GOP team boss likes chances of (TBA)

By Lisa Mascaro

Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009 | 2 a.m.

To Republicans it’s almost unbelievable, the way Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, with dismal poll numbers and a huge political target on his back, still has no serious challenger for his 2010 election.

The head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, a campaign arm of the party, had said he hoped to announce a candidate within weeks. That was in late June.

When asked Wednesday what his new deadline was for securing a challenger, the committee chairman, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, said his answer remained the same: in several weeks.

Finding a viable opponent has been difficult, but Cornyn acknowledged that fellow Republican Sen. John Ensign’s affair has further altered the political landscape in Nevada.

Without mentioning Ensign by name, Cornyn hinted at what has been understood ever since Ensign went public with his affair in June: No Republican wants to jump into the Nevada race in the midst of the drip, drip, drip of scandal.

As Ensign subsequently disclosed that his wealthy parents had given the woman and her family $96,000 as a gift, it further charged the political atmosphere in Nevada. An ethics group wants the payment investigated as a potential campaign finance violation.

“There’s been a lot happening in Nevada that has created some uncertainty about what the political environment will be there for a Republican candidate,” Cornyn told reporters at a morning briefing.

That said, with Reid’s poll numbers nose-diving back home, Cornyn remains optimistic that when he does have a candidate to field against Reid, the campaign “will be gangbusters.”

Cornyn floated a new line of attack, linking Reid’s 34 percent approval rating to that of fellow Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, who is facing an uphill reelection battle next fall.

“The Dodd-Reid problem that the Democrats have, I think, will portend good things for us in those states,” Cornyn said.

But the Republican Party’s main template for the Reid challenge has long been envisioned as a repeat of the 2004 race that toppled then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota.

In that race, then-Rep. John Thune waited until January to officially enter the race, then received an outpouring of financial support nationwide to defeat the majority leader.

“This has the potential to be another Thune-Daschle-type race that will energize an awful lot of our supporters all around the country,” Cornyn said.

The chairman suggested the race in Nevada will be so high-profile that it will bring in support, even if a candidate enters later than usual.

“With the right candidate against Harry Reid, money will not be a problem,” he said.

Republicans have been heavily courting Republican Rep. Dean Heller, even having former President George W. Bush dial him up to nudge him to run.

Cornyn said Heller would be a “formidable opponent and I think could and would beat Reid. We’d love to have him run,” Cornyn said.

Reid has been amassing endorsements, raising money and touting his work back home, preparing for an assertive campaign to win his fifth term in the Senate.

He plans on raising $25 million, and is almost halfway there, and Cornyn on Wednesday was hesitant to commit to matching that sum.

Reid campaign manager Brandon Hall said Republicans are talking so much about polling reports because “they don’t have anything to say about how to improve Nevada’s economy or make health care more affordable.”

“We’re going to run our campaign on Sen. Reid’s record based on his 30 years of public service to the state of Nevada — what he’s doing to make the economy better and health care more affordable,” Hall said.

Reid knew early on, even as Daschle was being defeated, that he would be the next target, and started planning accordingly.

The Democratic Party in Nevada has been enhanced under Reid’s watch into a machine that has given Democrats the edge in voter registration and delivered the state for Barack Obama in the presidential campaign last fall.

“Sen. Reid knows he’s got a campaign to run in 2010,” Hall said. “We’re doing everything we need to do to run an aggressive campaign and make the case to Nevadans what Reid’s leadership means to the state.”

Republicans had trouble courting a challenger even before the Ensign affair.

Several leading contenders, including former Republican Rep. Jon Porter, declined to run.

Other candidates remain in the wings, having suggested they want to take on Reid, including former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle, banker John Chachas and state Sen. Mark Amodei. They have not yet received the committee’s blessing.

That leads to a question: At what point, if Republicans don’t get the candidate they want, do they settle for another?

Word is Cornyn hopes to have an answer by September.

“We have time,” he said, “although it’s not open-ended.”

Cornyn, incidentally, on Wednesday declined to endorse Ensign’s own reelection bid.

Ensign does not face reelection until the next cycle, in 2012, but Cornyn has said he may serve two terms as chairman, which would put him in charge when Ensign is up.

“I’m really not going to comment on 2012 now,” he said.