NV-03: DCCC Finds a Foe For Porter

Has the DCCC found its man to challenge Republican Jon Porter of Nevada?  According to Roll Call, local Democrats are breathing a sigh of relief that Clark County deputy district attorney Robert Daskas plans to officially enter the race in a few weeks:

Roll Call has learned that after a number of discussions with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Clark County prosecutor Robert Daskas plans to file as a House candidate with the Federal Election Commission by summer’s end if not sooner – provided he sails through the final vetting stages of the DCCC’s recruiting process.

“He’s been in talks with the DCCC,” said one Democratic source, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the recruitment process. “[Daskas] is one they’re focusing on at this point.”

Daskas’ presumptive candidacy would come after months of DCCC failures to field a high-profile challenger to Porter, who Democrats say is increasingly vulnerable in a pure swing suburban Las Vegas district. A Democratic poll from April suggests that just more than one-quarter of local voters want to re-elect Porter and about one-third “want to consider someone else.”

The Garin Hart Yang survey of 405 likely voters, conducted March 13-17, had a 4.9-point margin of error.

Indeed: after flying below the top-tier radar for much of the 2006 campaign, former Harry Reid aide Tessa Hafen surged in the closing weeks of the campaign, eventually falling short of toppling Porter by 1% and less than 4,000 votes in the propeller-shaped third district.  Close elections are par for the course in this district: Al Gore won this area by 1% in 2000, and Bush edged Kerry by that same margin in 2004.

Is Daskas the right guy to send Porter (an apt name for a reliable bagman of the Bush Administration) packing?  If he runs this kind of campaign, I could dig it:

A Daskas candidacy likely would hammer away at Porter’s perceived ties to major White House policy blunders. Last year, Porter voted with the White House 93 percent of the time. In 2007, he voted to approve of the troop escalation in Iraq but was one of 51 House Republicans who voted to override President Bush’s veto of expanded stem-cell research funding.

“He’s been blanket support in the war in Iraq,” a Democratic source said. “He’s a puppet for the Bush administration and every frustration that people have with the Bush administration … they need to realize that Jon Porter is a staunch supporter.”

It may be common sense on this side of the fence, but Republicans like Porter can’t seem to get this simple fact through their thick skulls: 2006 was Round One of the referendum on Iraq.  2008 could very likely be Round Two.