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Nevada heats up

Republican infighting is getting started in Nevada, where two party candidates eager to knock Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, out of his seat are testing the battle lines against each other in the run-up to the June primary.

Republican senatorial contender Sue Lowden has been quick to push back on the critical comments her primary opponent, Danny Tarkanian, has been making about her to the media.

He called her a “GOP cheerleader” and “go-along-to-get-along” candidate during a small round table in downtown Washington on Tuesday.

Lowden campaign manager Robert Utihoven fired back by telling The Washington Times in an e-mail, “It’s unfortunate that Danny has taken his campaign so negative, so early. … It is also ironic that while Sue Lowden is touring Nevada, shaking hands, meeting voters and discussing important issues, Danny is name-calling from Washington, DC.”

Team Lowden also advanced another blow to Mr. Tarkanian by questioning his viability.

“The fact is, Sue Lowden has a record, while all Danny has is rhetoric,” Mr. Utihoven said. “Sue Lowden previously earned her way into office by running against and defeating an entrenched state senate majority leader in a three-to-one Democratic district. On the other hand, Danny Tarkanian has been shopping for a political office in Nevada for three of the last four election cycles - and he is yet to win a general election.”

Mr. Tarkanian discussed an unsuccessful campaign for the Nevada State Senate with reporters on Tuesday, reminding them that he won $150,000 in a defamation lawsuit against his then-Democratic opponent, Mike Schneider, for misleading attacks he made against Mr. Tarkanian in that race.

“I lost and came right back,” he said. Mr. Tarkanian won the Republican nomination to run for Nevada’s secretary of state in 2006 but lost the general election to Democrat Ross Miller. He said winning the defamation case and running for office again in 2006 shows tenacity on his behalf.

Mr. Tarkanian also pledged to oppose financial bailouts and drew attention to an interview Mrs. Lowden granted to the Nevada Appeal in which she said it would be “easy” to say she would have voted against bank bailouts, “but I can’t do that.”

Team Tarkanian has taken this to mean Mrs. Lowden can’t be trusted by Republicans on spending matters, which Mrs. Lowden says is “false and misleading.”

“I cannot say that such a NO vote would have been easy,” she wrote in a Monday blog post on her Web site. “I wasn’t there nor was Danny.”

Mrs. Lowden added that other leading Republicans voted for the bailout and listed a handful of senators who supported it.

“True fiscal conservatives I deeply respect and admire happened to vote in favor of TARP including Senators John Thune, Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn and probably the most conservative of them all Senator Tom Coburn,” she said.

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