Supporters crowded into a ballroom at the Orleans on Friday night to watch Sharron Angle be feted by the biggest Republican booster yet to visit Nevada on her behalf — former presidential candidate and Arizona Sen. John McCain.
While political fists are flying on the national stage among Sharron Angle, Harry Reid, Dina Titus and Joe Heck, some local races are being played out with equal ferocity and brute advertising.
Nevada’s System of Higher Education has refused to follow Gov. Jim Gibbons’ directive to state agencies to submit a 10 percent reduction in their upcoming budget. Chancellor Dan Klaich told a committee the 10 percent figure was “elusive.” The system’s budget, he said, was cut 13 percent in the 2009 Legislature and reduced another 6.9 percent in the special session.
While many bemoan the cutbacks or elimination of state social services in the proposed state budget, at least two members of a state advisory committee are suggesting tax increases to stave off the reductions.
While Republican Sharron Angle has called Harry Reid a liberal voice for special interests, it is Angle who may become the best friend of liberals in Washington should she defeat the majority leader. As the Senate’s top-ranking Democrat, Reid serves a dual role in Washington: representative of Nevada and chief driver of the Senate agenda.
Brian Sandoval, the Republican candidate for governor, used the final two debates of the campaign to accuse his opponent, Democrat Rory Reid, of not playing it straight with voters.
In a state Senate race that could be won by either party, voters are getting a clear choice between a highly educated Democrat, the son of Israeli immigrants, and a young mother of three who is a fiscally conservative Republican.
With all the political ads airing, Nevada is aware of the Reid/Angle race for the U.S. Senate. What about the rest of the state policymaker seats up for grabs?
Welcome to the state of NevadAARGH! We’re staring down the nation’s worst budget gap, we have a Legislature uniquely ill-suited to fixing it, and somehow voters have heard almost zip about it
