Tessa Hafen is the challenger to Bush and DeLay's rubber-stamp, yes man
Jon Porter, AKA Porter the Puppet, in this evenly divided Southern Nevada district, a horseshoe of suburbs and small towns that wraps around metro Las Vegas. A former senior aide to Senator Harry Reid, she says the Secretary of Defense's intransigence is a major obstacle to salvaging the president's failed policy in Iraq that leaves American soldiers dangerously exposed to sectarian violence. From her press release in response to the latest Pentagon report: "The time for action is long overdue. We can start today by showing Donald Rumsfeld the door."
Click
here to see Tessa's incisive first ad. It is not a puff piece.
In a recent candidate forum, Porter, ever the predictable parrot, gave Rummy a qualified atta boy: "He's doing the best he can under the circumstances." Yep, heckuva job, Rummy, sez Porter. Waxing poetic, Porter, who has never served, said our troops are fighting terrorists on their desert sands instead of ours. Or something like that. It's hard to fact check because his congressional and campaign websites do not contain one word about Iraq,
he avoids unscripted voter contact and he usually hides behind a PR flack rather than speak directly to reporters. He'd rather tout his undistinguished years as mayor of Boulder City, NV, pop. 15,000.
Tessa Hafen is a third generation Nevadan from a political family who at 30 has already logged eight years on Sen. Harry Reid's staff, rising in responsibility until she became his chief spokesperson. She's been to Iraq twice and accompanied Reid to numerous meetings with world leaders. In fact, on the issue of who is more experienced, her eight years on Capitol Hill at the side of the senate Minority Leader handily beats Porter's two terms as a backbencher beholden to the disgraced Tom DeLay, one of his closest associates since 1999. Porter has taken hundreds of thousands in handouts from DeLay (indicted), Bob Ney (resigned under cloud) and Roy Blunt (global warming denier). A stroll through the FEC records shows these PACs are heavily laced with contributions from Jack Abramoff, his clients and associates.
Porter makes #18 on dengre's list of chief enablers for Jack Abramoff's and Tom DeLay's criminal schemes to block labor and immigration rights legislation for protection of garment workers in the Marianas Islands.
Porter did not graduate from college. His speaking style is a repetitive mishmash of Rove-approved talking points taken verbatim from the playbook that was leaked to Raw Story a couple of months ago. Serious is his favorite word, which Tessa neatly co-opted in her ad.
Volunteering for Tessa's well-organized campaign is a pleasure. She is an intelligent, compassionate woman whose experience on the Hill in domestic and foreign policy and expertise in education make her an excellent fit for this district. Her staff are all seasoned pros.
The district which was inaugurated in 2002--Porter is its first representative--has a population of 166,000 that numbers about 1600 more Democrats than Republicans. It's true that many of these Dems are new arrivals and less likely to vote in a midterm before they learn the candidates and electoral process in Nevada, but the rising excitement about this election combined with early field work might overcome this barrier. There's also a sizeable group of non-partisan voters who poll as Democratic-leaning. Despite two large retirement communities, the District is slightly younger than the national average with many working families.
I've been walkin' and knockin' since mid-summer. On the doorsteps, the top two issues that worry registered Democrats and Non-Partisans are Iraq and education. There's not even a close third. Not one person out of 100+ contacts has mentioned gay marriage or any other wedge issue on which this Republican Congress wastes the people's time and money.
NV-03 has been upgraded to Leans Republican and it's a real race whether Porter and the people he hires to wear his T-shirt like it or not.
To contribute your $$$.01, volunteer or learn more about Tessa, please check her Website.