The Pahrump Valley Times - Dems Look To Regain Voter Clout In 2006

April 22, 2005

FIGHTING WORDS

Dems Look To Regain Voter Clout In 2006

TITUS REVEALS AMBITION TO RUN FOR NEVADA GOVERNOR NEXT YEAR; LOCALS VOW SUPPORT

By PHILLIP GOMEZ

Nye County Democrats came out to hear Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Sen. Dina Titus, standing, and other party leaders Saturday at the Willow Creek clubhouse. The Democrats looked to history for guidance on how to reenergize the party after two-time losses to Republicans.

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Gearing up for the off-year elections of November 2006, Democrats - a rare breed in Nye County, at least in public - say that to regain political power nationally and in Nevada they must take the offensive against a Republican party that has "lied and misrepresented" the heirs of the party's kingpins, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson.

Some 75 local Democrats turned out for the traditional Jefferson-Jackson Birthday Banquet at the Willow Creek Golf Course clubhouse Saturday to greet Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Sen. Dina Titus.

The tone of the gathering was one of spirited defiance of the ideals of dominant Republicans in the governor's chair, the Nevada Senate and in Washington, D.C.

"Let's get back what we deserve ... in our principles," said Brian Kunzi, a Nevada Deputy Attorney General. The Republicans, he said, were "the party of righteousness." Kunzi said he was particularly bothered by Republicans' identification with "family values."

"It's really troublesome," he said. "We as Democrats need to start pushing our own agenda and not be afraid of what we stand for."

Republicans in recent years have successfully branded Democrats as elitist, liberal extremists and out-of-touch with common American values.

"They say they are for small government, but look at the hypocrisy of Republicans in trying to regulate what we do in our homes," Kunzi said. "Look at Yucca Mountain," where 'sound science' was supposed to govern evaluation of the nuclear repository project, but has instead resulted in watered-down scientific standards for protecting Nevada's underground aquifer. "They're just dumbing up evidence," he said.

Kunzi was also critical of Republicans' social conservatism, comparing Southern segregationists, who stood on principal against the 1960s civil rights movement, to present-day Republican party resistance against other measures for social progress.

"It's shocking when you look at the Southern Manifesto," the segregationist South's stand against social integration of African-Americans into public schools in the wake of the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (Kansas).

"It wasn't so much the decision itself, but the reaction from this Southern conservative group," he said. "The Southern Manifesto said the Supreme Court decision was destroying the school system because it planted seeds of hatred and divisiveness.

"This is now the mainstream of the Republican party."

Republicans consider every constitutional amendment after the 13th Amendment, ratified at the end of the Civil War, illegitimate, Kunzi said. Referring to the courts' traditional interpretation of the 14th Amendment throughout the 20th century as guaranteeing a personal right to privacy, Kunzi said, "It doesn't say anything in the (original) Constitution about rights to privacy; the Constitution didn't say anything about our (individual) rights. It was about the government.

"The Republicans want to flip it around."

Kunzi closed his introductory remarks by reading the lyrics of rock singer John Mellancamp's song "Walk Tall":

"Be careful what you believe in,

There's plenty to get you confused

And in this land called paradise,

You must walk in many men's shoes ..."

The state chairwoman for the Democrats, Adriana Martinez, said, "I was told we didn't have any Democrats in Pahrump," adding that the embattled group was her favorite Democratic Party subgroup in the state.

"I know you all get tired," Martinez said. But the governor's race next year is the most important race for Dems to win, she said, "if we have a Democrat at the helm it's going to be easier to turn blue again (in the 2008 presidential race)."

Blue was in reference to the color code used in recent past national elections in map analyses of the electorate: red for Republicans and blue for Democrats.

Democrats will lose again in Nevada if those in the rural counties don't turn out to vote, Martinez said. "This is a good beginning."

Sen. Titus said it was appropriate that Jefferson and Jackson were the honored namesakes of the Democrats' annual gatherings.

"They are the heart and soul of our party," Titus said, "the spark and the spunk." Jefferson, the theoretical scholar, and Jackson, the fighting populist, represented the two sides of Democratic ideals down through the decades of American history. Jefferson believed ardently in the people themselves as the "safest repository of the powers of government," while Jackson stood for taking collective action when the crucial time came to stop deliberating and make a decision.

"Jackson the fighter knew when the time for action arrived, to stop thinking and go in," Titus said. Asserting that the time was ripe for a Jacksonian moment - when Democrats should come out of their wilderness of self-doubt - she said to wild applause, "It is time to stop thinking and go in.

"We have kind of lost our spunk," she said. "We allowed them to do it to us. They stole our message. They lied about Kerry. We have got to figure out a way to turn our good policy ideas into a sound bite.

"We have to play offense, not just defense. We have to have a message of what we stand for."

Going on the offensive against the Bush Republicans, Titus said they have over-spent on defense in the war in Iraq. She mentioned the Republican ploy to intervene in the private matter of Terry Schiavo's life and death. "That is too much," Titus said. "Government should not be trying to make those kinds of decisions.

"And look at Tom DeLay, overspending in going after independent judges," she said.

Titus rhetorically called for recruiting (former first lady) Hillary Clinton "to get some of that spunk back.

"People in Nevada are not partisans," she said. "They vote for the person. We just have to make sure the best person on the ticket is a Democrat. The message we have to put out there is; you don't have to be a pilot to be a patriot.

"While (Republican Rep. and possible gubernatorial candidate) Jim Gibbons has been on the back bench in Congress, we have been on the frontlines in Nevada," Titus said. As a senator in the Democratic minority for the past 16 years, Titus said the experience has only made her "more of a fighter."

"I'm willing to take it to the streets ... all the way to the capitol," she said.

History showed that the favored party is the "out" party in off-year elections, Titus said.

Dr. Frank Toppo, Pahrump's champion of veterans' causes, who also spoke briefly, turned to Titus and said: "The one guy you're going to be running against is going to be presenting himself as a vet. Call on me and I'll kick his butt up and down the state."

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