Preparing for Democratic smear campaign

State Sen. Barbara Cegavske has been called a lot of things by Democrats. By Nov. 2, the fiscal conservative probably will have been called everything.

Use your imagination. Tax cheat? Why not. Puppy stomper? It's catchy. Baby dumper? Hey, if it sticks.

Fellow Republican Michael Roberson, a candidate in state Senate District 5, has never held elected office. He's challenging a vulnerable incumbent, Democrat Joyce Woodhouse, in an anti-incumbent cycle.

And he won't be a bit surprised to have his name trashed and tied to all kinds of exaggerations and lies over the next two months.

Even respected Dr. Joe Hardy, the sensible GOP assemblyman running in state Senate District 12, might have to overcome sewage-slinging in his race against Democrat Aaron Ford.

"I can't wait to find out what I've done," joked Cegavske, who faces Democrat Tammy Peterson.

If the 2008 legislative elections were ugly, then the 2010 campaigns could be downright hideous.

Two years ago, Democrats seized the majority in the state Senate, picking up two seats and a 12-9 advantage by launching a massive, unrelenting smear campaign against incumbent Republicans Bob Beers and Joe Heck.

The Nevada State Democratic Party and public employee unions got a huge assist from the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the Washington-based operation that storms into states where the party has a chance to flip control of statehouses or strengthen existing majorities.

The DLCC's mission is less about pushing specific policy goals, and more about ensuring Democrats everywhere are in charge of redrawing legislative and congressional districts in 2011, thereby locking in their power for a decade.

They launched an expensive blitz of nasty mailers, signs and TV ads that distorted the records of Beers and Heck and, in a least one case, made stuff up.

A Beers vote to require firearms training for teachers who want to carry concealed weapons -- a safeguard against a Columbine-style massacre -- was turned into an alarmist attack that he wanted a gun in every classroom.

A Heck vote against expanded health insurance mandates, which increase premiums, was cast as a vote against cancer prevention for women.

One mailer alleged Beers was being investigated by the Ethics Commission. He wasn't. Two months ago, the state Democratic Party settled a defamation lawsuit brought by Beers, acknowledging the piece was a lie. But that was a small price to pay for ousting Beers from office.

Shirley Breeden and Allison Copening, who beat Heck and Beers, respectively, were such weak candidates that they hid for most of the campaign, emerging on a rare occasion to declare they had nothing to do with the attacks -- and that they were fiscal conservatives opposed to tax increases. Of course, they voted for the record tax increases intended to grow state government amid a horrible recession.

Next year, Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford doesn't want to have to make any tax compromises with Republicans, as he did in 2009. He wants 14 Democratic votes, the two-thirds supermajority required by the state constitution to pass tax increases, and the same margin needed to override a gubernatorial veto.

In other words, he wants the absolute power to carry out a tax-hiking, gerrymandering agenda, regardless of what the governor or minority Republicans want.

And if Horsford and the Democratic machinery can win these three toss-up races -- taking out Cegavske, re-electing Woodhouse and installing Ford in a seat long held by the GOP -- he'll likely hit his target.

Officials with the DLCC wouldn't confirm whether they'll be involved in Nevada races this year. But Republicans are going about the campaign assuming the DLCC is coming back to town, bringing their ample resources and, ahem, expertise with them.

Voters aren't likely to see their mailboxes fill with legislative ads until after Labor Day. There's less money to go around this election cycle, so most legislative candidates can't sustain an aggressive advertising campaign for more than two months.

In 2008, Democrats hit Beers and Heck with about 20 attack mailers each. Cegavske, Roberson and Hardy expect to see some of the same starting in a few weeks. They're going to counter the hit pieces by sticking with their own messages and warning voters what a Democratic supermajority in the Senate would mean for taxpayers and the state.

"What really matters to the people I talk to is jobs," Cegavske said. "My campaign is about getting the economy moving again. We've seen what a Democrat-controlled Legislature has given us. Rather than attack me, they should be thinking about how to get people back to work."

"They may get personal -- and I mean personal -- but all I'm focused on is jobs and the economy."

Hardy, who survived a bruising primary in which he took jabs from the right and the left, is encouraged that his district's voters have already seen through the mud once before.

"Sewage can be manure sometimes," Hardy said. "When someone accuses you of doing something you didn't do, or accuses you of being something you aren't, they have no credibility."

Roberson will be an inviting target because Woodhouse needs the help. The retired educator voted for last year's tax hikes, took a $10,000 curriculum consulting contract from the Clark County School District, then basically went into hiding.

"She's really the invisible woman. ... I fully expect that they will attack me, even though I don't have a voting record," Roberson said. "They might try to tie me to Sharron Angle, who knows. I don't think they have much to go on."

"We don't have enough people in Carson City who understand what's going on. Another round of tax increases will have a chilling effect on the business climate. It will extend the recession. Long-term, it doesn't work."

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