An online commercial is the first ad from the gubernatorial campaign of Republican Bob Beers. It can be viewed at www.beers4nevada.org.
An academic researcher has concluded that Las Vegas slot machines are more trustworthy than electronic voting machines.
Steven F. Freeman, a University of Pennsylvania professor working on a book about elections, "has assembled comparisons that suggest Americans protect their vices more than they guard their rights," according to the Washington Post.
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Among the contrasts, Freeman contends: The state of Nevada has access to all the software that runs slots, but voting machine software is a trade secret of the companies that produce them.
Slots may be surprise-inspected by gaming regulators at any time, while election machines aren't required to be checked.
Slots are certified publicly by an independent public agency; voting machines are certified by for-profit companies paid by the machines' manufacturers, and information on the process is not public.
After the disputed 2000 presidential election, voting technology -- to replace the notorious "hanging chad" machines -- became highly controversial.
Many liberals speculated about the possibility that machines manufactured by Diebold, whose leader was a supporter of President Bush, were programmed to attribute ballots to the president in 2004.
Ellick Hsu, who oversees elections for the Nevada secretary of state's office, said he doesn't know about slot machines, but Nevadans shouldn't worry about their voting equipment.
"They can have confidence in the machines they vote on," Hsu said. "There are conspiracy theories (about electronic voting), but to dispel or mitigate those concerns was what Secretary (Dean) Heller did with the voter-verified paper audit trail."
In 2004, Heller made Nevada the first state in the nation to give voters a printed receipt for viewing, reassuring them that their vote was recorded and could be recounted by hand if necessary.
No election will be stolen here, Hsu said. "At least in Nevada, the paper trail is a great advance in terms of voter confidence," he said.
Online ad targets gibbons
The scene: An opulently decorated ballroom.
A cymbal crashes, a swing band begins to play, and an ebullient announcer speaks.
"You can hear the party from miles away!" a voice says as elegantly dressed men and women dance then reach toward the ceiling as dollar bills fall from above.
"Bureaucrats and special interests all across Nevada are rejoicing! Dancing the night away! All in honor of Congressman Jim Gibbons!"
It's the first commercial, albeit an Internet-only one, from the Bob Beers gubernatorial campaign.
The ad skewers Gibbons, the presumed front-runner, for his opposition to Beers' proposed constitutional amendment to limit government spending.
Tuxedoed fat cats chortle through clouds of cigar smoke and clink champagne flutes.
Then the screen fades to black with the phrase: "Stop the madness."
Beers said in a statement, "Who's looking out for the people of Nevada? Certainly not Congressman Gibbons, who has won his share of pork spending awards while serving in Washington."
Gibbons spokesman Robert Uithoven called the commercial "disingenuous."
"Nevada voters know that Jim Gibbons is not nor ever has been beholden to special interests," Uithoven said.
"As governor, Jim Gibbons will not need a constitutional amendment to guide his principles in keeping Nevada a fiscally conservative state."
Jack Carter, the Democrat running for U.S. Senate in Nevada, doesn't mind if people associate him with his father, whom he closely resembles both physically and in his Georgia accent.
"People remember that they met me because I'm Jimmy Carter's son, and I don't run away from that," Carter told the Associated Press in an article last week about sons of politicians who are making their own runs for Senate.
At least Jack has a different name than former President Carter.
The three other sons in the article are Bob Casey Jr., Pennsylvania Democrat, son of a governor; Harold Ford Jr., Tennessee Democrat, son of a congressman; and Tom Kean Jr., New Jersey Republican, son of a governor. They are named after their electable dads.
But Jack Carter said he's different than his father in a significant way:
He doesn't share Jimmy Carter's sunny temperament.
"I believe he is more optimistic than I am about people across the world," the younger Carter said.
"He's a peacemaker, and I'm a little more cynical about folks in general."
Reid and the blogosphere
One of the hallmarks of Sen. Harry Reid's tenure as Democratic leader of the Senate has been his popularity on liberal blogs.
But in a poll released last week by the liberal blog dailykos.com, Reid received only a 50 percent approval rating.
Thirty-two percent of those who participated in the poll disapproved of Reid.
The poll included 13,529 votes.
"Reid is very much praised in these parts, yet he got a bare majority approval rating," wrote Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, better known as Kos.
Reid spokesman Jim Manley had a different interpretation.
"Senator Reid is a gutsy and principled leader, and he tells it like he sees it," Manley said.
"That means he never pleases everyone, but everyone knows that he will continue to fight for what's right."
Reid's numbers were far better than those of House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi: 19 percent appoval and 67 percent disapproval.
But they were substantially lower than the 84 percent approval for Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.
The former Vermont governor's disapproval rating was only 9 percent.
Contact political reporter Molly Ball at 387-2919 or MBall@reviewjournal.com. Stephens Washington Bureau writer Tony Batt contributed to this report.
