Senate Dems pick Horsford for leader, plan November strategy

Newly elected Nevada Senate Minority Leader Steven Horsford speaks to volunteers at a voter registration drive Saturday: Politicker PhotoLAS VEGAS -- When Nevada Senate Democrats wrapped up their four-hour meeting Friday night, they had selected a new leader and created the outlines of a plan to take over the majority. The only things they lacked were specifics.

"Our caucus spent a lot of time last night talking about how we were going to work as a team to take the majority in November," said state Sen. Steven Horsford (D-Las Vegas), the newly elected Democratic leader, Saturday.

"Our first goal is to win in November, so that's what we're focused on. Once we get beyond winning, we'll start looking into how we will govern in 2009."

Horsford, 35, was elected unanimously by the Democratic Caucus to succeed outgoing Minority Leader Dina Titus, who announced a congressional run last week.

"Through consensus it was agreed that I had the best ability to take us through the steps that we wanted; winning in November, governing strong in '09 and maintaining our majority through the next decade," said Horsford.

With the Nevada Senate controlled by a one-vote Republican majority, Horsford and the caucus are focusing on picking up seats in either of two competitive districts, state Sen. Bob Beers' 6th District or state Sen. Joe Heck's 5th District.

The 6th Senate District, where Democrat Allison Copening is challenging Beers, was the target of a voter registration drive this morning in concert with Ill. Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

In the 5th Senate District, although Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 2,200 voters, no Democrat has announced a run against Heck, who is currently serving in Iraq with the Army Reserve. A candidate has been promised for months, however, most recently by Titus May 1.

"We're still very optimistic about having a candidate in Senate District 5 by next Friday," said Horsford. Friday will be the last day for candidate filing in Nevada.

Similar to congressional Republicans' 1994 "Contract with America" or Democrats' "6 in '06," strategies, Horsford said that Nevada Senate Democrats' will focus on creating a platform of "four or five things that we're going to work on as Senate Democrats to contrast the governor's direction or any other members of the legislature," but added that those priorities had not been hashed out yet.

"We'll be talking about that in the coming weeks and we'll release it at the appropriate time," said Horsford.

Although Horsford, a leader of Obama's Nevada effort, believes the ongoing Democratic primary has "not been bad" for the Democratic Party, he stressed that it is time to turn the focus on running against Republicans.

"[Obama]'s as close as he can be to becoming our presumptive nominee and he wants to get going," said Horsford. "He wants to get the resources on the ground. He doesn't want to wait until after the convention; he wants to start doing it now. I'm excited that they have followed through on their commitment to make Nevada a priority."

"I think it is time for us to start running to defeat John McCain and the rest of the Republicans that are keeping us from the change that the voters want."

Horsford stopped short, however, on saying he thought it was time for N.Y. Sen. Hillary Clinton to end her campaign.

"Sen. Clinton should decide what's best for her and make that decision herself," said Horsford.