Given what has transpired over the past week, I think it’s
important that we begin setting our sights not only on House
members who betrayed our trust, but also the leadership that
encouraged and enabled it. That’s why I’m jumping in early on the
Nevada race to do my part.
Perhaps not surprisingly given the kind of leadership
America is seeing in Washington, Republicans — and more
important — conservatives are blessed with an embarrassment of
riches when it comes to candidates. Across the country,
conservatives committed to our nation’s founding principles are
stepping up and challenging Democrats in local and state
elections.
Nevada is no different. In the Senate race to defeat Senate
Democrat Leader Harry Reid, we have several candidates who want
the opportunity to challenge and defeat him. Each candidate has
different skills and a particular constituency. But to defeat a
sitting Senate Majority Leader will take someone with the “total
package” — an experienced leader, who has run the political and
public gauntlet, who can raise money on a national level and who
can clearly communicate their principles. For Nevada, that person
is Sue Lowden.
In the health care legislation fight, we’ve just seen what
a liberal majority in Congress, backed by a radicalized White
House, is capable of. There is no better way to send a
Chicago-style message to Barack Obama and his team, than to take
out one his ringleaders next November — Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid, a man who quaintly promises to “vaporize” his
Republican challenger.
Conservatives have just emerged from a bruising fight, but
there are more fights to come: over a federal budget that the CBO
says will increase publicly held debt to $20.3 trillion, or 90
percent of GDP in 2020; over immigration, over tax increase
proposals, over federal and Supreme Court nominations. And the
point man for all of this for Obama in the Senate will be Harry
Reid.
This is a man who says our economy is experiencing “robust
growth” and thinks it’s good news when “only” 36,000 Americans
lose their jobs. This is a man who has not met a tax or spending
cut he liked. This is a man who shows his concern for women by
claiming that their unemployed husbands may become
spouse-abusers. This is a man who at one time claimed to be
pro-life, but who has rubber-stamped every liberal judicial
nominee to pass his desk, and who cared so much about reassuring
liberals that Sonia Sotomayor, their
“5th vote”, would keep
Roe v. Wade the law of the land, that he said, “I
understand that during her career she has written hundreds and
hundreds of opinions. I haven’t read a single one of them. And if
I’m fortunate…I won’t have to read one of them.”
For years, Republicans have been looking for someone strong
enough to stand up to Reid and his bullying political ways and to
send him home permanently. This year, we have a candidate to do
just that in Lowden.
While there are other Republican candidates in this race, I
am convinced Sue is the only conservative Republican with the
toughness and experience to go toe-to-toe with former boxer Harry
Reid. Harry seems to be acknowledging that, because Sue is the
only Republican who Reid is regularly attacking. Beyond promising
to “vaporize” her, the Las Vegas Review Journal
reported, he has set his organized labor thugs against her
back in Nevada. Recently, when Sue held a fundraising event in
Washington, Harry actually had his staff in front of the
restaurant where the event was being held taking pictures of
anyone who entered the event. Think maybe he’s a worried just a
bit about Sue?
Polling indicates Sue can win this race. If the election
were held today she’d knock out Reid by 13 points; 52% of
Nevadans would vote him out of the Senate. And within Sue’s
Republican primary race she holds an 18-point margin, 47 to 29
percent. In the first quarter of the year, she’s raised almost a
million dollars, far more than any other candidate. Her
fundraising prowess nationally will be important, because Reid
has promised to raise $25 million to keep his job.
Sue is the conservative in the race who can win, and she
has the experience and record that shows she won’t fold on us
when she comes to Washington. As a Nevada state senator, she
fought off special interests when she chaired the senate taxation
committee, and blocked higher taxes. She promised her
constituents their taxes would not be increased, and she kept her
promise. As Republican State Party chair, Sue knows what it takes
to run a winning campaign in a state where Republicans have won
statewide before, and will again.
Perhaps most important, on issues that go directly to our
conservative values of personal freedom, free markets, the rule
of law and respect for life, she’s rock solid. She signed tax and
government reform pledges with Americans for Tax Reform,
Americans for Prosperity, Club for Growth, and Citizens Against
Government Waste. Sue has received an A+ from the NRA and is a
strong supporter of our 2nd Amendment rights, has a strong record
on cutting taxes and opposing tax increases, supports the
appointment of judges who understand their role in the courts. On
the issue of life, the past week has made it clear to us what it
means to be a “pro-life” Democrat. Sue has made it clear she
knows where she stands and how she will legislate. She will be
pro-life. Today, that means a bit more than it did a week
ago
Sue has the private sector experience of balancing a
budget, paying payrolls and bills, to understand what it takes to
grow a business and create new jobs. Harry Reid? Like so many of
Obama’s cronies, he’s never held a private sector job. Isn’t it
time we helped him check that box?
