Tom Collins

Sunday, June 4, 2006 | 7:31 a.m.

Tom Collins sat behind the wheel of his Ford F-350 Truck, alternately hitting the brakes and the gas with his boots. From beneath his cowboy hat, he stared with wide-open, shocking blue eyes at the BMW trying to merge into his lane.

"Turn on your blinker and I'll let you in. Turn on your blinker or else I'll hit you right in the bumper!" Collins warned as the sides of the vehicles' nearly touched.

The driver had no choice but to yield and fall in behind Collins, where he could plainly read the state Democratic Party chairman's bumper sticker: "Eat Beef: The West wasn't won on salad."

As a child, Collins lived on and off with one parent or another, or with his grandparents.

He got into his first fistfight in elementary school. Chased by a boy in the neighborhood, Collins took refuge inside his grandmother's house. Grandma offered little consolation, though. She picked up a belt and told Collins if he didn't stand up to the boy outside, she would whup him instead. Collins came back into the house with a nasty shiner.

He met his wife, Kathy, after he stole her car in high school. Seeing keys in the ignition of a car in front of a friend's house, he hopped in and revved the engine. Kathy, then 17, jumped in just as he took off. Their first unofficial date consisted of jumping railroad tracks at 90 mph, Collins said.

He attended Texas Tech University. "I was there to ride bulls and drink scotch."

As a rodeo cowboy in his 20s and 30s, Collins traveled the West, getting into occasional bar fights. In the 1980s, he racked up two misdemeanor battery convictions, one for hitting a man who Collins said stole money from him and the other for grabbing a man by the tie and punching him repeatedly in the face, breaking his nose and severing nerves in his face.

"I was just tougher than the other guy," Collins said. "That's the short answer."

He worked most of his adult years as a journeyman lineman with Nevada Power, where his risky lifestyle found a home among wires carrying high-voltage electricity.

Then in 1991, he crashed a truck after a few drinks, leaving him unconscious for three days and injuring passengers James and Robert Combs of a prominent farming family. Collins' blood alcohol level was below the legal limit. An initial drunken driving charge was reduced to reckless driving, but the crash changed things for Collins.

"That's kind of what changed my life, from thinking I was invincible and being rough and rowdy," Collins said. "After that is when I cleaned up, knocked off the drinking."

Over the next few years, Collins won a state Assembly seat, started his own electrical contracting business and saw his first grandson born.

Now he raises cattle for local school and college rodeos and is considered by those closest to him one of the most neighborly men they know. A Mormon, he has even taught Sunday school.

"When I was 25, I never thought I'd live this long," said Collins, 55. "Now that I'm this age, I have to do things differently."

But whatever tameness has come over Collins, the bawdiness of his past still survives in his politics. He talks casually about killing Republicans.

Within days of winning the chairmanship in April, Collins showed up outside President Bush's fundraiser for Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., at the Venetian. He told the press Bush should "be ashamed to come to Nevada" and called Porter a "puppet."

During a recent two-day sweep of rural towns, Collins called Bush a "jerk" for cutting social programs.

"There's absolutely no filter between his brain and his mouth," said Rory Reid, a fellow commissioner and former state party chairman. "That's refreshing - most of the time."

Despite his often explosive rhetoric, Collins is in many ways a moderate Democrat. He supported the statewide initiative to ban same-sex marriage, is opposed to abortion and, in addition to the "Eat Beef" on his bumper, his truck sports a National Rifle Association sticker.

His moderation has led to some division among party stalwarts, as was evident at the state Democratic convention where he was elected two months ago.

Initially, Collins was considered a favorite, having spent more than a thousand dollars on slick mailers and signs.

But some in the party thought Collins favored Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson in the primary for governor. As a result, many backers of state Sen. Dina Titus threw their support behind a Collins opponent, former Assemblywoman Marcia de Braga of Fallon. Enjoying appeal in rural and northern parts of the state, de Braga lost to Collins by only a dozen votes out of more than 450.

"I was told - and this is not my opinion - that the convention was a referendum on the Gibson and Titus primary," Collins said.

Collins and Gibson both are Mormon and generally perceived as more socially conservative than some party activists.That's a problem, de Braga said.

"You are asking someone to be a spokesman for the party that can't support the Democratic platform," which includes gay rights and a woman's right to choose. "Those kinds of things are in our state platform and he can't support those, so I think it narrows his ability to do the job," de Braga said.

Whatever divisions surfaced at the convention, no one - including Titus - said Collins has shown any favoritism since taking over as party boss.

"I think he would be jeopardizing his position as head of party if he did that," said Titus. "I think all the Democrats are going to come together with their eyes on November."

But if Titus wins the primary, she will be the candidate of a party led by a man she has butted heads with in the past - over farm animals, among other things.

"He used to try to kill all my humane treatment of animals in the Legislature," said Titus, who promoted an anti-horse tripping bill that would have limited rodeo events. "As a result, he told some people you couldn't get me elected because I was a vegetarian. I'm not a vegetarian."

The one thing about Collins on which everyone seems to agree is that he is a ferocious fundraiser. In less than two months, Collins said, he has raised more than $200,000.

Collins, who has been in unions most of his working life, has strong support from labor. The Central Labor Committee and other unions even endorsed Collins' bid for party chairman.

"They issued a statement on behalf of his candidacy," de Braga said. "That's never happened before."

In Collins' 15 years in elected office, he has developed a vast network of contacts. His seat on the Clark County Commission, which has jurisdiction over the powerful gaming interests on the Strip, has given him a strong platform from which to solicit donations.

"I would say there are thousands and thousands of individuals and companies out there that are going to have a hard time not taking his call," said Democratic consultant Jim Ferrence. "He's an awesome fundraiser, and I think the success he'll have on the fundraising side will be unprecedented."

What remains to be seen is whether his combination of moderation, fundraising and shooting from the hip will revitalize the party, which holds no constitutional offices and couldn't deliver Nevada to John Kerry in 2004.

"Nevada always was a Democratic state," Collins said. "This state's not been doing its best under the Republican regime."