Desperate Dean Heller

Surprisingly for Nevada Republicans and DC based pundits, this week hasn't been all that great for Dean Heller. For all the talk about Shelley Berkley's "SCANDAL!!!" (of saving UMC's kidney transplant program), it's really gone nowhere. Instead, Dean Heller's Koch funded BFFs abandoned their own "tea party" while Nevada Democrats continued to organize a powerful field campaign and Heller himself couldn't agree with his own campaign. For someone who's now supposed to be "the frontrunner" going into the fall, Dean Heller certainly isn't acting like one.

And in case everything mentioned above isn't bad enough, Dean Heller even floated as the Amonix Nevada solar plant shut down. Heller tried to pin the blame on Shelley Berkley for supporting efforts to bring more green jobs to Nevada, even though George W. Bush's Administration originally granted Amonix with federal funds and Nevada Republicans like Governor Brian Sandoval and North Las Vegas Mayor Shari Buck all collaborated in bringing the Amonix plant to North Las Vegas. As Desert Beacon noted yesterday, failures occasionally happen as new technology is being introduced and new ideas are coming into our economy. And despite the occasional failure, investment in renewable energy has overall produced plenty of success and the very federal grant program that Dean Heller attacked actually supported 75,000 jobs & generated $25 billion of economic activity when we most needed them (during the height of The Great Recession). So what does Dean Heller have against bipartisan efforts to bring more jobs to Nevada?

And again, for goodness sake, what does Dean Heller have against his own campaign?! He's now contradicting himself on renewable energy. He's contradicting himself on his own campaign's UMC attacks on Shelley Berkley. And Dean Heller keeps saying he's "moderate" despite his real actions revealing his true allegiance to "tea party" extremists. Really, does Dean Heller even know who he is and what he is doing?

I wonder. After all, his campaign sent this bizarre "memo" to the media begging them to talk more about the very Shelley Berkley UMC non-troversy that Dean Heller himself won't talk about! Heller's campaign has been reduced to a bizarre spectacle this week that even Jon Ralston can't figure out. Again, is this truly the behavior of a "frontrunner" who's about to vanquish his "disgraced" opponent?

I don't think so. Dean Heller is in serious trouble. I don't know if Dean Heller's campaign actually realizes it, but I sense other Republicans do. How else can one explain all these desperate radical right attempts to change the subject and talk about everything but Dean Heller's own record?