Sunday, Nov. 5, 2006 | 8:07 a.m.
If voters in Nevada's 3rd Congressional District want to learn the truth about Rep. Jon Porter and his Democratic opponent, Tessa Hafen, probably the best thing they can do is turn off their televisions - and ignore the political fliers stuffing their mailboxes.
The constant bombardment of negative TV ads and mailers from Porter and, to a lesser extent, Hafen, has created a confusing maze of claims and counterclaims, giving voters an incomplete - and inaccurate - picture of the two candidates.
In some cases, their ads have attacked their opponent for a position that both candidates share. In others, part of the story is simply left out.
To hear Porter - more specifically, mailers sent out by the Nevada Republican Party on his behalf - tell it, Hafen "thinks we're made out of money," "plans to hand out Social Security benefits to illegal immigrants" at the Rio Grande and "supports amnesty for illegal immigrants."
Hafen can - and does - refute each of those charges. But a mailer from the Nevada Democratic Party offers a shorter, umbrella response: "We can't trust Jon Porter to tell the truth."
Add it all up, and voters are left wondering who - or what - to believe.
"Voters often get confused by ads because they see dueling claims and it's hard for them to sort out the truth," said Darrell West, a political science professor at Brown University and an expert in campaign television advertising.
"Sometimes they tune out. Sometimes people who aren't paying much attention to politics may believe some of the attacks."
The immigration issue is a case in point.
Porter spent more than $1.2 million over the past month on TV ads, with much of that aimed at Hafen and her position on immigration.
In Porter's newest ad, an announcer asks: "Why would Tessa Hafen call the toughest border security bill in Congress narrow-minded, and why would she support liberal ideas like Social Security for illegals, free passes for those who break our laws and even paying some illegals more than Americans for the same jobs? Because she is a Washington liberal."
The ad seeks to exploit the volatile issue in Porter's favor by defining his relatively unknown opponent.
The problem is that the claim is not true.
Porter's camp argues that because Hafen has said she supports the Senate bill on immigration, she supports the measures outlined in the ad.
There is some debate, however, over whether the bill would in fact lead to some of those results. In addition, Hafen has said publicly several times that she opposes some aspects of the Senate bill, including the provision that would allow immigrants to collect Social Security for work done before they were authorized to work here.
She also opposes amnesty and supports a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, but only if they are required to pay fines and learn English - a position similar to Porter's.
She called the House immigration bill that Porter voted in favor of "narrow-minded," she said, because while it strengthens the border and clamps down on illegal immigration, it does nothing to deal with illegal immigrants already here.
In her own ad, Hafen attacks Porter for supporting President Bush's plan on immigration.
"Jon Porter and George Bush agree on almost everything," the ad says. "On Iraq, cutting veterans' benefits and Bush's immigration plan - a plan Porter called amnesty. And Porter's done nothing to penalize employers for hiring illegal immigrants."
The problem is that Hafen also supports Bush's plan.
Bush's comprehensive call for tougher border security, a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship if certain hurdles are cleared mirrors the Senate legislation that Hafen supports.
In short, says David Damore, a UNLV political science professor, "Their positions are the same."
The danger, he said, is that "voters don't know that."
For the undecided voters only now tuning into the campaign, the more visible message is likely to be the one they believe.
"Immigration is a hot-button issue that moves people. It is easy to play to stereotypes on that issue," said West, author of "Air Wars: Television Advertising in Political Campaigns."
"A lot of time the stereotype is stronger than reality," he added.
The verbal gymnastics over the immigration issue are only part of the confusing picture painted by the candidates' ads.
Earlier , Porter's ads attempted to paint Hafen as a carpetbagger who "moved to Nevada to run for Congress."
He has backed off that claim in more recent ads, which more subtly suggest Hafen is a "Washington liberal."
The less direct line of attack is likely the result of a backlash from the earlier ads.
Hafen, a 30-year-old Henderson native, left Nevada to attend college and then to work for eight years for U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, primarily as his press secretary.
But her deep family roots helped dilute Porter's arguments about her residency. Her father, Andy Hafen, is a longtime Henderson councilman and Hafen's grandfather opened one of the community's oldest businesses, Hafen's OK Tires.
"I don't think those got much traction," Damore said of Porter's earlier ads.
Other claims in the candidates' ads aren't false, but they don't tell the whole story. In many cases the campaigns use a singular provision that, with tweezerlike precision, has been pulled out of a much larger bill or a series of votes.
In two separate ads - one paid for by Hafen's campaign and the other funded by a political action committee of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans - veterans attack Porter for voting to cut veterans' benefits. The latter features a veteran in a wheelchair, who says the cuts may have made sense from where Porter was sitting in Congress, "but not from where I'm sitting."
The claims in the ads are true - as far as they go.
Porter voted for a budget resolution that cut roughly $1 billion through 2010 from veterans' program s, and he cast the deciding vote - after initially voting for the measure - against a $1,500 troop bonus proposed by Democrats.
Porter's campaign, however, argues that the ads ignore other important facts - notably, a $12 billion increase over the last two years in the budget for veterans and a 16 percent increase over the last two years in veterans' medical care funding.
Porter is airing his own ad featuring a former guardsman and Marine, who praises Porter's efforts in bringing a VA hospital to Southern Nevada.
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