Heck says he’s the best choice at Carson City event

Citing his long service in the military, as a doctor and a businessman, Joe Heck told the Carson Republican Women’s Club on Tuesday he’s a far better choice to replace Harry Reid in the Senate than his opponent Catherine Cortez Masto.

Masto, Heck said, has spent her entire adult career in public sector jobs and lacks the credentials to handle the biggest issues facing the country: national security, the economy, education and healthcare.

By comparison, Heck said, he spent 26 years in the military, retiring as a Brigadier General. On the economy, he said he has been a practicing physician for about the same amount of time and ran a consulting business with his wife. On education, he said, his bachelor’s was in education and on healthcare, he again pointed to his service as a doctor.

He said if people want to know what to do about healthcare, go to an emergency room which is his specialty and “you will know what works and what doesn’t work.”

“The unaffordable care act doesn’t work.”

Masto, Nevada’s former attorney general, he said, unethically attempted to indict then-Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki to ruin his chances of running for Senate, refused to support efforts to overturn the Affordable Care Act and was relentlessly partisan in how she ran that office.

He repeated what Sen. Dean Heller said introducing Heck; this race may well decide whether Republicans keep the majority in the U.S. Senate.

And like Heller, he rejected the argument Congress under the GOP has done nothing.

“The media doesn’t tell you what we do, just what we don’t do,” Heller said.

He pointed to the education bill giving more control to states, the five year transportation funding bill and measures funding defense.

“So we do get stuff done — some but not enough,” Heck said.

The problem, he said, isn’t the House where he currently serves but the Senate which requires 60 affirmative votes to bring a measure to a final vote and pass it. There are now 54 Republicans in the Senate.

Heck said that would change with a Republican in the White House.