Dina driving Democrats to drink

June's primary election will have a general election feel thanks to Dina Titus. And that worries a lot of people in the Democratic Party.

The former state Senate minority leader and U.S. representative bucked the party last week by formally announcing her bid for Nevada's redrawn 1st Congressional District. Titus will take on current state Sen. Ruben Kihuen, the party establishment's pick for the seat, with the winner guaranteed a cakewalk fall campaign and certain victory in November.

The urban Las Vegas district, as drawn by court-appointed special masters, is a lock for Democrats. Fifty-two percent of its registered voters are Democrats, while just 25 percent are Republicans and 17 percent are nonpartisans. The GOP won't commit resources to races it can't win, so for Titus and Kihuen, victory in June essentially assures a 10-year term, until the next round of redistricting in 2021. The 1st District is that bulletproof.

Titus sees the safe seat as her payoff for decades of hard-fought battles, including tough losses in the Legislature and at the ballot box. Kihuen, a Latino who doubled as a lawmaker and a diversity officer for the College of Southern Nevada, demands diversity in the state's congressional delegation.

But for the Democratic Party, next year's 1st District race goes far beyond the winning candidate. It's about exciting and turning out minority voters who also will push buttons for Shelley Berkley, the 1st District incumbent seeking elevation to the U.S. Senate, and Barack Obama in ultra-tight races that could decide which party controls Washington.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, as usual, is pulling all the strings at the state level, and his identity-politics calculus holds that Kihuen is the best candidate for that job. The 31-year-old legislator is a Mexican-born, naturalized U.S. citizen. He's a Rancho High School and UNLV alumnus. National party types have long viewed him as a barrier-breaking rising star, someone who can keep Hispanic voters inside the Democratic tent for generations.

But Titus, 61, is going for the seat anyway. She has a sizable base of support in the 1st District and she has name recognition. While Kihuen has never run for anything besides small, gerrymandered legislative districts, Titus has run one gubernatorial race and two congressional campaigns in the past five years.

Considering that Democrats are notoriously effective at discouraging primary battles, don't forget that Titus won Nevada's last big Democratic face-off, the 2006 gubernatorial primary between her and then-Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson. (Not coincidentally, plenty of establishment Democrats wanted Titus to stay out of that race, too. She lost a general election Gibson would have won.)

Titus isn't afraid to punch a fellow Democrat in the mouth -- figuratively speaking -- to win votes.

So Southern Nevada voters will be treated to an aggressive, big-money, no-holds-barred, sprint-to-the-left campaign from January through June. And I don't think Kihuen is remotely prepared for what he's about to face. Among Democrats' greatest concerns:

-- Titus and Kihuen will raise and spend a ton of money that Reid would rather see directed to competitive races against Republicans. He'll fret over every dollar spent by a Democrat attacking another Democrat.

-- As Titus and Kihuen try to outflank one another to the left, how does the abortion issue play among coveted Hispanic voters, who tend to be socially conservative? Although Kihuen and Titus are both pro-choice, Titus is as strong a defender of abortion rights as there is in American politics.

-- What happens when Reid tells organized labor, longtime supporters of Titus, to get in Kihuen's camp?

-- Kihuen has no legislative achievements and no policy chops. He's comfortable talking about himself and his love for the community, but he's brutal talking about issues. Titus, a former UNLV political science professor, has an encyclopedic knowledge of every campaign issue -- state and federal -- and reams of legislation she has sponsored and championed. Titus will eat Kihuen's lunch in debates. How many times will he be allowed to engage her?

-- Finally, if Titus manages to win, do the Latino voters Berkley and Obama so desperately need stay home next November out of spite?

If you're a Democrat, you're deeply afraid of how low this campaign might go.

And if you're a Republican, you're getting your M&M's and popcorn.

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If you need any confirmation that Nevada's new Assembly district boundaries are a disaster for the GOP, just look at how many incumbent Assembly members are preparing to flee the Legislature's lower chamber for runs at the state Senate.

Last week, Assemblymen Scott Hammond and Richard McArthur, both R-Las Vegas, announced they intend to run for the new Senate District 18. Northwest Las Vegas gained the district through reapportionment because of its population growth over the past decade, eliminating a rural Nevada district in the process.

Meanwhile, Assemblyman Mark Sherwood, R-Henderson, is considering challenging Sen. Shirley Breeden, D-Henderson. "I'll try to do what's best for the party. If it makes sense, I wouldn't rule it out," Sherwood said Thursday.

That Democrats will control the Assembly for the next decade is a foregone conclusion. But the new boundaries give Democrats an easy path to the 28-14, two-thirds supermajority they need to raise taxes and override gubernatorial vetoes (The current split is 26-16).

Seventeen of the 42 districts provide Democrats with huge voter-registration advantages, and nine other districts lean Democratic. Just four are locks for Republicans, seven lean Republican and five are toss-ups.

If Republicans can't win four of those five toss-up districts every other year, Assembly Democrats can proceed as though the Republican minority doesn't exist. That means no give and take on budget issues and no hearings for GOP bills.

Who'd want that gig? Paperweights would serve a more productive purpose than a perpetual Republican superminority.

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Think there's resentment between police and firefighters?

My wife was out with our 4-year-old son a few days ago when they walked past a Las Vegas police officer.

Firefighters had recently visited my son's preschool to talk about fire prevention and safety. "Are you a fireman?" my little boy asked, checking out the officer's uniform.

Without hesitation, the officer replied, "No, I work for a living."

Glenn Cook (gcook@reviewjournal.com) is a Review-Journal editorial writer.