All that money spent on election changed very little

When Fox News declared President Barack Obama the winner about 8:15 p.m. Tuesday, Republicans at The Venetian who had come to celebrate a Mitt Romney victory began fleeing instead, some in tears, others angry.

"Two billion dollars, and we're no better off than we were yesterday," one woman said as she stomped out, referring to the amount raised for the presidential race.

She was right, both at the national level and in Nevada, where $100 million was spent on federal candidates.

Despite the expenditure of obscene amounts of money, the status quo was preserved.

While upstairs at the Republican watch party there were boos when Fox News declared Obama the winner, in the Palazzo casino downstairs, there was no reaction at all. No boos, no cheers, no reaction at all.

Nobody seemed to notice that the president had been re-elected. A couple at a casino bar were watching the news without the sound on. "Maybe they had more important considerations," said a Canadian man, laughing and glancing toward a slot player.

But the woman angry about the obscene amount of money spent on the election - and all for nothing - had a point. (And no, it wasn't Miriam Adelson.)

The most expensive election in U.S. history enriched television station owners. But it didn't change much as far as which party controlled the political arena, either nationally or locally.

Obama remains president, the Senate is still controlled by Democrats and the House by Republicans.

Up and down the ballot, incumbents, even recently appointed incumbents, won.

That doesn't count the 21 candidates on the Clark County ballots who ran unopposed.

In Clark County, only two incumbents were ousted: Democratic Assemblyman Marcus Conklin and Justice of the Peace Bill Jansen.

Conklin was poised to become the Assembly speaker until he lost to Republican Wes Duncan, a lawyer and Air Force veteran running on an anti-tax platform.

Jansen fell to Cynthia Dustin-Cruz. He had been on the bench for 27 years.

Term limits might change the names of the people in the Legislature, but they didn't substantially change the party that controlled those seats. The state Senate remains controlled by the Democrats, 11 to 10, the same as before.

Republicans picked up one seat in the state Assembly, yet it remains controlled by the Democrats 27 to 15. One of the 27, Andrew Martin, was deemed ineligible to run because he didn't live in the district. Despite that, he won.

So Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, will be working with a Senate and Assembly controlled by Democrats, as he did before. But he is doubtlessly relieved that the Democrats didn't gain enough seats to override any vetoes he might sign in the 2013 Legislature, so he remains relevant.

Of the four congressional seats, the only incumbents, Republican Joe Heck and Mark Amodei, were re-elected. Dina Titus cruised into her seat with a Democratic district, and Democrat Steven Horsford, with help from Obama's get-out-the-vote efforts, crushed Danny Tarkanian.

All that money spent, much of it on some of the most blatant lies I've ever seen, and essentially it's all the same.

Dean Heller remains Nevada's junior senator, just as he had been.

I counted the same TV ad running five times in one television newscast, that devastating one by Heller against Rep. Shelley Berkley going to Venice and billing the taxpayers $55,000. The truth was, that was the bill for the entire delegation, not just Berkley and her husband.

The news media pointed that out. But a few news accounts couldn't compete with such an untrue, but effective, ad, and Berkley's response was weak.

Congresswoman Berkley could have been a winner in the Election of Sameness if she had decided to run for re-election.

Instead, she opted for change. And lost.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Email her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call her at (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/Morrison