Don’t want to play politics as usual

A political calculation that may signal the position of powerful forces behind Nevada's Republican Senate primary was likely orchestrated to be drowned out by the media hoopla surrounding the recent Tea Party in Searchlight.

But why seek cover? A GOP mayor endorsing a Republican candidate for Harry Reid's hotly contested U.S. Senate seat hardly seems out of the ordinary. Particularly when he comes out for the race's front runner, Sue Lowden.

Unless the Republican mayor and long-time party insider co-hosted a fundraising reception for Sen. Harry Reid's re-election campaign. Add to that he did it on the same evening the Nevada GOP was holding a state central committee meeting and dinner right down the road.

This was not a new departure for the former chairman of the Nevada Republican Party. Reno Mayor Bob Cashell also supported Reid in his second run for the U.S. Senate in 2004.

Now the mayor has reset course by his political compass. And he's not alone.

"A number of Republican office holders who crossed party lines to support Reid when there was no viable GOP candidate are reconsidering that support," according to Eric Herzik, chairman of the political science department at the University of Nevada, Reno. "They are asking themselves, 'How can we justify backing the leader of the Democrat Party in Nevada and the U.S. Senate?' "

During the dramatic political ascendancy of Reid and the Democrats, local Republicans in nonpartisan elective offices have often gone over to the other side. They became increasingly dependent upon good relations with the Washington delegation to protect their political careers through largess for their constituencies.

But now Reid appears to be on the ropes with a large majority of Nevada voters. They strongly resent his arrogance and contempt for them in his duplicitous enabling of Obama's radical leftist agenda.

The senator's predicament has emboldened Cashell and other Nevada GOP heavyweights who want to back a strong contender able to deliver a knockout punch. But they realize that the defending champ is an adept rope-a-doper, who can withstand a flurry of merciless blows.

If unseating an incumbent U.S. senator -- no matter how unpopular -- were not enough of a challenge, Republicans also have to try to develop a strategy to harness the energy and fervor of the Tea Party movement. Their fear is that the idealism of Tea Party activists may not adhere to the political pragmatism necessary to create a more broadly based winning coalition.

Given his endorsement of Sue Lowden, the politically astute Cashell obviously expects Tea Partiers to gravitate to the well-funded centrist candidate running as a conservative.

Buttressing his belief is a new national poll by Quinnipiac University that found 74 percent of Tea Party adherents are mainstream but disaffected, fiscally conservative Republicans or Republican-leaning independents. These characteristics are a far cry from the media's wrong-headed portrayal of Tea Partiers as lunatics on the fringe of American politics.

It's Sue Lowden's race to lose with only six weeks before the June 8 primary. But the volatility of the congested race and the irascible mood of Republicans make the outcome unpredictable.

Most of the hurdles she'll have to clear to win the nomination will come not only from primary rivals but also from voters. Her role at the helm of the aborted state Republican convention in 2008 remains fresh on the minds of many conservatives.

"The burden is on her to prove she will work for the good of Nevada and not for the good of Sue Lowden," Tea Party organizer Debbie Landis said online. "There is no forgiveness in the hearts of Nevada conservatives. Her name still evokes hostility."

Mayor Cashell's endorsement also may not play well with disaffected voters. Lowden must make certain that well-connected insiders with vacillating party allegiances are not perceived as more important to her campaign than rock-solid conservatives.

She needs to capture the hearts and minds of grass-roots stalwarts who will volunteer their time at Republican phone banks, chip in with their hard-earned $20 donation, or otherwise support the GOP and its efforts to make government less intrusive and less oppressive.

Nevada Republicans are looking for a Senate candidate they can believe in. The genuine article. Someone who has strength of conviction. Someone who will champion conservative principles and do what's right in Washington. A candidate for real change, for a change.

Sue Lowden has yet to demonstrate that she is that person. She needs to convince primary voters that unlike Barack Obama, it is not all about her and power in Washington. Or is it?

David Coulson, a journalism professor at UNR for 18 years, is a veteran reporter, editor and writing coach.