Nevada politics: Tea party influence hard to gauge

CARSON CITY - The tea party movement has been closely linked to Nevada this election year, with members staging a boisterous rally last week in Searchlight aimed at ousting Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid.

But a clear favorite among the tea partiers has yet to arise from the many Republicans seeking to topple Reid. In the eyes of many tea partiers, the two front-runners in the race are too closely aligned with the establishment.

It is a dilemma affecting races nationwide. Tea partiers are all united in their push to boot Democrats from office, but they are sometimes reluctant to back the Republicans with the most money and name recognition because they resent their ties to the "establishment."

Without any centralized organization, the movement in Nevada consists of various grassroots groups with disparate game plans. Some are focused on working within the established Republican Party to bring about change. Others cringe at the thought of aligning with the establishment.

They are in agreement about the need for smaller government, less taxes and individual freedoms.

Even the Tea Party of Nevada, a minor party formed in Nevada in January, is denounced by many tea partiers as an attempt by that party's U.S. Senate candidate, Scott Ashjian, to exploit the movement.

"Grassroots is like herding cats. No one's really in charge," said Charlene Bybee, who formed a Reno-area 912 Project group - an organization spurred by conservative commentator Glenn Beck - and has an e-mail list of about 250 participants.

The GOP front-runners, Sue Lowden and Danny Tarkanian, claim widespread support among tea partiers. Lowden is a former state senator and GOP chairwoman. Tarkanian is Las Vegas businessman and son of former UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian.

But both have detractors at the grassroots level.

"If either of those top two candidates take the ticket, Harry Reid will win the election," predicted Sheila Danish, who heads "Reject Reid 2010," a Facebook site with more than 800 members. "They are buying the Senate seat, just like the Senate seats are bought all over the country."

Lowden carries baggage from the 2008 state convention when Ron Paul supporters claimed they were cheated out of delegates to the national convention by party leaders who abruptly recessed the event before all ballots could be counted.

She's also been criticized for supporting Reid in the past, along with published reports in which she said she doesn't know how she would have voted on the first government bailout under former President George W. Bush.

"It's easy to say from a distance I would have voted no, but I can't do that," Lowden told the Nevada Appeal in January.

Though roughly 10,000 gathered in Reid's hometown of Searchlight last month for a rally to kick off a national Tea Party Express tour, the local impact in Nevada is hard to predict, said David Damore, political scientist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

"What you do see is all these candidates saying, 'I'm the tea party candidate,' trying to embrace that mantle. In that respect, it's affecting the agenda," Damore said.

They all want to unseat Reid in November, however. Twelve Republicans are on the June 8 ballot, and most are clamoring to appear more conservative than their GOP rivals.

Danish and others say ex-Assemblywoman Sharron Angle and Bill Parson, a retired Marine and constitutionalist, represent the true ideals of the tea party movement.

Tony Warren, Pacific-area director of National Precinct Alliance, a constitutional conservative group that seeks to bolster political participation at the local level, said many in his circle "wrinkle their nose" at Lowden and Tarkanian, and are divided between Angle and Parson.

But he said he'll support the eventual GOP nominee, regardless of who it is.

"I'm not going to throw a vote away as a protest," Warren said.