Surprised regent ready for higher education

He never held political office before.

He got not a single campaign contribution.

He spent $100 of his own money to run for office, all of it at Chevron.

He got laid off a while back, so now he works two part-time jobs to make ends meet.

He does not have influential friends. Does not have a well-connected family. Does not know, really, how all this happened.

Meet Robert Blakely, newly elected to the Board of Regents, which governs the state's higher education system.

"I don't have as lofty a job as the other people, but I have some good experience," Blakely said. "Mine is a victory for the Average Joe."

Blakely, who turned 57 on Election Day, beat incumbent Bret Whipple by 7 percentage points.

Whipple, who had been on the board for six years, is a respected attorney.

Campaign finance reports say he received $2,400 in contributions as of Oct. 28. So sure he would win, he spent only $800, all of it in donations to other people's campaigns.

Whipple did put up signs in his district in the campaign's last few weeks, an expense not reflected in the latest reports.

Whipple said he was so stunned by his loss on Election Day that he woke up later that night convinced it was all a nightmare.

Blakely, too, was shocked. He didn't really want the job, at first. It all happened kind of by accident.

He was looking for work, yes, but not this kind of work. Back in May, Blakely went down to the Clark County Government Center hoping to find a job.

He has experience as an engineer, and thought there might be something available.

There wasn't. But he has long had an interest in politics, so he went to the Election Department to see who had filed for local offices.

The deadline was just a few days away.

No one had filed for the Board of Regents in District 2, Whipple's seat.

So Blakely filed for the non-partisan seat just for the heck of it. If nobody wanted the job, he'd be glad to do it.

But Whipple filed, too, just before the deadline.

"I went, 'Now I'm probably going to get beat,'" Blakely said. "I didn't want to get beat too bad. I didn't want to look bad."

So, whenever some group invited him to speak -- typical in election season -- he jumped at the chance. Church groups, neighborhood groups, unions, caucuses. Whatever.

"My opponent spent money," Blakely said, "and I spent time."

David Damore, a political scientist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas who specializes in campaigns and elections, said it is not unusual for groups such as unions to back candidates in nonpartisan elections.

Some less-informed voters, he said, rely on suggestions from groups with which they share a philosophy to guide their choices on Election Day. This is even more true in a presidential election year, when many voters show up with knowledge of only the top races.

Often, these voters have little personal knowledge of the candidates in local and state races such as the Board of Regents.

And in this race, Blakely got a big union endorsement: the AFL-CIO.

"He did an impressive interview," said Debra Berko, secretary-treasurer of the Southern Nevada Central Labor Council, the group that interviews candidates and makes endorsement recommendations to the union. "He was very pro-union."

She said the union printed a voters guide that included all their endorsements. Blakely's name was on it. She thinks that could have pushed him over the top.

Maybe the endorsement helps explain Blakely's win, but maybe not. (His opponent was endorsed by both the right-leaning Review-Journal's editorial writers and the left-leaning Sun's.)

Damore noted that an anti-incumbent tendency could have hurt Whipple, as well.

In any event, Blakely won the seat, which comes with no salary. He will be sworn in in January.

Regents are paid $80 for each of the meetings, held every two months. And they're reimbursed for all travel expenses except airfare, which the university system pays upfront.

Blakely's background is modest. His father ran food services at a university, and his mother worked in a bank.

He attended Montana Tech University on a football scholarship, playing running back, defensive back and special teams. He earned bachelor's degrees in environmental engineering and mining engineering.

He worked in the mining field, later for the Department of Energy for several years. He spent six years working on the Yucca Mountain Project.

He is divorced and has a 15-year-old daughter, who lives with him. He lists his address as the apartment complex at Charleston Boulevard and Torrey Pines Drive, across the street from the College of Southern Nevada.

After he was laid off, he took a job selling insurance. With the downturn in the economy, he is not making much money at it.

So he took another job, as a limousine driver. It isn't much, he acknowledged, but it pays the bills.

All of this background, he said, helps him more easily identify with the little guy.

Although he couldn't say which specific projects or proposals he might introduce or endorse while on the 13-member board, Blakely said he wants to see more equity in the system.

He wants to expand opportunities for the poor.

Blakely said he would serve in whatever capacity the chancellor and the rest of the board deems the best fit for him.

He has watched some of the fighting between board members, between members and the chancellor, between the chancellor and the governor.

He hopes all that will stop. He doesn't like the "disharmony."

Contact reporter Richard Lake at rlake @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307.