McCain surrogate: Words weren’t jabs

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff was in town recently to talk up John McCain, not to pick on the Democratic candidates, he says.

Speaking at the Clark County Republican convention, the presidential candidate's surrogate made derisive remarks about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama that have since gotten national attention. Shurtleff said those comments were taken out of context.

"It was all about John McCain," he said of his 10-minute speech at the March 8 event in Las Vegas. "I was trying to focus on the issues. I threw in a couple of things that everybody does at political gatherings to try to get people excited about a candidate."

Shurtleff had said of the Democrats that "even their names sound liberal" and joked that if Clinton got a 3 a.m. phone call it would be, "Do you know where your husband is?" And he referred to "Obama's fathers -- one was African, one was Indonesian."

On Friday, Shurtleff said people have taken those remarks the wrong way. "I'm speaking to a crowd of Republicans and I want them to know what shaped John McCain, what helped prepare him to be president," he said.

Most of the speech did focus on McCain and his views, including his positions on taxes, abortion, the appointment of judges and immigration.

Obama, Shurtleff noted Friday, wrote a best-selling memoir called "Dreams From My Father," while McCain wrote "Faith of My Fathers." Since both men publicly presented their fathers as important influences in their lives, it was fair to compare them, he said.

Obama's father, a Kenyan, left his mother when he was 2. She remarried an Indonesian man, whom she later divorced. Shurtleff gave Obama credit for one American forefather who served in the military, his maternal grandfather.

"John McCain's father was an admiral. His grandfather was an admiral. I think Americans should know that," Shurtleff said Friday. "On the other hand, you have a candidate who, his father and stepfather weren't American. They didn't live here. He didn't get in his upbringing, other than from his grandfather, the idea of service to country. I didn't say that should disqualify him."

As for the crack about the names, it was an aside in Shurtleff's reading of part of Mitt Romney's speech dropping out of the race. Like Nevada, Utah overwhelmingly went for Romney; Shurtleff wanted to remind the crowd that Romney had stressed the necessity of defeating the Democrats. "Soon, the face of liberalism in America will have a new name," Romney said. "Whether it is Barack or Hillary, the result would be the same."

Shurtleff said he was setting up for a later line in the speech: "If you have to make a decision about water, do you want a Hillary or a Barack? Or do you want a John?"

"Was I trying to say that Hillary or Barack aren't acceptable names as opposed to a good traditional Christian name, John?" he said. "No. My point in that was to get them into a chanting mode. I was comparing their policies and how they would act on Western issues."

Kirsten Searer, deputy executive director of the Nevada Democratic Party, said Shurtleff's comments amounted to personal attacks.

"What do you do when the country overwhelmingly wants change and you can't win on the issues?" she said. "You resort to name-calling, and that's what this is."

The McCain campaign, which repeatedly has repudiated surrogates for making personal remarks about the Democratic candidates in recent weeks, didn't respond to requests for comment Friday.

SO CLOSE, SO FAR

Nevada's senators like to talk about how well they work together, but when it comes to voting, Republican John Ensign and Democrat Harry Reid are further apart than two senators from any other state, a study by the National Journal shows.

Comparing their liberal and conservative voting records, National Journal concluded Reid and Ensign are 73.7 percentage points apart. That's 11.3 points higher than second-place Iowa, which is represented by Republican Charles Grassley and Democrat Tom Harkin. Only 13 states had senators with scores more than 20 points apart.

Reid, the majority leader, had a liberal score of 89.2 percent, ninth-highest in the Senate in 2007. That was up from 78.2 percent in 2006 when Reid was minority leader.

Reid's liberal voting score last year also was higher than his top two lieutenants in the Senate leadership: Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, at 83.8 percent, and Charles Schumer of New York, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, at 83 percent.

Ensign tied with Republicans Mike Crapo of Idaho and David Vitter of Louisiana for the 12th most conservative voting record in the Senate last year at 84.5 percent.

In the House, freshman Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., scored 10 points higher in conservative voting than Jon Porter, R-Nev., 78.5 percent to 68.5 percent.

Heller was 109th among conservative House members; Porter came in 147th.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., came closest of all five Nevadans in Congress to parity in her liberal and conservative votes. Berkley had a liberal voting record of 61.8 percent, ranking her 172nd among House liberals. Her conservative voting record of 38.2 percent ranked her 257th among conservatives.

STARS AND STRIPES

Is there a Hollywood playboy in the governor's mansion? "There is not," says Brad Keating.

Keating, an assistant to Gov. Jim Gibbons in his Las Vegas office, found himself in Norm Clarke's column last week with the news that he sent flowers to reality TV starlet Lauren Conrad, now reinventing herself as a fashion designer. Keating, 21, said he sent the bouquet to congratulate Conrad on her first fashion show and that the two are just friends.

"I wouldn't consider her a famous friend, just a friend of mine," Keating said later. "She's a great girl, a really nice girl. We've hung out a few times with other people, with mutual friends, never alone. It's a little embarrassing to have a story in the paper about it."

Keating works part time for the state and attends business school part time. He graduated from UNLV in December and said he goes clubbing occasionally.

Asked about another fixture of the Las Vegas club scene, Keating said he has met Paris Hilton but doesn't know her.

Keating previously worked on former Gov. Kenny Guinn's Youth Advisory Council and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy's Youth Leadership Team. That included organizing "The Wait Program," an event aimed at urging teens not to have sex.

Keating said he remains a firm believer in abstinence education. "It tells kids the single most important thing about sex, that they should postpone it till they're older," he said. "It teaches them the consequences of having sex: STDs, pregnancy, the emotional impacts. Abstinence is the only fully effective way of preventing those consequences."

Where will Keating's life of celebrity connections, a business degree and work in government lead him?

"I'd like to eventually go into politics," he said. "It has always been a dream of mine to be a U.S. senator from the great state of Nevada."

BIG GUNS

In case there was any doubt that the race for the 3rd Congressional District will be a proxy battle for national Democrats and Republicans, note that Democratic challenger Robert Daskas last week was put on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's "Red to Blue" fundraising list.

Daskas was one of 13 challengers added to the roster last week. The former Clark County prosecutor hopes to unseat Republican Rep. Jon Porter, now serving his third term in a district where registered Democrats now outnumber Republicans.

Democrat Jill Derby, who is challenging Rep. Dean Heller in the 2nd District, is not on the list.

Those on the list stand to get a big financial boost. In 2006, when Democrats took over the House majority, the program averaged more than $400,000 for each of the 56 campaigns it targeted. The losing campaign of Tessa Hafen, Porter's 2006 opponent, was among them.

The National Republican Congressional Committee also is certain to target Porter with financial assistance.

There's no list equivalent to Red to Blue on the GOP side, but House Republican leaders run a Retain Our Majority Program, known as ROMP, that funnels campaign cash to a rotating group of members. Porter was on one of two ROMP lists last year.

(Seemingly enamored of amusing acronyms, Republicans also have a CHOMP for nonincumbent candidates; it stands for Challengers Helping Obtain the Majority Program.)

NRCC spokeswoman Julie Shutley said decisions will be made later about where the committee spends its dollars. The committee faces not only lackluster fundraising compared to the Democrats but now an embezzlement scandal, with a former treasurer being investigated by the FBI.

Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball @reviewjournal.com or (702) 387-2919.