

Discussion: 5 comments so far…

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  1. By JustinMc (Justin McAffee)
    Sept. 2, 2011
    10:31 a.m.
    Flag

    Factor in a Rick Perry victory in Nevada GOP caucus (as Magellan polls indicate) and you have Sharron Angle's scarier older brother keeping Republicans home, and lining up at the polls in droves.

  2. By YodasWorld_org (David Phillips)
    Sept. 2, 2011
    2:09 p.m.
    Flag

    Jon, outside of you mentioning the Reid Machine being well oiled which will help Berkley and other Dems down the ticket, surely outside groups on the democratic side are now mimicking the GOP models used by Karl Rove and the US Chamber of Commerce to promote candidates and issues...I recall watching Face to Face recently where you talked with some democrats setting up 501(c)(4) PAC's ala Rove. Even Chuck Muth has a 501(c)(4)in his Citizens Outreach Foundation...Where are the Democratic versions?

    It would be great to see you do an article that follows the money from where it flows in from and then out, for both parties...

    Basically which sides candidates and PAC's have profited better since the Citizens United decision by SCOTUS...To me it is obvious that for the 2010 election the GOP special interest groups out spent the Democratic party special interest groups by a very large margin around the country...It would be good to know how far the democratic side has come in closing the money gap for 2012...

    If anyone can track the money, its you, or at least the money for those in this State...I just read( I think it was you on Twitter) that special interest groups supporting Amodei for NV02 have spent more money then Amodei and Marshall campaign combined...

    And on a side note, please write something positive about Democrats, for Democrats to read in the LV Sun or watch on Face to Face, we could all use some cheering up...

    Thanks,

    David Phillips...

  3. By mike_kerns (mike kerns)
    Sept. 2, 2011
    2:46 p.m.
    Flag

    The Republican party will definitely have the financial advantage over Democrats as they usually do. But I believe there strategy of tanking the economy and blaming Obama will fail to stop big losses for for the Republican money machine in the 2012 elections.

  4. By ColinFromLasVegas
    Sept. 3, 2011
    9:44 a.m.
    Flag

    I guess you could look at it like that when it deals only with the money issue.

    But I don't buy this Karl Rove SuperPAC mentality of buying an election.

    The Republican Party of Nevada could buy an election and influence the vote with money. But one thing they don't have? The message.

    The Republican Party has always prided themselves with conservatism. No. Not the kind they have nowadays. The conservatism practiced by the Republican Party now is far rightism. They've been hijacked. And taken so far right that it leaves people scratching their heads, even the moderate conservatives.

    It's like they don't believe in getting a message out there anymore. They just seem content a continually scream of, "RELEASE THE KRAKEN!" and express every desire to just forcibly yank power back.

    They have simply morphed into a Frankenstein monster, fueled by a rabid howling Tea Party of their own making coupled with the rhetoric and lies of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh to fuel ignorance of the voting populace to snow people in order to get the vote.

    And they can't get out of it to change back to conservatism. Nor do they seem to want to. They seem to have boarded a train that is barrelling down the tracks with absolutely no idea how to stop it, nor any idea if there is indeed any brakes to make that happen.

    That old conservative party of Ronald Reagan is gone, baby, gone.

    Money alone can't buy the vote.

    If I was running a political party, I'd want to make sure I have something to offer people. Something of value.

    If you ain't got that, you ain't go the vote. No amount of money can influence a vote when you can't provide a damn thing for anyone nor give them hope.

    The only thing of value they seem to produce is more the same Bush policies that failed this country for eight long years.

    The value shown they want to provide only benefits a very, very small portion of the socio-economic makeup of America, not the greater portion. They simply want to take care of them, and ignore and demonize the rest.

    And lastly, they provide not a single rational thought on how to solve anything. They only provide an agenda. This leaves them only with the tools of protest, complaints and causing even more problems that mount day by day. They simply provide no solutions. Just stacking up more of the same crap.

    The Republican Party is dying right now.

    Disagree with me all you want, but wait til the elections of 2012. I'm pretty sure the proof will painful to watch by the diehard Republicans.

    The Republican Party don't change or keeps on this course of unwillingness to change, then it's a given fact the Republican Party will die a long, slow horrible death.

    But one thing for sure is that if that happens, they'll point fingers at me and you for it happening.

  5. By DrJCA1 (Joel Ashenbaum)
    Sept. 4, 2011
    9:34 p.m.
    Flag

    I find both the left and the right equally absurd and sadly amusing. Do you all mean to say that every Democratic or every Republican administration was either wonderful or terrible? To those on the flaming left or right, it sure sounds this way. Both parties have some good ideas and some terrible ones. We have to start listening to each candidate carefully and evaluate what they say and believe in, rather than whether they are D or R. Most Americans vote emotionally, not intelligently, which is part of the reason we are in such a mess. Both parties are at fault.

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