State GOP closes LV office

How bad have things gotten for Republicans in Nevada? Pretty soon, they won't have a home in Las Vegas.

Over the weekend, volunteers helped pack up the Nevada Republican Party's Southern Nevada offices for what was billed as a "move."

In fact, the GOP's possessions were headed for storage as its headquarters temporarily relocate to Northern Nevada, according to the party's executive director, Zac Moyle.

Moyle said he's planning to live at his parents' house in Reno and work out of the party's Carson City office until the legislative session ends in mid-2009.

Party staffers who remain in Southern Nevada will work out of their homes or out of the Clark County Republican Party office until new space can be obtained. Moyle said he didn't know how long that would take.

"Our main focus right now is getting behind our governor, and we can best do that in Carson City," Moyle said of the upcoming legislative session that most expect to be difficult, with Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons confronting a Democratic Legislature and a massive revenue crisis.

"That being said, we are not going to totally shut down" in Las Vegas, he said. "We will always maintain some presence in Southern Nevada. More than 70 percent of the state's population is here."

The party's current office on West Sahara Avenue, near the downmarket locals casino Arizona Charlie's, is cramped and dingy, but it has the advantage of being donated. Moyle hopes the hypothetical new space will be, too.

Reports on file with the state show that the Nevada Republican Party raised $100,000 less than it spent between Jan. 1 and Oct. 23, but Moyle said it should not be inferred, from that and the housing situation, that the party has fallen upon unusually hard times.

"After every election, there are some debts to take care of and money to raise," he said. "But we have enough to maintain ourselves. We look forward to rebuilding."

CAN'T BUY ME LOVE

Money bought nowhere near the amount of love that Jon Porter needed to keep his seat in Congress, according to campaign finance reports that became available last week.

Porter, a Republican and three-term incumbent, outspent Democratic challenger Dina Titus by more than $1 million in their fight to represent the 3rd Congressional District.

But now Titus is preparing to be sworn into office in January while Porter is soon to be an ex-congressman. In a Democratic wave led by Barack Obama at the top of the ticket, Titus, the former state senator, beat Porter 47 percent to 42 percent.

Porter spent $2.85 million on the race, according to documents filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission. Titus, who got into the race only in May after Robert Daskas withdrew, spent $1.68 million. Examined in another way, each of the 165,912 votes that Titus got cost her $10.17. Porter paid almost double, $19.29, for each of his 147,940 votes.

In retrospect, "even if Porter had doubled his spending I don't think he could have won this one," said Mark Peplowski, a political science professor at the College of Southern Nevada.

"The amount spent was irrelevant," Peplowski said. "The outcome was foreordained with the Democrats' perfect storm. Not to take anything away from Dina, but any Democrat who put on a good race for that seat was going to beat Porter."

The combined $4.53 million that Porter and Titus spent was not a record, by the way. The 2004 campaign between Porter and former casino executive Tom Gallagher cost $4.7 million. In 2006, Porter and Tessa Hafen, a former aide to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., combined to spend $4.56 million.

FIGHT NIGHT

Former amateur boxer Harry Reid attended Saturday night's fight between Oscar De La Hoya and Manny Pacquiao, paying full price for his ticket.

The U.S. Senate majority leader bought two tickets for $1,500 each, the top going price for seats to the fight at the MGM Grand Garden. Reid's office said he purchased the tickets with his own money.

Top Rank promoter Bob Arum, who sold Reid his tickets, said others planning to attend the fight, on their own dime, included California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, soon to become U.S. secretary of commerce if President-elect Barack Obama has his way.

Investigative reports by The Associated Press in 2006 revealed that Reid had accepted ringside seats from the Nevada Athletic Commission at a time when the U.S. Senate was considering federal boxing legislation. The seats in a special area reserved for the commission were not available to the general public.

After being criticized by ethicists for accepting the seats, Reid said he would not again take them in the future.

Another politician who had taken the commission seats was Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., this year's Republican presidential nominee. Arum said he wasn't expected to attend Saturday.

Reid, Arum said, is not getting any special deals because of his status. "Because he's a friend of mine, he's getting good seats," Arum said. "But he's paying full price."

BOUNDLESS ENERGY

Most of Obama's top-level Cabinet appointees have been named, with the notable exception, as far as Nevadans are concerned, of the next energy secretary.

Whoever it is will be charged with deciding how to proceed with the proposed nuclear waste repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, which Obama has said he opposes but which some officials say will be difficult to remove from the regulatory pipeline.

Reid told The Associated Press last week that any potential secretary who is pro-Yucca won't be confirmed by the Senate.

Reid is also likely to have a hand in appointments to the commissions that oversee the utility and nuclear industries. An article in the trade publication Energy Daily last month said insiders are looking at Reid protégés as potential heads of two such agencies.

At the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the only Democratic member is former Reid aide Gregory Jaczko, whom Reid muscled onto the board over objections from the Bush administration and the nuclear industry.

According to Energy Daily, Jaczko is now the "odds-on favorite" to chair the NRC.

At the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, one of two Democrats is Reid ally Jon Wellinghoff, a former Nevada public utility consumer advocate. In Washington, Wellinghoff has aggressively pushed for energy efficiency and renewable technology, Energy Daily reported.

Asked about Wellinghoff in a recent interview with the Review-Journal, Reid said he definitely believes the Nevadan should chair the FERC.

Reid wouldn't disclose any of the other names he has been whispering in Obama's ear, but said he's had input on a broad range of appointments, including energy and another yet-unnamed Cabinet position relevant to Nevada and the West: the Department of Interior.

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