State Democrats to pick chief

The state Democratic Party, coming off a triumphant election year, will hold an election at the end of this week to determine its chairman for the next two years.

The current chairman, longtime party activist and donor Sam Lieberman, is favored but faces a spirited challenge from Steve Fernlund, the active, well-liked president of the Red Rock Democratic Club. The 500 members of the party Central Committee each may vote in person or by proxy at Saturday's meeting in Henderson.

With oodles of financial and strategic help from Sen. Harry Reid, who will be looking to cash in those chits for his 2010 re-election battle, the Nevada Democratic Party is in the best shape it has been in for years, especially compared with the state Republican Party, which is fractious, demoralized and broke.

Lieberman was elected first vice chairman in 2007, moving into the chairman's post in early 2008 when then-Chairwoman Jill Derby stepped down to run her second losing race for Congress. He said in an interview that he hopes to continue the successes he presided over in November.

"We did very positive things in the 2008 cycle, and I think that our work is only half done," he said. "We elected Dina Titus (to Congress), got majorities in the Assembly and the Senate, elected Barack Obama and turned Nevada blue. In 2010 the challenge is to keep all the activists engaged and involved, to re-elect Senator Harry Reid, to clean house in the Governor's Mansion by electing a Democrat, and to fill nine vacant seats in the Assembly and four in the Senate."

Fernlund, a three-year member of the party's Executive Board, said he decided to run after being told by Lieberman and a staff member that the board didn't need to be included in the party's business decisions.

"I think there should be much more involvement on the part of the Executive Board in all the business affairs of the party," he said. "They are elected by the members to make decisions, and what decisions are they involved in? None."

Because he was shut out of those decisions, he doesn't know whether there are specific ones he would have objected to, said Fernlund, a business and freight transportation consultant. He said his understanding of organizational management would help maximize the party's strengths.

Lieberman has endorsements from most of the party's elected officials, and insiders say he has upwards of 200 votes locked up, while Fernlund, who's making his pitch to the party grass roots, might have 100 or so.

AMBUSHED ON VIDEO

Republicans in Washington aren't waiting for the next "macaca" moment -- they're trying to make it happen.

During the 2006 campaign, then-Sen. George Allen, R-Va., saw his re-election go down the tubes when he lashed out at a Democratic operative who had been sent to videotape his events, branding the young man with a word that appeared to be a racial slur.

A McClatchy Newspapers article last week revealed that the GOP is sending camera-wielding staffers to not just track Democrats but get in their faces, confronting them on the street with questions intended to provoke a reaction.

About a month ago, one of their targets was Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev. Asked whether she had read the entire text of the stimulus bill, Titus, without breaking her stride, says in the clip posted on YouTube, "It's a long one, but we've been talking about it for a long time."

That certainly would make Titus one of the most diligent inhabitants of Capitol Hill, as the bill ran more than 1,000 pages and had been made public only a short time before.

Or, more than likely, it was a polite way for the congresswoman to blow off someone trying to goad her.

But last week, with the news that a little-noticed provision in the bill allowed for bonuses to be paid to the executives of AIG and some other bailed-out financial firms, Republicans dusted off the Titus video in an attempt to make hay out of scandal.

Did Titus really read the bill or not, the National Republican Congressional Committee wanted to know in a press release. And if she did, does that mean she approved of the so-called "AIG loophole"?

"Titus can't have it both ways this time," NRCC Communications Director Ken Spain said.

Titus had not finished reading the bill at the time of the video, her spokesman Andrew Stoddard said.

But even so, it would have been near-impossible to discern the significance of a few words that meant little to anybody a month ago. The grandfather clause exempted bailout contracts signed last year from limits on executive compensation.

"She certainly would have preferred more time to examine the legislation, but when our country is losing 600,000 jobs a month, 20,000 jobs a day, as a result of the failed economic policies of the past year, Congress needs to take action quickly to try to reverse our economic slide," Stoddard said.

The provision on executive compensation "should not have been in there, and she was disappointed and angered that it was," Stoddard said, adding that Titus voted to force the return of the bonuses.

Titus believes the episode "is an example of why we need to have more openness in government," he said.

CAMPAIGN FODDER

Aiming to turn Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's reputation as a master of Senate deal-making against him, the National Republican Senatorial Committee on Friday released a Web ad accusing the Nevada Democrat of being to blame for those notorious AIG bonuses.

Reid, the YouTube video notes, appointed himself to the conference committee on the stimulus bill during which the provision that allowed the bonuses was apparently inserted.

Against a background of dramatic, minor-key piano music, the video's announcer twice reads a headline from a Congressional Quarterly story about Reid: "Making sure he's in the room when the deals are made." The ad urges viewers to tell Reid "to stop backroom deals that protect bonuses for bailed-out CEOs."

The ad shows MSNBC's Chris Matthews ranting, "Somebody took that amendment out in House-Senate conference. Somebody got in that room and protected those AIG bonuses. And top congressional people aren't saying who it was."

It has since been revealed that it was Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., who is pictured with Reid in an image used in the ad.

The ad implies Reid is "responsible" because he "insisted on being part of it," without stepping over the line and saying Reid himself inserted the provision.

Reid spokesman Jon Summers noted that Reid and other Democrats have a record of speaking out against excessive executive compensation, while Republicans have been silent on the issue.

In a floor speech last November, Reid condemned a $500 million payout for deferred compensation at AIG, saying, "To reward executives with exorbitant paydays after poor performance, and to do so even indirectly with taxpayer dollars, strikes most Americans as fundamentally unfair and a misuse of their money."

"The question is, where were the Republicans?" Summers said.

"Why didn't they stand up to protect American taxpayers when Democrats offered a solution? ... It is the height of hypocrisy for them to now raise any issue related to executive compensation. Republicans simply want people to forget what they did to put this country in the financial condition we find it in."

Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault contributed to this report. Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919.