Ads tie Porter to Bush’s Iraq policies

It's hard out there for a moderate Republican. Just ask Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., who came under attack last week from both national Democrats and local arch-conservatives.

For the past few days and continuing for the next few days on a half-dozen Las Vegas radio stations, the news, traffic and weather are being brought to you by Democrats, along with a swing at Porter.

The messages note Porter voted five times this year to support President Bush's "failed policy in Iraq," and urge listeners to call the congressman and "tell him we need a new direction."

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is in the middle of a weeklong radio campaign targeting Republican incumbents in Connecticut, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington, besides Porter.

Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., evidently is getting a pass this round, although a DCCC spokesman was not clear why.

The brief spots -- no more than a sentence -- are being read as introductions to traffic and weather reports. Democrats are buying varying ads through August tying Republicans to the war.

"Congressman Porter always welcomes his constituents to call his office and express their opinion on any issue," spokesman Matt Leffingwell said.

"If the Democrats really want to end this war, they should cut off the funding," Leffingwell added. "They are the party in power, and they should stop using our troops as a partisan wedge issue."

Meanwhile, Carson City conservative activist Chuck Muth headlined an item in his e-mail newsletter on Porter "Here piggy, piggy, piggy," slamming Porter for scoring 10 percent on a report card put out by the D.C.-based Club for Growth. (Heller scored 100 percent.)

Muth, whose frustration with Republicans is such that he quit the party earlier this year, said Porter's unwillingness to vote for attempts to strip funding for "wasteful pork projects" was "disappointing" and "embarrassing."

Called upon to defend his boss from the opposite flank, the impressively unbeleaguered Leffingwell said the report card was misleading.

"Congressman Porter has consistently supported tax cuts for Nevada families, voted against the Democrats' budget and sought to ensure that his constituents retain their Medicare benefits," Leffingwell said. "To attack Congressman Porter for being fiscally irresponsible is to not consider the entire picture."

PORTER ROMANCE

Not all is unpleasant in the life of Porter, however: He has a new girlfriend.

Porter confirmed last week that he has been dating Veronica Meter, lobbyist for the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, for "a couple of months."

The two have been spotted together a few times now, including at a concert Porter's rock band played earlier this month, where Meter also acknowledged the relationship but denied being a band groupie.

"I can't call myself a groupie because I've never seen them play before," Meter said. Of Porter, who greeted her with a peck on the lips, she said he was "wonderful."

Meter, a former Las Vegas television journalist, was in charge of public relations for the Government Printing Office in Washington from late 2003 until earlier this year, when she moved back to Nevada and took the chamber job. At the GPO, she served under Nevadan Bruce James, who retired as U.S. public printer in 2006.

Porter, 52, said that he and Meter, 34, have "been friends for probably 10 years" but that the romance didn't begin until after Meter and her previous boyfriend -- Jack Finn, the former press secretary to Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. -- broke up last winter.

Porter separated from his second wife, Laurie, in late 2005; the divorce was finalized last year. He said Meter is not the first person he has dated since the divorce, but he shouldn't be portrayed as some kind of congressional Casanova or "wild guy."

Of Meter, he said, "We have a great time together."

BLUE TSUNAMI

The Democratic presidential candidates seem to come to Nevada in waves. We'll see none of them for a week or two, and then suddenly they're all in town at once. Last week, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards were in Las Vegas over a two-day period.

Often, there's a reason the overtaxed minds of campaign schedulers think alike. Clinton and Obama are both in the Senate, so it's easier for them to get to Nevada when Congress is out of session, as it is for the month of August. And because all of the campaigns but one are based east of the Mississippi, they like to stop in Nevada when they have other things to do out West; last week, all three were on their way to or from a gay-rights forum in Los Angeles.

Sometimes, there's an event in Nevada they all want to hit. That's why we can expect another wave of Democratic candidates later this month, when a convention of the state AFL-CIO, scheduled for Aug. 21 and 22 in Reno, will precede a summit of the Democratic National Committee, scheduled for Aug. 23 and 24 in Las Vegas.

The Brookings Institution think tank and the University of Nevada, Reno, also are trying to lure Democrats to a forum on Aug. 22.

Clinton, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., and Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., have all agreed to appear at the AFL-CIO convention, according to the union.

GRAVELLY VOICE

He's the cranky old man who's thrown a wrench into the Democratic presidential debates with his forceful rants. And now former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel's campaign has a presence in Nevada.

Stacy Standley, a businessman and former three-term mayor of Aspen, Colo., is the Las Vegas-based volunteer regional director for the shoestring campaign of Gravel (pronounced to rhyme with the hand sanitizer Purell, not like a bunch of pebbles).

Standley, 62, met Gravel in the 1970s when he was contracted by the federal government to do land-use planning work in the Mount McKinley area. In 1980, he worked on Gravel's Senate staff as an advisor on legislation concerning the Panama Canal.

Standley, who splits his time between Nevada and India, calls Gravel "a visionary." He said, "He doesn't have high expectations in the polls, but he does have the expectation of starting the discussion about how do we, the people, take control of the government again," he said.

Contact political reporter Molly Ball at 387-2919 or MBall@reviewjournal.com.