In party eyes, Ensign’s mettle may offset result

Nevada Sen. John Ensign could very well preside over the biggest electoral loss of Republican Senate seats in 30 years, yet emerge after the election well positioned for promotion up the ranks of party leadership.

The Republican Senate campaign committee, which Ensign heads, is coming up short by any measure in its effort to win Senate seats. It failed to recruit A-list challengers to Democratic incumbents, essentially giving many sitting Democrats a free pass to reelection.

The committee was unable to raise enough money to match the TV war Democrats are waging.

And as campaign organizations deploy teams to get out the vote, the Republican ground game lags the Democrats.

The result is that for the first time in a generation, Republican senators could lose enough races to give Democrats a 60-seat majority, enabling Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to pass legislation without obstruction by Republican filibusters.

Ensign’s predecessor at the campaign committee, North Carolina Sen. Elizabeth Dole, was roundly criticized when Republicans lost six Senate seats in 2006.

But Ensign is so far escaping a similar fate. He is seen as a team player who stepped up to take the campaign job no one else wanted.

“John Ensign’s got a lot of chits out there,” said a Republican aide, who was granted anonymity to speak freely. “It’s a strategy that’s paid Sen. Ensign some dividends and helped him weather this storm.”

Republicans note that the climate is dismal for Republicans this year, that presidential nominee John McCain is trailing in the polls and President Bush is highly unpopular.

Ensign began his tenure as head of the election effort with a “two-state” strategy — the party needed to pick up just two seats to tip control of the Senate, divided at 51-49, back to Republican.

Today, that goal is long gone.

“Everyone knew it was going to be a very rotten time frame, and it’s become worse than anyone expected, but I don’t think anyone attributes that to them,” said one senior Republican aide.

“I think most of them would say, ‘What the hell was John Ensign supposed to do?’ ”

As Election Day approaches, Ensign is warning that Democrats are within sight of a 60-seat majority. Even the party’s leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, is threatened. If Republicans lose a handful of seats but not enough to give Democrats 60, Ensign might even be credited with victory.

Ensign took over as head of the election effort in late 2006. His trouble began as he failed to recruit top-tier candidates to challenge the 11 incumbent Democrats up for reelection. In Arkansas, for example, where a first-term Democratic senator is seeking reelection, Republicans have no candidate.

Ensign has said it was difficult to persuade candidates to run because Republicans are so unpopular. He said he promised several million dollars in support for Montana Rep. Dennis Rehberg to challenge Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, only to be rebuffed.

The eventual Republican challenger is an octogenarian perennial candidate who goes unnamed on Ensign’s committee Web site.

Without having to defend their seats, Democrats were left to go on offense.

“If there was sort of a failure I would think it was more on the front end of the cycle with candidate recruitment,” a Republican congressional aide said. “You can’t blame Ensign because some of our incumbents are in trouble. What’s frustrating is that so many Democrats are getting a pass that shouldn’t.”

But Ensign played an uneven role in pushing candidates forward — or, more important, stopping those such as New Mexico Rep. Steve Pearce, who now is seen as too conservative to win statewide.

Former Rep. Scott McInnis, who stepped aside in Colorado so candidate Bob Schaffer could run for the open Republican seat, now says Ensign forced him out of the race in favor of the more conservative candidate, who is trailing in the polls.

“John made it very clear up front that their pick was Bob Schaffer,” McInnis told the Denver Post.

In fundraising, Ensign set out to match the $119 million his Democratic counterpart, New York Sen. Charles Schumer, raised for the 2006 election. The effort fell short, even with MGM Mirage and Station Casinos among top donors.

Ensign complained that fellow senators weren’t contributing and this summer brazenly announced he would buy $44 million of TV time on the assumption other senators would pony up.

When the money didn’t come in, Ensign dashed off a retort that raised eyebrows and spread the responsibility. As a Republican Senate aide put it: “He created a paper trail. At least nobody can come to him and say, ‘Hey, you didn’t see the tsunami coming.’ ”

Now Democrats are outspending Republicans 2-to-1 in some battleground states and even making races out of contests in the South: in Georgia, Mississippi and Kentucky.

After the election, Ensign is expected to seek his party’s No. 4 job in the Senate, as chairman of the Republican Policy Committee.