GOP in Nevada backs Palin

“I’m really excited for lots of reasons,” Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said. “Having been a mayor myself of a small community, and on the city council, I’m excited to have somebody who understands those challenges. As a mayor, you make decisions in real time that affect your neighbors and friends.”

Porter is a former mayor of Boulder City, which has a population of about 16,000, while Palin was mayor of 6,500-person Wasilla before winning the governorship in 2006.

Porter said his daughter Nicole sees Palin as a “role model.” He said Palin’s profile was a contrast with Thursday night’s stadium acceptance speech by Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

“That was a lot more Hollywood; this is more small-town America,” he said.

Porter said he had never met Palin and wanted to know her position on the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. He said he was waiting for an answer about that from the campaign.

Rep. Dean Heller met Palin when she hosted Heller and nine other House Republicans during a weekend energy tour they took to her state in July.

“She is very knowledgeable and her experience with energy development will prove critical in the months ahead as our nation still struggles with high gas prices,” Heller said in a statement Friday.

Heller also gave Palin points for being from the West, and knowledgeable on federal land management and other regional concerns.

“Governor Palin shares our Western values of smaller government, lower taxes, and the protection of the Second Amendment,” he said.

Gov. Jim Gibbons has met Palin at Republican governors’ functions and finds her “really impressive when it comes to Western issues,” Gibbons aide Ben Kieckhefer said.

“For a vice president to have as deep an understanding of land issues, and federal land issues in particular, would be an incredible benefit to the state of Nevada,” he said.

Sen. John Ensign said in a statement that the pick reflected well on McCain’s judgment. “Governor Palin’s conservative reform credentials are rock solid, and (the pick) makes clear what we can expect from a McCain administration,” he said.

His staff said Ensign had not met Palin.

Many Nevadans had hoped McCain would pick former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who won the January GOP caucuses and drew 1,000 people to Henderson this week.

But Ryan Erwin, a Republican consultant who directed Romney’s Nevada campaign, predicted Palin would appeal to Romney’s backers for her strong social conservatism.

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want Romney, I did and I do, but I think this is an outstanding pick,” Erwin said. “Judging from the e-mails I’ve gotten, there is a vibe among Romney supporters in Nevada that they’re excited about this choice.”

Erwin said most Romney supporters already were on board with McCain, but if they had qualms about him, it was because of his deviations from conservative orthodoxy, and Palin should reassure them.

“I think she’s going to play really well in Nevada,” he said. “She understands Western issues like water and energy. She’s conservative enough to appease the base, but as a mom with a special-needs child she’s going to have incredible appeal to open-minded Democrats and independents, especially independent women.”

Palin’s selection was seen as an overt ploy by the McCain campaign to win over disaffected supporters of Hillary Clinton, whom Palin mentioned in her speech Friday.

But Clinton supporter Erin Bilbray-Kohn, a delegate at this week’s Democratic National Convention, predicted few of them would be won over.

“I don’t know very much about her, and I follow women in politics pretty closely,” said Bilbray-Kohn, who serves as the state’s Democratic National Committeewoman and runs an organization, Emerge Nevada, that recruits and trains female Democratic candidates. “People who support women won’t just support any woman. We want women who are qualified.”

Women who thought Clinton should be nominated over Obama pointed to Clinton’s decades of public service, she said, something Palin can’t claim. And feminists won’t agree with Palin’s staunch stand against abortion, she said.

Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball@reviewjournal.com or 702 387-2919. Contact Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760.