Lowden will battle more than Harry Reid for the U.S. Senate

Sue Lowden did it once. Can she do it again?

The parallel shouldn't be overlooked. Lowden unseated one Senate Democratic majority leader 17 years ago, running as a Republican in a Democratic district and bringing down Jack Vergiels, a state legislator with 20 years experience.

As of today, it's official. She is going to try to duplicate her 1992 victory on a much larger scale, by challenging another Senate Democratic majority leader -- U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, a politician with nearly 30 years in Congress.

One Democrat predicted, "She can beat Reid, but I don't know if she can beat the Culinary union."

Despite polls that suggest almost any credible Republican can beat Reid, Lowden knows that if she wins the GOP nomination, it's going to be a go-for-the-throat race with unions as her fiercest foes.

The Culinary union defeated her in 1996 when she ran for a second term in the state Senate, and Lowden knows the unions will be working against her this time. Sue and Paul Lowden became sworn enemies of Culinary when the union sought to organize at the Santa Fe casino, which they no longer own.

"I think this is going to be a dirty campaign and nothing is going to be left unsaid, nothing will be sacred," she said Wednesday, referring to the attacks she expects upon herself and her husband.

Culinary alleged in 1996 that Paul Lowden had mob ties. (New twist: Reid was chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission when Paul Lowden was first given his gaming license, so if there are allegations in this race about her husband's associations, then why did Reid vote to give him a license?)

Lowden and her family know how brutal this race will be. She recalled the 1996 incident in which a car carrying her children was rocked by Culinary union members who thought the blond woman driving was Lowden. (Actually, it was another blond woman carpooling schoolchildren.)

Lowden believes the AFL-CIO also will be working against her because of the race's national prominence. She expects the unions will work to defeat her in the GOP primary, which already is crowded with businessman Danny Tarkanian, state Sen. Mark Amodei, former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle of Reno and a couple of others I couldn't pick out of a line-up.

Once Rep. Dean Heller pulled out, Lowden became the likely GOP front-runner, the one likely to attract money both locally and nationally, the one with national GOP ties because of her role as chairman of the Nevada Republican Party, and the most media savvy candidate because of her days as a reporter and news anchor.

She demonstrated that savvy when asked to name three legislative accomplishments. Her answer was focused, concise, and she didn't take all the credit. "We privatized SIIS (the State Industrial lnsurance System) and made it more accessible for injured workers. My subcommittee was the architect of the original charter schools bill. And as chairman of the Taxation Committee, I held the line on any new taxes going through the session."

But count on Lowden taking hits for her position on Yucca Mountain. She testified against it as a state senator. But recognizing the quagmire, she refused to say yes or no to whether the state should negotiate for benefits.

She tried to frame it as a Reid failure. "If he can't stop it as majority leader, with Barack Obama as president, then at some point there has to be a dialogue about what's going to happen next."

Reid views the cutting off of funding as one of his major victories for Nevada, even if the work continues in a drastically scaled-back fashion.

My crystal ball sees an attack ad against Lowden portraying her as a flip-flopper on Yucca Mountain. However, that same crystal ball won't say whether the issue is still crucial to most Nevada voters.

Nor will the ball predict whether Lowden will knock off another Senate majority leader.

Nobody with political savvy believes Reid is DOA, despite the polls. Too many things can change over the next 13 months.

But neither is it a lock that Lowden can beat back the unions, convince enough Nevadans Reid's vision of government's role is dead wrong, or even master the art of getting her supporters out to vote.

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