Conservatives already getting nasty in drive to unseat Reid

Maybe Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid should take it as a compliment.

How much do conservative Republicans despise him?

He's so hated that Floyd Brown has begun firing vilifying commercials at him. Brown is the father of the infamous Willie Horton ad in the 1988 presidential election that rattled the campaign of Democrat Michael Dukakis.

Working on behalf of the California-based Republican Majority Campaign -- known best for claiming President Barack Obama was born in Kenya -- Brown emerged this week with two attack ads via the exposeharry.com Web site.

One of the ads is on TV, and Brown said he's not backing off the message that Reid became a defender of slave labor exploiters from Dubai when he worked to ensure the completion of the MGM Mirage CityCenter project. MGM Mirage is partnered in CityCenter with Dubai World, a private developer of the Dubai government.

The ads generated threatening letters from MGM Mirage and a response from Reid's campaign. The ads, which tie Reid to the Arab-looking persona of Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, have been called "false, offensive and defamatory of MGM and Jim Murren's reputations" by the casino's attorneys. (CEO Murren previously cut a commercial endorsing Reid and lauding him for saving the project and its jobs.)

The controversy appears to tickle Brown to no end.

"It looks like we got a lot of people rattled, and I think the reason why is they're uncomfortable with the whole issue of schools and essential services being cut while the gaming industry is not paying the cost of its own regulation," Brown said via phone from the Palazzo.

"I think the whole CityCenter project is a house of cards. First of all, MGM has serious financial difficulties. They turned to a partner who has a terrible human rights background. Not only that, it's also on the verge of bankruptcy. You have two entities (MGM Mirage and Dubai World), both of which are seriously financially compromised. They're coming together and being propped up by a politician. That I think is a house of cards that's ready to fall. It's going to hurt a lot of people in Nevada when it falls, and Harry Reid's fingerprints are all over it."

Brown's problem: Even by the lax standards of veracity of political advertising, the commercials are a stretch.

The spots allude to slave labor in Dubai and claim Al Maktoum's gaming licensing investigation was paid by Nevada taxpayers. CityCenter was built with union labor, not with slave labor. Al Maktoum's licensing was paid by Dubai World, not Nevadans.

And if Murren's claim that Reid saved CityCenter is overstated, there's no question the senator used his political clout to help the resort project, which generated thousands of construction jobs and thousands more jobs upon completion.

That doesn't preclude CityCenter from being a financial house of cards. American businesses that hold hands with foreign partners do so at their own risk.

While the ads aren't likely to win converts, they are a clear sign campaign 2010 is rapidly entering scorched earth mode. Brown made it clear he's in the Reid race early to napalm a trail for the winner of the Republican primary. He said this is only the beginning of a process that will revise Reid's biography.

After all, Brown added, the senator is the guy who stuck up for the gaming company that does business with Pansy Ho, the daughter of reputed Triad associate and Macau casino king Stanley Ho.

"Reid obviously is a target-rich environment," Brown said. "I am actually surprised that his career has been as successful as it has been given his very evidenced weaknesses."

Weaknesses aside, Reid has retained his power in part because he hasn't been shy about hitting back.

John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295. He also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/smith.