Congressional candidate assures voters he's harmless

THE LOW POINT OF DEMOCRAT TESSA HAFEN'S FAILED BID to unseat War Party Rep. Jon Porter in 2006 was when Hafen ran an ad with the then-familiar picture of Porter and George W. Bush hugging and giggling like the schoolgirls they are (that's not the bad part) along with the word "Amnesty" in great big letters (that's the bad part).

The text of the voice-over was carefully worded -- it slammed Porter for agreeing with Bush's war, Bush's cuts to veterans benefits "and Bush's immigration plan, a plan Porter called amnesty."

Ah, so amnesty was Porter's word. That's good, because the immigration bill that Bush proposed, versions of which, by the way, were supported by most Democrats in Congress (and John McCain) granted "amnesty" to no one. "Amnesty," in the context of what passes for political dialogue in the United States of the early 21st century, has been allowed by the media to become a pejorative term, a dirty word Republicans fling to exploit the passions of the most ill-informed segments of the citizenry (you know, the people bitterly clinging to their guns and gods).

If it was Hafen, rather than Porter, throwing the word around in some messaging jujitsu designed to make voters think that Porter supported "amnesty," well, that would have been not only a surrender to evil Republican jargon, but a promotion of it, and icky.

And of course, by running Porter's picture with the word "Amnesty" in huge letters next to it, that is exactly what the Hafen campaign was doing.

Hafen was hoping to beat a Republican by soothing the Republican base and effectively saying "Look, I'm a Republican too, I'm just one of those Republicans who still happens to be a Democrat."

It's the sort of strategy that fills the void when Democrats don't stand for anything other than a milquetoast wimpy agenda because they live in mortal terror that someone somewhere might call them a -- gasp! -- liberal. Which is to say it's been the official campaign strategy of the Democratic Party for roughly the last 20 years.

Alas, trying to circumvent or pander to Republican voters by caving to Republican rhetoric merely reinforces the Republican spin while at the same time undermining a progressive agenda to promote social and economic justice. And not surprisingly, trying to out-Republican the Republicans didn't work for Hafen. It almost never does.

So by now you're probably thinking, "Yeah, whatever, why bring all this crap up now, damned assclown pundit?" Or words to that effect.

Well hush up and read on, smarty boots.

A niggling primary opponent notwithstanding, Porter's opponent in the general election in 2008 will be Robert Daskas, a youngish and by all accounts rather talented prosecutor. Some of the same personalities who were behind Hafen's campaign are behind this year's model, from the person who helped select and approve the candidate (Harry Reid) to the campaign manager (Heather Urban).

And there are disturbing signs that the campaign's philosophy is similarly founded on a strategy of running, yes, as a Democrat but, you know, one of the harmless ones.

On at least two occasions in his young campaign, Daskas has declared that he is opposed to "universal health care." On Jon Ralston's Face to Face program late last year, Daskas explained the reason he opposed it was because "I oppose a single-payer, government-run health care system."

Universal health care and a single-payer system are not the same thing -- something that Daskas would have known had he read a certain column in a certain free weekly with sex ads in the back that was published about three days before his appearance on Ralston's show. To recap that brilliant piece of explanatory journalism: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama advocate universal health care. Neither advocates a single-payer system a la Medicare for all (though about 90 members of Congress and yours truly do). The only politicians who talk as if single-payer and universal health care are the same are Republicans -- and many of them do in fact know the difference, but pretend they don't, preferring to lie to voters by crudely dismissing all Democratic health care plans as "socialized medicine" (which, inasmuch as it exists beyond the confines of the right-wing American lexicon, is a separate thing altogether from either single-payer or universal health care).

Last week, Daskas reiterated to reporters that he was opposed to "universal health care." And once again, he made it clear that he did not want to be accused of advocating "socialized medicine."

Oh for fuck's sake.

If a Republican -- let's say Jon Porter -- uses the term "socialized medicine," he either doesn't know what he's talking about or is deliberately trying to mislead the public; needs to be called out for being stupid, a liar or both; and, most importantly, slammed for his own health care record, which consists primarily of finding ways to let insurance companies take your money without paying for your health care.

Instead, Daskas is cowering before the term "socialized medicine" before Porter has even mouthed the words.

This is not to hammer Daskas's own positions on health care, which can be found on his website and are best described as uninspired boilerplate half-measures that conservative Democrats customarily trot out in lieu of meaningful reforms. OK, maybe it is to hammer his positions.

But the main point is that he's playing defense from the get-go. Even if that were a good strategy for him (doubtful), it reinforces Republican talking points and torpedoes efforts at genuine reform.

It's all probably moot anyway -- Daskas isn't going to "navigate" his way to victory by convincing voters that he's harmless. Nor will he win by convincing them that Porter is too close to Bush. The path to Congress lies with aggressively portraying Porter as the career political hack and thundering cad that he is.

Lucky for Daskas. Because if his chances hinge on striking a sharp contrast with Porter based on an aggressive policy agenda that might actually fire up a voter or two, he's screwed.

Hugh Jackson is a longtime local journalist, former senior editor of CityLife and the proprietor of the Las Vegas Gleaner (www.lasvegasgleaner.com), where he blogs.