First Thoughts on Nevada Debates

NV-Sen:

"These people"? Seriously, Dean Heller? No wonder why he's sinking among Latino voters.

And this was only the start of Dean Heller's follies. He tried to blame Harry Reid for his own failure to round up his fellow Republicans to legalize web poker. He tried to blame the Vegas PBS power outage on not enough "Drill Baby Drill". And he tried to blame lawyers for his own decision to block the Paycheck Fairness Act. And he tried to blame anyone else he could for his own votes for the Romney/Ryan plan to gut the middle class.

Long story short- Dean Heller just didn't want to take any responsibility for his own actions. All Shelley Berkley had to do to refute his words was point our his own record. And wow, she did it.

NV-03:

Yikes. Joe Heck just doesn't like it when he gets exposed. And my goodness, did he get exposed!

It wasn't hard to tell Heck was irritated when asked about his own comments and actions on Social Security and Medicare. He just couldn't come up with a simple answer to support his support for the Romney/Ryan plan... So he just lost it.

Heck amazingly continued to defend Mitt Romney's call to "don't stop the foreclosure process". Instead, he seems to want to speed it up! In a region that not too long ago was the epicenter of the housing meltdown, could Joe Heck be any more callous?

Heck also crumbled when asked on women's rights. He tried to walk back his blocking of the Violence Against Women Act by claiming it had miscellaneous provisions. John Oceguera responded by asking Heck if he actually thought LGBTQ and other minority women didn't matter. That was quite the powerful moment.

All in all, Joe Heck lost his cool. Need I say more?

NV-04:

Danny Tarkanian was first asked on immigration... And he barely hid his true "tea party" colors in showing his support for "Arizona taking action" to discriminate against people.

He was also asked about Social Security and Medicare... And he completely contradicted himself by promising not to cut the very benefits he seeks to cut.

Oh, and Tark's big plan for economic development for Nevada is... NUCLEAR WASTE??!! Seriously, he wants to open a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain.

Steven Horsford shared his powerful personal story when explaining the Affordable Care Act. And he showed his legislative gravitas when describing his work across the aisle with Brian Sandoval in crafting Nevada's new economic development plan. And it really looked cheap when Baby Tark attacked him over his life story... When Baby Tark has a $17 million judgment hanging over his head!

Oh, and Baby Tark did it, too! He referred to LGBTQ folk as "these people". Seriously, why did he and Dean Heller think this was "great debate strategy"?

Grand Summary:

On the heels of Joe Biden's solid performance in the Vice Presidential Debate, it looks like Nevada Democrats did well here as well. And all 3 Nevada Republicans on the Vegas PBS debate stage just choked when confronted with their own party's creeping extremism... And their own participation in it.

Wow, what a night.