Thursday, June 17, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Bush to talk up economic gains in visit to Reno

Campaign chairman says presidential race to be 'very, very close' among Nevada voters

CARSON CITY -- President Bush will talk about a booming economy and national security on Friday in Reno during his second visit to Nevada since his 2000 election, his campaign chairman said.

In a telephone interview Tuesday, Bush-Cheney campaign chairman Marc Racicot said Bush's stop in this battleground state, which he narrowly won four years ago, won't be his last this year because Nevada voting "is going to be very, very close."

Bush plans to deliver an afternoon speech at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center after appearances in the state of Washington.

Racicot said he didn't know whether Bush's support for a high-level nuclear waste dump at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, support that came after the 2000 election, will figure in tightening his race against the expected Democratic nominee, John Kerry, who opposes the dump.

Nevadans, he said, "know the president has been entirely honest with them" about Yucca Mountain. In the 2000 campaign, Bush said he would base his decision on "sound science" and not politics, and Racicot said the president lived up to that promise.

Democrats have scoffed at that notion.

Racicot also said the campaign's hope is that Nevada voters will understand "their obligations and duties" in helping resolve a strategic problem on disposal of the nuclear waste that has collected over the years throughout the nation.

Nevada, with almost equal numbers of registered Democrats and Republicans, has a long history of very close elections, Racicot said.

"That gives us comfort," he said.

Those contests include the closest U.S. Senate race in the nation's history, the late Howard Cannon's 48-vote victory over Paul Laxalt in 1964. A recount gave the Democratic winner an 84-vote victory over Republican Laxalt, who in 1974 won a Senate seat by only 611 votes.

Democrat Harry Reid, who lost that race, eventually made it to the Senate in 1986, and won a third term in 1998 by only 428 votes.

Those contests, Racicot said, show that Nevadans "think for themselves. And if they do, we've got a darn good chance."

Kerry has been to Nevada since becoming a candidate, first in February and again in mid-May, both times to Las Vegas. Kerry hopes to make other visits in coming months, including one to Reno, said Sean Smith, Kerry's Nevada communications director.

Smith said Bush's visit to Reno "only underscores how afraid the Republicans are of losing this state to John Kerry. And they should be scared."

"I'm amazed that guy is showing his face in this state," Smith said. "The first words out of his mouth when he's here should be an apology for lying to us about Yucca Mountain."

Smith said Kerry has a 16-year record of opposing the Yucca Mountain project.