Cheers and jeers for Nevada's Harry Reid

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is no doubt divisive: Polls show that about half of Nevada voters don't like him. But it’s still surprising to see who's cheering and jeering him these days. (Though with the election a year away, there’s also plenty of time to change minds.)
 
CHEERING: Progressives who are thrilled with Reid’s announcement today that he’s backing the inclusion of a public option in the Senate’s healthcare legislation (see news video here),....

...although states would be able to opt out of it and it's unclear whether he has the votes to ward off a filibuster.
 
JEERING: Moderates who support a “trigger” plan — in which public health coverage would kick in only if private insurers failed to meet certain benchmarks — and think, like President Obama reportedly does, that it’s more likely to win over conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans.

OUR THOUGHTS: There's along way to go, but if Reid gets the public option into a final bill, it might help him woo progressives who’ve told pollsters they find him weak and ineffective. Those voters wouldn’t have cast ballots for the Republican TBD anyway. But they sure might stay home — there are plenty of other things to do in Las Vegas. 
 
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CHEERING: The parents of embattled Nevada Sen. John Ensign, a Republican, who donated $4,800 to Reid. Some people think that smells funky, since Ensign’s been in political purgatory and Reid has declined to criticize him.  But father Mike Ensign is a former casino executive and Reid has long been a Friend of Gaming.

CHEERING: Casino magnate Steve Wynn, who recently ripped into the Obama administration’s economic policies but supports Reid’s reelection. “My friend of 40 years will protect Americans from this kind of foolishness,” Wynn said of the chief torchbearer for Obama's policies. (Did we mention Reid’s a Friend of Gaming?)

JEERING: Sue Lowden and her casino-owning husband, Paul, who once donated thousands to Reid. Lowden is considered the front-runner among a gaggle of Republicans who’d like to elbow out the majority leader, as the GOP did in 2004 to Tom Daschle, the previous Democratic majority leader.

OUR THOUGHTS: When you’re polling as low as Reid, being a Friend of Gaming might not be enough.
 
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CHEERING: Rock god/humanitarian Bono, who gave a shout-out to Reid last week during U2’s Las Vegas concert.

JEERING: No one. Bono’s awesome.

OUR THOUGHTS: Bono got 40,000 people to sing "Viva Las Vegas." You think he could push through a public option?

— Ashley Powers

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Photo: Associated Press

Ensign, Reid: What happens in Nevada politics gets blabbed all over

Nevada is somewhat like Mayberry with casinos.

With a statewide population smaller than Orange County’s, all the state's political players are intertwined – especially in this season of summery scandal.

Our Kevin Bacon is Republican Sen. John Ensign (sometimes called Johnny Casino, though we prefer the nickname Love Veterinarian). His recent admission that Mom and Dad gave his mistress and her family $96,000 – described by Ensign’s attorney as gifts for family friends – has ramifications for most of Nevada’s five-member congressional delegation.

Though Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has dodged that fray, the Ensign scandal could determine whom he spends oodles of money fighting in 2010. Reid’s latest cash tally: $7.3 million on hand.

The GOP’s top choice, Nevada Rep. Dean Heller, had $255,000 on hand . If he were truly determined to challenge Reid, such fundraising would be like stockpiling squirt guns to ward off a nuclear blast.

Heller could quickly close the chasm, but he’s reportedly watching the Ensign fallout, which could be substantial. A watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, has called for ethics, campaign finance and criminal investigations of Ensign, who has already resigned his GOP leadership post.

Last week, Ensign vowed to stay in office and run for re-election in 2012 – a move that GOP leaders met with silence and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow relentlessly mocked. (We’re fans of any segment with an explanatory cartoon. If Ensign makes it to another election cycle, longtime Rep. Shelley Berkley, a Democrat, has indicated she’d consider challenging him.

Should Ensign resign, as some Nevada conservatives have called for, Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons would appoint a replacement. A few commentators have suggested – perhaps half-jokingly – that he might pick himself.

-- Ashley Powers

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Photos: Las Vegas. Credit: Las Vegas Visitors Bureau. Don Knotts and Andy Griffith in "The Andy Griffith Show."

Is Las Vegas' famously flamboyant mayor going to run for governor?

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman -- former mob lawyer, Bombay Sapphire pitchman and self-proclaimed "Happiest Mayor on Earth" -- will be termed out in 2011.

His next role: Gov. Goodman?

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported last week that Goodman is mulling an independent bid -- and has consulted none other than former Minnesota Gov. Jesse "The Body" Ventura (the Happiest Pro Wrestler-Turned-Governor On Earth).

As with many things -- including telling youngsters that, were he stranded on an island, he’d want a bottle of gin -- Goodman’s seriousness is hard to determine. He’s publicly talked about a gubernatorial bid for months and even suggested that his wife, Carolyn, take over his old office at City Hall. (It’s unclear whether she would keep the faux horse’s head.)

Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons is so unpopular that he’s already drawn two primary challengers. And the Democrats expected to run -- Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley and Rory Reid, Clark County commissioner and son of the U.S. Senate majority leader — might cannibalize each other before the general election.

But Goodman has never mounted a statewide campaign. And does he truly want to 1) move from Sin City to Carson City and 2) oversee a potentially vicious budget war during the next legislative session?

Maybe he should talk to Arnold (formerly the Happiest Terminator-turned-Governor on Earth) Schwarzenegger.

-- Ashley Powers

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Photo: Oscar Goodman at his office. Credit: Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times

Now Nevadans weigh in on gay rights -- the casinos too

 

While Californians plot their next moves in the battle over gay marriage, activists in Nevada are struggling to secure rights for domestic partners.

Despite their libertarian leanings, Nevada voters twice backed a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. But the Legislature recently passed a bill that bestows domestic partners – gay and straight – with essentially the same rights as married couples. Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons vetoed the bill -- saying only voters should grant marriage-like rights to unmarried couples – and it’s unclear whether the bill’s supporters can round up enough votes to override it.

But the bill has some powerful backers -- the state’s gaming companies, which are sometimes referred to as Nevada’s Fourth Estate, who are alarmed that, if it fails, LGBT tourists might boycott the Strip.

In the early '90s, gay-rights supporters called for a boycott of Colorado after voters approved a ban on anti-discrimination laws protecting gays and lesbians. Officials said the state lost millions of dollars in convention business. In a recent letter to Nevada lawmakers, Jan Jones, senior vice president of Harrah’s Entertainment, pointedly said the financially ailing state couldn’t afford “to lose any more revenue to other destinations because of a reputation as a place which is not socially or politically the right place to do business or to vacation.”

And MGM Mirage spokesman Alan Feldman recently told The Advocate, a leading gay publication: “We make a very real, concerted effort on a lot of these issues, and to have the sense that you're fighting against your own state is very frustrating.”

Another of the bill's supporters, incidentally, is someone who knows both the downs and the ups of marriage: Dawn Gibbons, the governor's estranged wife.

-- Ashley Powers

Top photo: Las Vegas' iconic welcome sign. Credit: Associated Press.  Bottom photo: Jim Gibbons. Credit: Associated Press

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Obama, back from Hollywood, tackles Mideast peace. Hmmm, is there a reality TV show in there?

In the early weeks of his presidency, Barack Obama felt hemmed in by the Washington bubble.

Tom Daschle, his nominee to be secretary of Health and Human Services, was hitting some unexpected bumps in Congress as senators raised questions about a certain $120,000 bill in unpaid taxes. Eventually the former Senate majority leader took himself out of the running.

Republicans were voting in lock step against the president's economic stimulus package. Eventually, the $787-billion bill passed with only three Republican votes, including one from Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter, who's now a Democrat.

So Obama told his aides that he wanted to get out of Washington every so often, to do an occasional town hall, field a question from a critic, have an impromptu meal at a local dive, feel the love.

Today he returned from a two-day trip to Nevada and California, where he raised more than $6 million for the Democratic National Committee, mingled with the stars and celebrities in Hollywood, even made his peace with officials in Nevada still smarting over the president's admonition to companies like AIG getting government bailout money not to take junkets in Las Vegas on the taxpayer's dime.

Now he returns to an even trickier negotiation. Meeting this afternoon with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the Oval Office, followed by a private session with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama is hoping to lay the groundwork for his trip to Egypt next week.

Talk about getting out of town.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Photo: Jason Reed / Reuters

Special Ticket Report: Illinois politics, Rod Blagojevich and Barack Obama

Because of the federal arrests today of Illinois Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff on charges involving, in effect, selling the nomination to replace Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate, the Ticket is republishing a Special Report backgrounder that first appeared here in April.

It examined the frequently seamy world of Illinois politics in general and specifically the case involving Antoin "Tony" Rezko, onetime political patron of now-President-elect Barack Obama, and his ally, the current governor, who despite his arrest retains the right to appoint the new senator.

Although the run-of-the-mill political/financial back scratching that occurs routinely in Illinois and Chicago and sometimes crosses the line into corruption got scant attention from the national media during this year's presidential campaign, which focused on change and reform, it is a daily fact of life in the Land of Lincoln.

Illinois' last governor, George Ryan, a Republican, is now serving time in federal prison for selling favors. Before him there was former Gov. Otto Kerner and numerous others who ran afoul of the law, including one secretary of State whose apartment was found packed with shoe boxes of checks worth millions from applicants for driver's licenses.

It's an, uh, interesting state. Here's the previous Ticket item:

The trial of Antoin “Tony” Rezko, onetime patron to Sen. Barack Obama and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, has turned lurid.

Under cross-examination by Rezko attorney Joseph Duffy, star prosecution witness Stuart Levine, a Chicago-area lawyer, is admitting to conspiracy, extortion, bribery, fraud and other bad acts while he "served" at the Illinois public school teachers pension fund board.

At Duffy's urging, Levine is detailing 30 years of drug usage including sordid day-long binges with other men at a Chicago inn called the Purple Hotel. Rezko's attorney Duffy is wondering whether all that cocaine, crystal meth and other drug use has perhaps fogged Levine's memory.

That aside, much of the trial's focus is on money -- much of it given in the form of campaign money in the careers of Obama and Blagojevich.

It’s an unfolding, seemingly local political story that’s fascinating in its revealing details about the subterranean world of business, financial and family connections in Illinois and Chicago politics that helped take a virtually unknown black Chicago attorney, nurtured him politically and financially and turned him into....

War? Healthcare? Energy? Recession? Let's play poker

At a time of war and economic troubles, legislation on Internet gambling may not be high on President-elect Barack Obama’s to-do list.

But the issue is about to rear its head in Washington, in Sacramento and perhaps in other states in the coming year.

Internet gambling mogul Ruth Parasol and her husband, Russ DeLeon, retained Fleishman-Hillard Government Relations back in August and paid $30,000 to the firm to lobby on Internet gambling issues in the third quarter of 2008, Fleishman's latest filing shows.

Parasol grew up in Mill Valley in Northern California. But given her business, she is said to make her home overseas, in Gibraltar. Parasol made her millions by co-founding PartyPoker.com.

The business took a turn for the worse when Congress successfully sought to make Internet gambling illegal in 2006. That's no doubt where Fleishman would come in, although lobbyists there have not returned phone calls.

Meanwhile, back in Sacramento, lobbyists are contemplating legislation that would legalize Internet poker to be played solely within the boundaries of California.

Rodney Blonien, who represents California Commerce Club and Hollywood Park Casino, said current federal law would permit intrastate gambling over the Internet. As it is, he estimated, 2 million Californians a week gamble on Internet sites based offshore.

"There is a lot of money made and lost. It is completely unregulated," Blonien said.

The legislation could be of benefit to California, he said, noting: "It could be a significant source of revenue to the state."

The state could receive tens of millions of dollars a year, he said. Perhaps Arnold Schwarzenegger would be interested, given that California's budget deficit now is estimated to exceed $27.8 billion.

-- Dan Morain

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Photo: Karen Bleier / AFP/Getty Images

Joe Biden once took PAC money but now is PAC-pure

Barack Obama makes a point of rejecting money from political action committees, condemning them as a symbol of what’s wrong with insider politics in Washington.

Obama’s campaign aides have slapped at Republican John McCain’s decision to take PAC money. But now that Joe Biden has joined the ticket, Obama’s criticism of McCain might become muted.

Biden has taken significant amounts of PAC money over the years--$475,000, or more than 20% of the $2.3 million he has raised since 2005 for his Unite Our States leadership account, established to help fund other Democrats’ races.

Federal Election Commission records show that firms whose PACs have donated to Biden include Rupert Murdoch’s News America, Microsoft and Safeway. He took the PAC donations from 2005 through mid-2008, with $141,800 coming this year.

Most of the money--$279,000--came from organized labor, including $11,000 from postal workers and $25,000 from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which has a stake in congressional decisions.

Additionally, Biden has taken at least $44,750 from political action committees funded by plaintiffs’ attorneys, including $10,890 from the Assn. of Trial Lawyers of America.

Some law firms whose PACs have donated to Biden’s leadership committee have....

John McCain's meeting with a casino exec causes brief flurry

Reporters on John McCain's campaign plane were stunned Friday to learn that the presumptive Republican nominee had scheduled a private meeting with Tony Alamo this weekend in Las Vegas. A quick Google search finds:

In 1985 Alamo targeted the Pope and then-president Ronald Reagan. "Did you know that the Pope and Ronald Reagan are a couple of Anti-Christ Devils and that they are selling us all down the drain?" asked a tract entitled "Genocide." A federal grand jury in Memphis, Tennessee, charged Alamo with filing a false income tax return in 1985 and he failed to file returns during the following three years... Alamo was ultimately arrested on tax-related charges and was convicted in 1994. He completed a six-year federal sentence, and then went to a halfway house in Texarkana [Texas].

McCain's campaign aides quickly batted down that salacious story, however. McCain will meet a different Tony Alamo, this one the general manager of the Mandalay Bay hotel and casino in Las Vegas, they said, not the renegade preacher.

Still, the meeting might have an awkward moment or two. According to a report published on Feb. 21, 2003, in Boxing News, McCain injected himself into an ethics dispute involving the Alamo family, and sent a letter (pasted after the jump) to then-Gov. Kenny C. Guinn urging a review of the appointment of Alamo's son to the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

-- Bob Drogin

In satirical payback, Obama camp denies New Yorker writer plane seat

There's probably no connection whatsoever.

But the New Yorker writer Ryan Lizza, whose long, long article on Barack Obama's early political days in Chicago's ward politics (available here) was the reason for the magazine's controversial cover by Barry Blitt depicting Obama as a Muslim, has been barred from traveling with Obama on his foreign field trip this week.

The elitist magazine claimed the cover's depiction was satirical of a Muslim Obama fist-bumping with a militant wife Michelle armed with an AK-47 beneath a portrait of Osama bin Laden while they burn a U.S. flag -- in the Oval Office.

Initially, the Obama campaign and John McCain's spokesman denounced the cover.

Later, a cooler Obama dismissed it as a weak attempt at satire amid much more important things to discuss.

More than 200 media folks applied to fly in Europe with the freshman senator. But, alas, the Obama campaign said it simply was not able to find a seat for Lizza. (Overdue hat tip to Mike Allen at Politico.com)

Now, that's Chicago politics.

-- Andrew Malcolm