Pair fight for congressional middle ground

The 3rd Congressional District rings Las Vegas in a geographic embrace, then sprawls outward to the edges of Clark County.

There are some rough neighborhoods on the east side of town and some tony parts of far-western Summerlin. There's McCarran International Airport and all of Henderson. It extends from Boulder City out to Searchlight and Laughlin, west to Indian Springs and east to parts of Mesquite.

It is a battleground district in a battleground state, the site of one of the most competitive races in the nation for a seat in the House of Representatives this year.

Middle-class, increasingly diverse, suburban and outlying exurban rather than purely rural or inner-city, it's populations such as this across the country that both parties hope to sway in the 2008 election.

It's a microcosm of the American swing vote.

"The 3rd District is a great example of the suburban and exurban areas Democrats have been targeting and making gains in over the last couple of years," said Nathan Gonzales, an analyst for the Rothenberg Political Report, a national nonpartisan newsletter. His publication recently shifted its assessment of the race from up in the air to tilting toward the Democrats.

Vying to represent the district in Washington are two political veterans.

Incumbent Jon Porter, a Republican, has had the office since the district was created in 2002, the result of Nevada's population growth. He's being challenged by Dina Titus, the longtime leader of the state Senate's Democratic minority, who is well known statewide from her 2006 run for governor.

The Legislature, charged with drawing the boundaries, created the 3rd District as a perfect swing district, with about the same number of Republicans and Democrats and a large tranche of nonpartisan voters.

It was created with Porter in mind -- at the time, he was a state senator who had already run unsuccessfully for Congress once before -- but it was also created to ensure he would always have to fight to hold onto it.

But the ground has shifted. A district that just two years ago was evenly split between Democrats and Republicans now contains 43 percent Democrats and 36 percent Republicans, according to the Clark County Election Department. There are more than 31,000 more Democrats than Republicans registered in the district.

"The challenge Porter has always had representing a district with a booming population is having to reintroduce himself to voters every election," Gonzales said. "Some of those voters probably aren't happy with President Bush and probably don't know much about Jon Porter. He can't rely on his record for the district, because a lot of them don't know it."

In the past, Porter's opponents have mostly been political newcomers: a young county commissioner (who later wound up in federal prison on corruption charges), a millionaire casino executive and a 30-year-old former staffer to U.S. Sen. Harry Reid. Even allies of those challengers would acknowledge they had thin résumés and no experience in a political fight.

Democrats in Washington were determined to find a candidate who could beat him this year.

Last year, the party's handpicked candidate made his debut: Robert Daskas, a Clark County prosecutor well respected for his work in the courtroom on big murder trials but totally unknown in political circles.

It seemed Democrats were repeating their strategy from years past: pluck a newcomer from relative obscurity, with no record to attack, and make the race about Jon Porter. Then, in April, suddenly Daskas dropped out, citing personal reasons.

That's when Titus, who previously had turned down appeals to run for the seat, agreed to be the candidate to take on Porter.

TITUS: AN ENERGIZED, COORDINATED CAMPAIGN

More than 100 people were gathered in a gazebo in a park near Buffalo Drive and Craig Road as Titus began her day of campaigning on a recent Saturday morning. There were union members in their local's T-shirts, moms with kids, college students in black "got titus?" shirts left over from her 2006 gubernatorial campaign.

It was similar to the loyal core of supporters who showed up when she announced her campaign in May to a capacity crowd. Indeed, if Titus had one thing that Daskas lacked, it was this: a base.

Titus, 58, grew up in a small town in Georgia and retains a strong Southern accent, a quality she plays for laughs in a recent campaign ad.

A political science professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, she has served in the state Senate for 20 years. She has been married to fellow UNLV professor Tom Wright for 29 years; they have no children.

One of the volunteers in the park, 61-year-old Linda Manninen, said she wasn't sure for whom she would vote for president; she had qualms about Democrat Barack Obama and liked Republican John McCain's choice of running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. But she was there for Titus.

"Dina has a lot of good values," Manninen said. "She's done so much for this community."

Also on display that day at the park was the other major factor Titus has going for her: Democrats' unprecedented organization and enthusiasm in Nevada this year.

"I have never seen Democrats so coordinated," Titus said as she made her way to the park from across the street, where she had parked the Lincoln MKX she drives in a subdivision of big homes on small lots with streets named Perfect Day Avenue and Cunning Fellow Court. "People are just excited."

The crowd gathered in the gazebo to get marching orders from Evan Sutton, a field director for the Obama campaign.

They would be knocking on doors of houses that database scientists had determined might house potential voters. Be persistent, Sutton told them.

"The only people who are definitely not voting are the ones who say, 'I'm moving out of the state of Nevada and I'm not keeping a residence here,'" Sutton said. "Anybody else, there's still a chance. Maybe they'll watch a debate. Maybe they'll get a foreclosure notice and realize it does affect them."

The canvassers would be armed with Obama and Titus literature, pamphlets for state Senate candidates and Assembly candidates and even Democratic judges. "You're going to go down the list to the next candidate and the next candidate and the next candidate," Sutton said. "This is how we're going to win the election."

Titus got up to speak next. "This is the face of the Democratic Party," she said. "It's not like the Republican Party. You see a picture of them, it doesn't look like us. I think we look a whole lot better."

The canvassers, she said, "are helping me, you are helping Obama, you are helping our Senate candidates and our Assembly candidates."

They lined up at a long table to pick up their clipboards and maps and bundles of fliers. Among them were a group of 30 Asian-Americans from Southern California who came out for the weekend hoping to make a difference in a swing state, which Nevada is and California is not.

Oiyan Poon, 32, a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, said it was Obama that inspired her to be more politically active than she's been before, but helping Titus is also part of the goal.

"I just really think the country's been going in the wrong direction," she said. "It's time for a change. We're participating in democracy. We're taking back our government."

This, Titus says, is the difference between her run this year and her gubernatorial campaign two years ago: She has both the grass-roots supporters who have always loved her and the Democratic establishment, which has helped her raise money at an impressive clip despite her late entry in the race.

"It feels good," she said in an interview en route to a house party in southwest Las Vegas, where she'll pick up checks and mingle with old friends. "I know we've got the resources to get the job done, so there's not a lot of drama in the campaign. It's just a matter of doing what we need to do."

PORTER: FAMILIAR GROUND, FAMILIAR FACES

On a recent weekend, Porter could be found at a country-club fundraiser -- not for himself, but for a community group working to build a Henderson hospice.

The congressman, dressed in a short-sleeved shirt and khakis, circulated unassumingly in the yard behind the Sun City Anthem clubhouse as a barbershop quartet calling themselves the Sun City Sound kicked things off with a tune.

"Hi, neighbor," the four older guys in matching polo shirts harmonized, "Now's the time to say hi."

A man recognized Porter and approached to shake his hand. "I just want to thank you," he said.

Six years ago, Tim Ryan's wife was dying of cancer. As her condition declined, he wrestled with whether to put her in hospice care. Finally he made the decision -- "It was gut-wrenching," he said -- and then there were no hospice beds available.

After a wait, she was finally admitted to the Nathan Adelson Hospice, and a few days later she died. Ryan decided then that he would spearhead an effort to get a hospice facility in his hometown. "I wanted just one good thing to come of it," he said of his ordeal.

Ryan, 58, has spent the last few years holding meetings at his house and other people's houses and the local library; meeting with City Council members and the mayor and members of the County Commission; and appealing to Nevada's congressional delegation for support. On a trip to Washington, D.C., Porter met with him personally without an appointment.

"I'm not a very political person," Ryan said. "He helped me. He helped this project. He took a lot of time to listen to the problem." That's not about being a Republican or a Democrat, he said.

This is the image Porter is trying to cultivate this election cycle: a servant of the community rather than a partisan. The Republican label is a toxic one nationally this year. Candidates from McCain on down are trying to distance themselves from President Bush.

In ads and interviews, Porter, 53, almost never mentions that he's a congressman. He emphasizes his tenure on the Boulder City Council and as mayor of that city, positions he held in the 1980s; he touts himself as a small-business owner based on the insurance agency he directed throughout that time and his time in the state Senate. Porter is twice divorced and has two adult children.

His experience on the City Council, he said in an interview, taught him to be more "solution-driven." He doesn't mind that he always has to fight for his political life: "Every member of Congress ought to be in an evenly split district," he said. "There'd be less partisan bickering, more finding common ground."

Porter's campaign commercials are painting Titus as a tax-hiker just as Gibbons did in 2006. Unlike previous races, Porter this time has an opponent with baggage from 20 years in public office, a record of legislative votes and an outspokenness that sometimes offends.

The theme of Titus' attacks on Porter has been the same as that of the campaign that nearly ousted him two years ago: that he is a clone of Bush, voting with the president 90 percent of the time. But in the last two years Porter has increasingly broken with his party -- for example, voting in favor of extending the State Children's Health Insurance Program -- a move that opponents see as tacking to the center for political reasons. Porter says it has to do with the specifics of the bills being voted on.

"If 'moderate' means you look at all sides of a problem and try to come up with a solution, then I guess that makes me a moderate," Porter said.

With the singers finished, Porter took the stage at the country club fundraiser to polite applause. He thanked the other officials present and said, "I don't know of a person that is here today that hasn't experienced the pain and suffering of a loved one, in their final hours, in need of the touch of an angel. I really believe that."

Another constituent made a beeline for Porter. Richard Fulton had something to say to him.

"I voted for you last time, I'm going to vote for you again, but I didn't like your vote on that energy bill," the 78-year-old said. "That was a bad bill."

Porter nodded understandingly. "Well, this does something, even if it's just a little," he said of the bill that lifted some restrictions on offshore oil drilling.

Fulton, a retired oil worker, was still fuming as Porter moved on.

The bill, he said, didn't allow drilling in the places where the oil really is. "It's cosmetic," he said. "It's absolutely a subterfuge the Democrats did to look like they're doing something."

But Fulton has no intention of casting a protest vote against Porter for his heresy.

"He's better than the opposition," Fulton explained. "I know Dina Titus. She's a flaming liberal that will spend all my money."

As for Porter, "I think he's a pretty good man.

"Imperfect, obviously, but a good man."

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