We probably won’t see a race between Reid and Chachas

By Jon Ralston

Wednesday, May 19, 2010 | 2:01 a.m.

Harry Reid is dead, one in an occasional series:

After taping a two-part debate Tuesday with five U.S. Senate candidates, after watching four politicians and one apolitician engage for an hour, I had one thought:

What might have been.

I speak of the prospect of John Chachas being the Republican nominee to take on the Senate majority leader, the chances of which are about equivalent to those of Rory Reid losing the Democratic nomination for governor. I mean no denigration to the other candidates vying for the opportunity to sit next to Reid on “Meet the Press,” but the difference between Chachas and the other four candidates was striking. Again.

It’s not simply that he is smarter than the rest of them — but he is. It’s not just that he is more knowledgeable than the rest of them — but he is. Nor is it that he is quicker on his feet than the rest of them — but he is.

Here’s the simplest way I can put it: When you ask a question of Sue Lowden or Danny Tarkanian or Sharron Angle or Chad Christensen, you sense you are listening to a script being regurgitated. Practiced talking points, some better than others, some more rigid than others, some more substantive than others. For lack of a more artful term: Political answers.

When you ask Chachas a question — on Social Security or the oil spill liability cap issue or Reid’s penchant for pork — you get a thoughtful and fluent discussion, with layers of expertise and knowledge none of the others possess. It doesn’t sound as if he has studied all night and can bat back the question with his campaign consultant’s inculcated rhetoric; it sounds as if he is having a spontaneous conversation with you and trying, through force of intellect and depth of comprehension, to bring you to his point of view.

Oh, you may disagree with that point of view — means-test Social Security, be careful how high you make the cap, shutter the shooting park. But he has reasoning behind his positions, not flash cards.

Chachas’ intellectual heft is impressive but even more so is his facility not just with financial issues — that’s his background as a Wall Street insider — but with anything that might come on a senator’s plate. He was equally at ease talking Tuesday about sanctions against Iran as he would have been had I asked about derivatives.

(Don’t take my word for it. Watch tonight and if you want to see the first part, it is available online — or soon will be — on my section of the Sun website.)

He was clearly the most senatorial of the GOP debaters Tuesday. And he has the least chance of any of them to win. (Yes, even less than Christensen.)

The fault does not lie with voters who don’t recognize his superiority or a media that have given him short shrift. The fault lies with Chachas himself, who through a remarkable combination of arrogance and naivete has run one of the worst campaigns it has been my horror to watch. For a guy I have described as being so smart, he sure has had a dumb strategy. If, that is, you can call moving back too late, going on TV too late and spending too little and being too nice — well, there is no other way to put it — any kind of strategy at all.

It’s as if Chachas returned to his native state after 30 years away — in a place as different from Ely as you can get — and decided he would show everyone how he still is in a New York state of mind: Better than everyone else and not willing to wallow in the campaign muck. Why should I have to contrast myself with anyone else? No negative ads for me. (No, not everywhere can be as highbrow and clean as Wall Street.)

But perhaps I am wrong. Maybe this was a trial run — I always love these theories. This was just practice for a future bid, maybe for John Ensign’s seat when the present office occupant is either forcibly or voluntarily retired.

If that’s so, I take back everything praiseworthy I said about him. Because that will not work. It rarely (if ever) does.

Granted, maybe the general election would have gone like this:

“Harry, how can you in good conscience keep lying to people about the sustainability of entitlements and your budget-busting health care reform law?”

“John, you’re just a Wall Street fat cat trying to fool Nevadans into thinking you’re one of us.”

Maybe. But it would have been something to watch.