Sen. Dean Heller to give weekly Republican address

By Karoun Demirjian

Friday, Aug. 26, 2011 | 1:38 p.m.

Sen. Dean Heller will be stepping into the national spotlight this weekend when he takes to the airwaves to deliver the GOP’s weekly address.

The Republican Party’s weekly address serves as a sort of concurrent rebuttal to the president’s weekly address, although both are usually released at the same time -- early Saturday morning -- and don’t necessarily center around the same issue. Each is a weekly pulse-of-the-country as that party sees it, but while the Democrats’ speaker is always the president, the GOP cycles through a shifting roster.

This will be Heller’s second time carrying that mantle for his party; he did it once before as a member of the House in May 2008. But this time out will be an important unveiling for him at the start of what’s guaranteed to be one of the most-watched races in the country.

Nevada’s going to be front and center of the GOP’s effort to take over the Senate in 2012 -- and the Democrats’ efforts to keep it under Harry Reid’s control.

Heller’s race against current Nevada Rep. Shelley Berkley is shaping up to be one of the most competitive: In appearing on ABC’s "Top Line" news program this week, both the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s executive director Guy Cecil and the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s executive director Rob Jesmer put Nevada on their list of contests they thought would be the country’s most competitive. Nevada was the only state to secure such a bipartisan honor; each director also thought it was winnable.

The GOP’s weekly address is released Saturday morning at 6 a.m. and runs approximately five minutes.