NV-Sen: Dour Dean Heller

This just hasn't been a good week for Dean Heller. Voter registration numbers are not going Nevada Republicans' way. Mitt Romney seems destined to provide no help from the top of the ticket. And now, his plan to tar & feather Shelley Berkley over fabricated "corruption" looks to be backfiring.

So really, Dean Heller is in a bad mood today. And there's a good chance his weekend is about to become even worse. There's now open talk of how much Romney will hurt down ballot Republicans. And back here in Nevada, Romney's "secret weapon" of a "turnout machine" is looking increasingly like a loose cannon that's firing on its own troops.

Democrats continue to out-register Republicans month after month. As a result, they have a 56,000-voter advantage over Republicans — a direct indication of a turnout machine’s effectiveness.

And while public opinion polls show the presidential race is a statistical dead heat, not a single survey has put Romney ahead of Obama.

That has made some Republican operatives and donors increasingly nervous. They privately gripe about the fact that Team Nevada has failed to live up to its very public promise to outperform Democrats in voter registration this year.

“There’s been significant concern about the voter registration numbers in that Team Nevada was formed to counter the typical Democratic surge,” said one Republican operative who asked not to be identified in order to speak frankly about the effort. “They set the expectation that they would be able to keep up with the Democrats. That clearly hasn’t happened.

“This entity was created because people did not want to invest in the dysfunctional state party. We wanted to steer the money toward a program with a level of competency. But clearly, it’s difficult to keep up with the Democrats.”

Republicans have worked to deflect attention from the sagging registration numbers. Strategists familiar with the operation say they are targeted to exceed their registration goal. Instead of using registration numbers to gauge the operation’s strength, they point to the experience of the Nevada consultants running the coordinated campaign, including operatives Mike Slanker and Ryan Erwin, who both know the state well.

Here's the problem for Team Nevada: As Hugh Jackson pointed out yesterday, Slanker & Erwin are trying to relive their "glory days" of 2004 while remaining oblivious to the changed political landscape of today.

And here's another problem for Team Nevada: What they're doing in the field just isn't working. As we've discussed so many times before, field matters. Yet while Nevada Democrats have been busy registering voters, knocking doors, and making calls, Nevada Republicans' "Shadow Party" does hardly anything beyond spinning the media.

Here's the proof: I was at the Henderson DMV again today. Four Team Nevada registration workers were scrambling around the entrance and shouting at customers. They kept asking, "Quick poll: Romney or Obama?" And most DMV customers were bristling and rushing to dart inside to escape the madness. Seriously, this is NOT how to register voters.

(And by the way, this is how Darren Littell gets to his ridiculous "All the Nonpartisans we register are breaking for Romney!" claim.)

And as Anjeanette Damon discovered, many of the "voter contacts" they claim they've made are just attempts. It's increasingly looking like Team Nevada must "cook the books" in order to make their numbers look good for Romney and Heller. And this explains why Dean Heller has been so dour lately.

NV-04: "Newspaper" Strikes Yet Again!

Last Friday, Las Vegas' local "newspaper" embarrassed itself again with a horribly flawed "poll" showing an implausible "victory" scenario for Joe Heck. Today, the "newspaper" has a new NV-04 "poll" showing Danny Tarkanian leading Steven Horsford 45-42.

Here's why the "newspaper" is wrong (yet again!). Just like last week's results, Survey USA's internals make absolutely no sense. Believe it or not, this "poll" claims Baby Tark is winning Latino voters by 8! Shockingly, it also claims Baby Tark is winning with young voters and urban voters, and that he's winning 13% of African-American voters. Sorry, but this is simply not happening.

The sample also skews older and more male than the final electorate will probably be, especially since this is also a Presidential Election. All in all, this just looks incredibly sloppy and totally unbelievable. And what I said last week still stands today.

So why did this happen? Well, when a "newspaper" becomes accustomed to accepting sloppy "reporting", this is the result. Believe it or not, its polls were actually starting to make sense when it teamed up with UNLV's polling institute. It's a shame that the "newspaper" actually dumped a solid local outfit for this garbage.

It's one thing for the "newspaper" to continually attack Steven Horsford in its editorial page. But when it breathlessly copies from Republican press releases and put those smears in the news section, that's simply not journalism. And when that same "newspaper" publishes incredibly flawed "polls" with horridly bad samples, that's just a bad joke.

Brian Sandoval's Arithmetic Problem

Apparently when not acting as Mitt Romney's "Unofficial Official Hispanic Ambassador", Brian Sandoval claims the title of Nevada Governor. And when he's not trying to spin away Mittens' many political woes, he's trying to spin away the state's stubborn fiscal dilemma. So far, it looks like his spin isn't working for either case.

“It will take more than the revenue growth that we’re seeing to make significant restorations to salaries and benefits and to keep education whole,” said Assemblywoman Debbie Smith, D-Sparks, who was chairwoman of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee and heads the Legislature’s Interim Finance Committee. “I’m anxious to see the governor’s budget.”

The Sandoval administration has released few details about his budget-writing process. So far, he has instructed state gencies to submit “flat budget” requests. He also has announced that since July 1, 2011, tax revenues have come in $70 million over initial projections. [...]

Last week, Sandoval doubled down on his promise not to cut education in an interview with the Reno Gazette Journal’s editorial board.

"I meant it when I said we are not going to cut K-through-12 or higher education anymore," he said.

For education, however, a flat budget would mean budget cuts.

“It wouldn’t be enough,” Washoe County Superintendent Pedro Martinez said. “We all have cost increases we have to deal with, one way or the other.”

Martinez said he expects to ask the state for as much as $14 million to cover increased costs.

Last March, Governor Sandoval really thought he could magically balance the budget with gauzy rhetoric and cutesy politics. And while his big move made good political sense six months ago, it makes no fiscal sense now. Because our state's population continues to grow while our state's revenue sources do not, we're running into what's often called "The Structural Deficit". Because our state has been unable to collect the revenue necessary to fund all our state's needs, we keep running deficits over and over and over again.

And unless new revenue is added into next year's budgetary equation, cuts will have to be made. And those cuts will have to be made at the worst possible time, right when Nevada needs strong schools the most. As we've discussed before, good public education is absolutely necessary for diversifying and healing our state's troubled economy. Yet because we've shortchanged our public schools so often before, they are just struggling to survive now. And if more revenue isn't added to the state budget soon, we'll see even more horrific cuts to our schools.

This is where The Education Initiative steps in. If passed, it will stabilize Nevada's revenue stream and give us the ability to fully fund public education simply by asking the giant multinational corporations that are currently (mis)using our tax code to avoid paying taxes elsewhere to pay something closer to their fair share, and do it so we can actually build the foundation of a better economic future for all of Nevada.

For some reason, Brian Sandoval continues to fear The Education Initiative. But since his budget proposal has (again) been weighed and found wanting, the initiative just looks increasingly like the first step of our only way out of this structural deficit and toward a lasting solution for both the state's fiscal health and for public education.

NV-Sen/NV-03: #RomneyShambles Hits Nevada Republicans

This Friday, Mitt Romney will be returning to Las Vegas for his campaign's funeral "a victory rally". Yet while Romney plans his return to Nevada, Republicans here are in full panic mode.

Why? Let me explain.

Throughout this year, Dean Heller has been assuming that he could win his Senate race by lying about his record... And lying about Shelley Berkley. He had never previously assumed that his complete embrace of Mitt Romney's G-O-TEA agenda would come back to bite him. But now, all of a sudden, Dean Heller wants us to believe that he's "different" from Romney.

Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) said he has a "very different view of the world" than the one Mitt Romney expressed at a private fundraiser, a sign of how dangerous the now-famous "47 percent" comment is to a swing-state senator facing reelection.

"I have five brothers and sisters. My father was an auto mechanic, my mother was a school cook," Heller told reporters outside the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon. "I have a very different view of the world and as a United States senator I think I represent everybody. And every vote is important. Every vote is important in this race. I don't write off anything."

However, he did let this slip.

Heller refused to comment on how he thought Romney's campaign was doing in his home state. When told it sounded like he thought Romney was losing Nevada he pursed his lips and didn't disagree. He also wouldn't weigh in on whether he was worried Romney could drag him down if the GOP nominee loses the state, though he stressed he ran ahead of the GOP ticket in his congressional district in 2008.

"I don't want to answer that question," he said with a laugh when asked if he thought Romney could hurt him.

[...] He said he would continue to work to help Romney in the state because "If Governor Romney wins Nevada, I win the state."

When asked if Romney was doing enough to win there, he curtly said "you'll have to ask him."

The fact of the matter is that Dean Heller is inextricably tied to the hip of the Romney-Ryan G-O-TEA agenda. In particular, he's the only Member of Congress to have voted for Paul Ryan's budget both in the House and in the Senate. This is why he's had to lie so much about Medicare and the Affordable Care Act lately.



We really have four peas in a pod here. Wait... What? Oh yes, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Dean Heller, and Joe Heck have been pursuing the same "tea party" approved agenda for some time. And perhaps Heck has been the most forthcoming of the pod when it comes to their true agenda.



This is why Heck has had to attack his opponent, John Oceguera, and his record... As a firefighter.



You see, Joe Heck can't actually practice what he preaches. While he touts "AUSTERITY!" to working class Nevadans, he has regularly been collecting his government funded checks. This is why he has to project his problem onto his opponents. And this is what makes his continuing loyalty to Romney & Ryan even more appalling.

“It is not about making some pay more, it’s about making more pay some,” Heck, a Romney campaign co-chair for Nevada, said in a statement Tuesday. “Every American benefits from the man or woman in uniform standing a post somewhere around the globe keeping us safe, and I believe every American wants to be supportive."

The problem for Joe Heck is that Mitt Romney's tax policy is all about making the middle class and working poor pay more while the super-rich pay less. And this is just worsened by Romney's glaring inability to understand the struggles of the 99%. This is why Dean Heller is now running away from Romney the candidate, even if he still agrees with Romney on policy. Yet while Heller runs further away, Heck seems determined to stay the course with Romney.

It's bad enough for Heller and Heck that Nevada Republicans' field operation has been awfully lackluster compared to what Nevada Democrats have. But now that Mitt Romney continues his slow motion campaign implosion, Heller & Heck are more vulnerable now than ever before. Steve Kornacki explained this morning just why this is so.

Romney was never going to be much of a help to his party in these races, but he absolutely can be a liability. The more unpopular he becomes in blue states and swing states and the more attention he receives, the harder it becomes for Republican candidates to separate themselves from him and to encourage ticket-splitting by voters.

To have any realistic chance of winning back the Senate, national Republicans badly need Brown to hang on to his Massachusetts seat, and he’s been falling behind in the most recent polls. A victory by Heller, who was appointed to his seat after John Ensign’s resignation last year, is equally critical for Republicans. The GOP has also been hopeful of pulling off an upset in Connecticut, where McMahon’s heavy personal spending has made her race with Democrat Chris Murphy competitive, and (at least earlier in the cycle) held out hope for Lingle too. [...]

This could also be a function of Democrats coming home in the wake of the party’s successful Charlotte convention, and not so much a result of Romney’s struggles. But to win back the Senate, Republicans will need to earn the votes of many people who are voting for Obama at the top of the ticket. At the very least, this week’s developments won’t make that task any easier.

And herein lies another key reason why Republicans may fail quite miserably in their quest to turn Nevada Red again.

NV-Sen/NV-03: Escape from #RomneyShambles

Yesterday, Mitt Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan, did an interview with Reno NBC affiliate KRNV in hopes of diffusing Romney's latest self-inflicted political crisis. Instead, Ryan further embarrassed his campaign. Here, take a look at this...



Then go ahead and look at this.

President Obama has an 8-point lead over Mitt Romney among likely voters, bolstered by renewed Democratic enthusiasm in the wake of the Democratic National Convention, according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center.

“At this stage in the campaign, Barack Obama is in a strong position compared with past victorious presidential candidates,” said Pew President Andrew Kohut. “Obama holds a bigger September lead than the last three candidates who went on to win in November, including Obama four years ago. In elections since 1988, only Bill Clinton, in 1992 and 1996, entered the fall with a larger advantage.”

Obama leads Romney 51 percent to 43 percent. A poll from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal released Tuesday night showed a 5-point Obama advantage. [...]

“We are seeing a substantial increase in Democratic engagement in this election over the last month,” Pew research director Michael Dimock told TPM in an email. “Some of this may be linked to the conventions, which emphasized to Democrats the stakes in this election, as well as reminding them of some of the core values of the party in [Former President Bill] Clinton’s speech.

Hmmm, I wonder why this is happening. Could it be the aftermath of the conventions? Could it be Romney's Libya meltdown? Could it be Romney's latest 47% meltdown? Perhaps it's a result of all of the above?

Funny enough, Dean Heller is now trying to run away from his soon to be former BFF. I guess he didn't get Joe Heck's memo. They were so close, yet now Heller is trying to run away from both Heck & Romney. Hmmm, I wonder why...

Could it be? Could it be that he's realizing Romney is losing?

The problem for both Heller and Heck is that they're far too tied to the hip ideologically to Romney for this to work. I guess that's why Heck is standing by his man. But if Dean Heller is now sending out this kind of signal, what are top Nevada Republican strategists really thinking about Romney's chances now?

Interesting...

#AFPfail: Don't Know Much About Gas Prices

They're back! In July, AFP Nevada had quite the "Bus Wreck" of a campaign rally "educational experience". This week, they're back... And they're offering cheap gas??!!

The cheap gas offered by the conservative political group Americans for Prosperity in Reno on Tuesday was a political event designed to blame President Barack Obama’s energy policies for driving up the cost of petrol.

But many of the scores of people who lined up around the block to fill up their tanks at $1.84 a gallon didn’t come for politics. They didn’t blame Obama for the gas prices. They just needed cheap gas.

Are you kidding me? For being such "free market conservatives", the folks at AFP really don't know how the free market actually works. No really, the market doesn't work the way AFP claims it does.

And what makes them look even more ridiculous is that they're trying to blame gas prices on President Obama... And on smart policies meant to tackle climate change and create more jobs here in Nevada. Seriously, this is all AFP has?

Apparently, Nevadans actually aren't as stupid as the folks at AFP had assumed we were. That's reassuring. I guess one can only disregard sound science and economics so much before people start tuning one out.

NV-03: Joe Heck Values Mitt Romney's Political Career... Over Your Family's Survival.

Yesterday, we witnessed yet another new low for Mitt Romney's campaign. But surprise, surprise, guess who (again) is backing up Mittens! Oh yes, indeed, Joe Heck tried to make it all go away for his dear BFF Mittens.

@RepJoeHeck says react to Romney is overblown. More people would pay taxes except "fewer have the chance" due to Obama "failed policies."

Really, we should not be surprised by this. Just like his BFF Mitt Romney, Joe Heck continues to double down on slashing and burning the very foundation of America's middle class just so he can bail out 1% plutocrats like Romney just a little more. What we discussed two weeks ago still very much applies today.

It's one thing to pay for glitzy TV ads that show happy looking seniors, smiling students, and gauzy rhetoric about "protecting the middle class". It's another to actually match one's rhetoric with one's record. And so far, Joe Heck has failed to do that. Without Medicare, Social Security, Pell Grants, unemployment insurance, SCHIP (children's health care), and so much more of the American social safety net, America's middle class couldn't exist.

Without Medicare & Social Security, many seniors would be thrown into dire poverty. Without Pell Grants and low cost federally backed student loans, many young Americans would be forced to relinquish their dreams of finishing college and embarking on a brighter economic future. And again, without the social safety net that makes America's middle class possible, we wouldn't have a middle class and we wouldn't have any hope for a stronger economy. If Joe Heck really valued that, he'd reflect those values in his (bills targeting the federal) budget.

Last night, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell, Howard Fineman, and Krystal Ball pinpointed why Mitt Romney is on track to lose the Presidential Election.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Believe it or not, this is what Joe Heck is defending!

And now, it looks like Joe Heck is hellbent on following Mitt Romney into that political downward spiral. And he's doing it because of terrible policy and a downright disgusting & condescending attitude toward Nevada's working families. One can't simply spit on 47-60% of Americans like this.

Yet for some reason, BFFs Mitt Romney and Joe Heck continue to do this. Again, our social safety net is absolutely necessary to build and sustain our middle class. But because they insist on being "penny wise and pound foolish", Mitt Romney and Joe Heck want to dismantle the entire social safety net, smash their wrecking ball into everything from Medicare to Pell Grants, and do so just to write more "billionaire bailouts" into the federal tax code.

It's becoming increasingly clear that Joe Heck values Mitt Romney's campaign far more than the well being of Nevada's working families. We now have to wait and see how willing he is to stay on board Romney's Titanic of a political campaign.

Why Romney Is Losing (It's the Middle Class, Stupid)

Today, the G-O-TEA media spinners are doubling down on their lies about what President Obama did here in Las Vegas last week. I guess that's really all they have left to talk about. After all, Mitt Romney imploded in my mailbox yesterday.

And today, Mitt just keeps getting worse. After he (rather bizarrely) requested that his full presentation at the now infamous Boca Raton (Florida) fundraiser be posted, Mother Jones' David Corn happily obliged.





And when looking at the full context... Well, Mitt just gets worse. And Ezra Klein explains why.

The big surprise at this point in the election is not that Mitt Romney is turning out to be such a bad candidate. His weaknesses were always well known, and even now, they’re likely overstated. He’s proven an able campaigner, an extraordinary fundraiser, and more than capable of uniting his party. But if he is, in some ways, a better candidate than many expected, he’s also proving to be a much more conservative candidate than anyone expected.

What Romney actually believes is an unusually tricky question fraught with metaphysical and epistemological uncertainty. But in terms of the recent comments and decisions that have gotten him in trouble, some of them are campaign missteps, but most of them are an unexpectedly doctrinaire application of the conservative worldview — the sort of stuff that gets a standing ovation at CPAC, but that gets Republicans into trouble among more general audiences. [...]

Perhaps Romney’s biggest and most ongoing problem is his tax plan, which seems to require either a tax hike on the middle class or a huge increase in the deficit, and has gotten him fairly accused of cutting taxes on the rich. It’s often forgotten, but this is actually Romney’s second tax plan. His initial tax proposal — which you can still see in his jobs plan – was simply to extend the Bush tax cuts and give Americans making less than $250,000 a cut on their capital gains rate. That would’ve been a much easier proposal to defend in the general election. [...]

Similarly, Romney chose [Paul] Ryan to be his vice president, yoking himself to Ryan’s budget and to the House GOP. In one day, Romney took the basic strategy of the campaign, which was to make this election a referendum on Obama’s leadership, and made it a choice election, with Romney standing side-by-side with the architect of the chief governing document of contemporary conservatism.

As we've discussed before, Paul Ryan's budget is nothing less than a full assault on America's middle class and the working poor aspiring to become middle class. And not only has Mitt Romney fully embraced Paul Ryan's "vision" of a middle class busting budget, but he also wants to undo decades worth of BIPARTISAN economic policy meant to boost the ranks of the middle class. And in pursuing this false dichotomy of "the makers versus the takers", he's actually attacking upwards of 60% (!!!) of Americans along with these bipartisan decades old policies meant to build and sustain America's middle class.

This is the real poison of what Mitt Romney said at that Boca Raton fundraiser. Mitt Romney revealed that he's more than willing to undo the foundation of America's middle class just so he and his fellow 1% plutocrats can pay even less in taxes. Heh, I guess Harry Reid has been right all along.

And this is why the teabaggers are reverting to screaming about what President Obama supposedly did or did not do in Las Vegas last week. Despite all their howls suggesting otherwise, perhaps even they are starting to realize this is a losing issue for Mitt Romney. Perhaps they are finally realizing that Mitt Romney is losing this election. One just can't attack 60% of Americans and expect no blowback.

Already, Romney has been looking at some daunting numbers.

Fueled by increased optimism about the economy and nation’s direction, President Barack Obama leads Mitt Romney by 5 points among likely voters and now sees his job-approval rating reaching the 50 percent threshold for the first time since March, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

The survey – which was conducted after the two party conventions and the political firestorm over last week’s U.S. embassy attacks, but before Romney’s controversial comments about the 47 percent of the country “who are dependent on government” – shows the percentages believing that the country is headed in the right direction and thinking that the economy will improve at their highest levels since 2009. [..]

Among a wider sample of registered voters, the president’s lead is 6 points, 50 percent to 44 percent – up from Obama’s 4-point edge last month, 48 percent to 44 percent.

“It’s clear to me that Barack Obama has moved a … step ahead,” says Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted this survey with Republican pollster BillMcInturff.

So he couldn't afford any more "embarrassing moments". Too bad for the Romney campaign that their candidate just delivered the epitome of "embarrassing moments".

NV-Sen/NV-03: Heller's & Heck's "Bad Romance"

Earlier this month, many Southern Nevadans had themselves a "fabulous gay old time" at Las Vegas Pride. Yet while many political candidates came by to court local LGBTQ voters. However, there were some notable absences. Perhaps most notably, Dean Heller and Joe Heck (and their "Team Nevada Shadow GOP") were MIA at Pride.

Hmmm, I wonder why. Could it be?

1. Heller has opposed marriage equality and even domestic partnership benefits for same-sex couples —but no longer wants to talk about it. In 2006, Heller said on his campaign website that he “supports traditional marriage between one man and one woman and will work to defend Nevada values in Congress.” This year, he reaffirmed his belief that “marriage is between one man and one woman” and said he “would not support changing that.” But, he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal, “I don’t want it to be the issue in the campaign. I truly don’t want this to be the issue.” He also voted for a 2007 amendment restricting the District of Columbia government from using any federal funding to provide domestic partnership benefits.

2. Heller voted against Hate Crimes protections for LGBT Americans. In both 2007 and 2009,he voted against adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the federal hate crimes laws.

3. Heller thinks it should be legal to fire someone just for being gay. He voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in 2007, which would have banned employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

4. Heller opposed letting LGBT servicemembers serve openly. He voted against Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal twice in 2010. In 2009 he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal he supported continuing the discriminatory policy.

5. Heller has been a total zero on LGBT equality. Over the course of the 110th and 111th Congresses, the Human Rights Campaign rated him as voting against the interests of the LGBT community 100 percent of the time.

Notice Heller's downright flippant attitude toward Nevada's LGBTQ families.



Now contrast this with Shelley Berkley and her steadfast commitment to securing equality for all Nevada families.





As we've discussed before, Mitt Romney is leading Dean Heller, Joe Heck, and the rest of the G-O-TEA in embracing teabaggers' bigotry and doubling down on endorsing wrongful discrimination. They're doing this because they still think they need to shore up their "TEA" fueled base. Yet while they're doing this, they're alienating the rest of our increasingly diverse and multicultural state. And with the newest CBS/New York Times poll showing a strong national majority favoring marriage equality, it's quite likely that Nevada voters are trending quickly towards embracing equality as well.

Joe Heck may still be calling marriage equality "a distraction" while he & Dean Heller dutifully stand by the G-O-TEA agenda of belittling and even endangering (!!!) LGBTQ Nevadans, but they increasingly look anachronistic and incredibly out of touch. Just contrast Heck's cold and downright rude remarks with John Oceguera's heartfelt support for marriage equality and full civil rights for LGBTQ Nevadans.



This is a bigger problem for Nevada Republicans than Dean Heller, Joe Heck, and their slick campaign consultants want to admit. And this is the real reason why Heller and Heck refuse to talk about it. But as long as they keep trying to hold down Nevada's LGBTQ families, a growing and strengthening number of Nevada voters may ultimately decide to just hang up on them.

Mitt Romney Just Imploded... Into My Mailbox

He did it again. No really, Mitt Romney sent me another campaign mailer. This time, he feigns his "concern for the middle class".






And yes, believe it or not, this mail piece arrived yesterday... Just as this was unfolding.



Here's what makes the mailer so awkward.

During a private fundraiser earlier this year, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told a small group of wealthy contributors what he truly thinks of all the voters who support President Barack Obama. He dismissed these Americans as freeloaders who pay no taxes, who don't assume responsibility for their lives, and who think government should take care of them. [...]

Here was Romney raw and unplugged—sort of unscripted. With this crowd of fellow millionaires, he apparently felt free to utter what he really believes and would never dare say out in the open. He displayed a high degree of disgust for nearly half of his fellow citizens, lumping all Obama voters into a mass of shiftless moochers who don't contribute much, if anything, to society, and he indicated that he viewed the election as a battle between strivers (such as himself and the donors before him) and parasitic free-riders who lack character, fortitude, and initiative. Yet Romney explained to his patrons that he could not speak such harsh words about Obama in public, lest he insult those independent voters who sided with Obama in 2008 and whom he desperately needs in this election. These were sentiments not to be shared with the voters; it was inside information, available only to the select few who had paid for the privilege of experiencing the real Romney.

Herein lies Romney's problem, which is the same problem he's had all along. Basically, Mitt Romney continues to reveal himself as an out-of-touch plutocrat who just doesn't care about the middle class and working poor. And no matter how many glossy mailers he sends to me and to other Democratic households, he can't convince us to vote against our best interest. In fact, he keeps making sure of that whenever he opens his mouth and goes "off the cuff"!

The growing Beltway consensus seems to be that this may very well be "The Beginning of the End" for Romney's campaign. Well, at least I got a memento in my mailbox. I got some shrapnel from the Romney campaign's implosion.

Democrats "Secret to Success" in Nevada

Earlier today, Jon Ralston broke some interesting news.

As of this morning, the Democratic advantage over the Republicans is 61,443 voters, or 5.4 percent.

That’s larger than close of registration in 2010, when it was 60,108.

This is having an effect down the ticket, too, where three critical state Senate districts now have greater Democratic edges than in 2010.

Remember what we've been discussing all this summer? Yes, indeed, field matters. While Nevada Republicans have been very bust fighting each other, Nevada Democrats have been busy working the field. With all the voter registration, door to door canvassing, and volunteer to voter phone banking Nevada Democrats have been doing, there shouldn't be any wondering why they're gaining a key advantage.







Just since the August Secretary of State report (released early this month), Democrats have made even more gains in voter registration. Just in looking at the new Clark County, we can see that Democrats have expanded their advantage in the new NV-03 from 0.17% early this month to 0.54% now. (Just last month, Republicans had a slight voter registration edge in NV-03!) In the bellwether 5th State Senate District in swingy, suburban Henderson, Democrats have expanded their voter registration advantage from 3.70% to 4.02%. And in the must win 9th State Senate District in the fast growing and diversifying Southwest Valley suburbs, Democrats have increased their edge from 5.61% to 6.09%. Overall in Clark County, the most populous county in Nevada and home to over 70% of the state's population, Democrats have increased their already healthy lead from 12.53% to 13.02%. And looking at the whole state, just so far this month Democrats have increased their statewide voter registration lead from 4.97% to 5.40%!

Wow. What a feat. And as the above numbers show, President Obama isn't the only beneficiary here. The key battleground districts in the (Clark County) Las Vegas suburbs that may very well determine the control of Congress and the Nevada Legislature this fall, Democrats have been making huge gains throughout the summer. And with just one month left until voter registration ends for the 2012 general election, it's increasingly looking like Nevada Democrats have no plans to let up while Nevada Republicans keep scrambling to pick up their broken party.

Herein lies Nevada Democrats' "secret to success". And funny enough, it's not actually a secret. For all the "tea party" attacks describing the Democratic base as "lazy", the fact of the matter is that the Obama Campaign, the Nevada Democratic Party, local Democratic candidates, and local Democratic volunteers are just plain working hard and outworking the G-O-TEA by so many miles that Mitt Romney's operation just can't keep up.

Mitt Romney's Boomerang Through My Mailbox

In recent days, the issue of China and its many exports has come toward the forefront in the Presidential campaign. In fact, Mitt Romney even tried to win my vote with this very issue! Take a look at the mail piece his campaign sent me last weekend.







So we're supposed to believe President Obama is "shipping jobs to China" and Mitt Romney will magically restore them? Here's the problem with this fable: It's just that. It's simply not true. And in fact, President Obama is announcing action on this.

President Obama will announce that his administration is cracking down on China's practice of subsidizing auto parts made for export with a new case they are taking to the World Trade Organization while campaigning in Ohio, Monday, reports the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The administration says China's practices hurt states like Ohio which count on the auto industry for jobs. The administration will also ask the WTO to move forward with a review of a separate case in which the U.S. alleged that China is placing unfair duties on cars imported from the United States.

The auto industry rescue is a prominent feature of Obama's campaign, particularly in states like Ohio. According to the White House, 475,000 Americans --including 54,200 Ohioans -- work for the auto parts industry.

This latest crack down on China comes on the same day that the Romney campaign has released a new ad promising to "make trade work for America" and promising to "crack down on China" and "open up new markets." On the stump, Romney and running mate Paul Ryan regularly attack Obama for being weak on China.

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney has a record of doing this.

Senator Reid was talking about this explosive Boston Globe story debunking Mitt Romney's claim that he wasn't in charge of Bain Capital when his company began massive layoffs early last decade. While Romney claimed he left Bain in 1999, the documents Bain Capital filed with the SEC listed Romney as 100% owner and CEO, and that Romney earned a $100,000 annual salary in 2001 and 2002 on top of his Bain investment earnings. [...]

This is even worse than I had originally thought. I just knew that Mitt Romney was/is a vulture capitalist who profited from destroying American jobs. Now we know he's caused even more damage to our economy by outsourcing formerly American jobs to China AND by hiding his money in offshore Bermuda based investments!

Remember that Mitt Romney himself invested in a Bermuda based corporation that was funding schemes to outsource formerly American jobs to China! Does Romney really think that I'm that forgetful? And does he really think that so many Americans are so stupid that they'll believe anything thrown onto a glossy mailer?

This is Mitt Romney's problem. Because he's increasingly looking like he's seeking the wrong office at the wrong time, he needs a "game changer" to save his flailing campaign. So now, he's trying to project his history of outsourcing formerly American jobs overseas onto President Obama. But not only did he make the mistake of filling this lie into my mailbox, but he's also making the bigger mistake of treating the American people like hopeless imbeciles. This will truly come back to hurt him.

No Se Puede, Republicanos

Look who's talking now. Desperate to look "moderate", Dean Heller is smearing Vaseline on the camera in hopes of deceiving Nevada Latinos. And guess who he's following down this path?

The Dean Heller and Mitt Romney campaigns seem to be taking their Hispanic voter outreach strategies from the same playbook.

Mitt Romney’s Hispanic supporter coalition is called “Juntos con Romney” (Together with Romney), and Heller’s is “Juntos con Heller.”

In July the Romney campaign released an ad featuring Craig Romney, the GOP presidential candidate’s son who spent time in Chile, addressing voters in Spanish about his father’s character.

On Friday, the Heller campaign came out with its own Spanish-language ad with a family member’s testimonial on the candidate’s core values. Heller’s wife, Lynne, in a similar style to the Craig Romney ad, speaks in Spanish directly to the camera.

So why are Dean Heller and Mitt Romney doing this? Look at their record.

In the past, Heller has sponsored legislation to limit election ballots to English-only, to mandate that the Free Application for Federal Student Aid only be filled out in English and to make English the official national language. He also previously supported a bill to end birthright citizenship.

Despite what his campaign spins, the fact of the matter is that Dean Heller has never really cared about Nevada's Latin@ communities. It's bad enough that he wants to take away many Americans' Constitutional right of birthright citizenship. It's even worse that he's often played to "tea party" xenophobia by pushing "ENGLISH ONLY!!!" nonsense. He's even gone out of his way to oppose the DREAM Act!





But again, it's not just Heller. And it's not just about immigration. Really, Mitt Romney has led the way for the entire G-O-TEA in setting an agenda that's downright hostile to Latin@ families. And unfortunately for him, the Obama campaign isn't letting him get away with it.



And what's even worse for Romney and Heller is that their own party continues to remind all of us of their true agenda. Joe Heck has continually worked against the best interest of all Nevada working families by voting to undermine Medicare, Medicaid, college student aid, and more. And in case that wasn't enough, he's declined to endorse the DREAM Act while speaking in support of Arizona's discriminatory SB 1070.

Oh, and that's not even the end of it for the Nevada G-O-TEA. Danny Tarkanian has actually tried to distance himself from his own record, but he only embarrassed himself further because he had earned the endorsement of the virulently anti-immigrant Minutemen in his last campaign for Congress (when he ran for US Senate in 2010). And just weeks ago, NV-01 G-O-TEA sacrificial lamb nominee Chris Edwards blew his own anti-immigrant cover after inartfully trying to smear Dina Titus as such.

All in all, there's really nothing about Mitt Romney, the leading Nevada Republicans, or their party's platform that's attractive to Latin@ voters. That's why they must deceive and distract. Yet despite all that Vaseline they want to smear onto the cameras, they can't fool an entire community to vote against their own best interest by voting for a party keen on xenophobia and anti-immigrant hysteria.

Library Closed... Forever?

Last month, we discussed the dire straits that Henderson Libraries have fallen into. Later that month, I got a first hand glimpse of how dire those straits have truly become.







As you can see above, the Paseo Verde Library was not ready for the recent round of Arizona Monsoon storms. Because of the leaky roof, not only was a large chunk of floor space closed off, but even some bookshelves had to be tarped over while the printers had to be shut down! Yes, believe it or not, this is the new reality of Henderson's flagship library.

And that's not all. All Henderson libraries will be closed on Mondays starting next month. Staff cuts have already taken a toll. And as I alluded to above, structural maintenance hasn't been able to keep up with increased use in the last decade.

That's why the "Rescue My Library" campaign is asking Henderson voters for just $7 per year per $100,000 in home value. No really, it's just that little. And for that little, Henderson Libraries will just be able to maintain current library locations and services.

Since all Clark County libraries outside North Las Vegas are funded directly by property taxes and state C-Tax revenue, the City of Henderson can't provide more city funding for the libraries. And since private fundraising has not been able to keep up with the community's needs, that's why Henderson Libraries have been backed into this corner.

So now, the future of not just the local libraries, but also of the greater community, rests in voters' hands. Do we want closed libraries? And do we want the remaining open libraries to continue to suffer from leaking roofs and even shorter hours? Throughout the year, we've discussed how tax policy in this state is about to change dramatically with the increased use of "ballot box budgeting". We'll see a major test this fall in Henderson.

NV-03: "Newspaper" Strikes Again!

Early this week, a local Southern Nevada "newspaper" embarrassed itself (again) with poorly reasoned endorsements. Today, the "newspaper" is out to embarrass itself some more. Oh yes, that's right. It's time for a new round of "polls" that make absolutely no sense!

In today's edition, the "newspaper" teamed up with the incredibly shoddy Survey USA to release this new "poll" showing Joe Heck leading by 13%. So why shouldn't we just take them at their word? Here's what Ralston tweeted.

"Newspaper" poll has @RepJoeHeck up by 13 over @JohnOceguera. Wow! Also wow: Dems have slight reg edge in #nv03; poll breakdown: 37-32, R.

And there's this.

Link to "newspaper" poll in #nv03 -- http://t.co/K86u6WHy. But look at goofy demographics here: http://t.co/OymyxoCW #2010redux #surveyUSA

Indeed, Survey USA's internals make absolutely no sense. The sample skews much older than the likely electorate we'll see this fall, and Joe Heck probably isn't winning that many minority voters. No really, they know what's going on. Oh, and since Democrats recently took the lead in voter registration in NV-03, it makes no sense to show 5% more Republicans in the sample.

So why did this happen? Well, when a "newspaper" becomes accustomed to accepting sloppy "reporting", this is the result. Believe it or not, its polls were actually starting to make sense when it teamed up with UNLV's polling institute. It's a shame that the "newspaper" actually dumped a solid local outfit for this garbage.