SUBMITTED RELEASE FROM FRIENDS FOR HARRY REID
LAS VEGAS–The day after Sue Lowden held a press conference to claim she stands up for the “little guy,” the embattled GOP Senate candidate admitted that she wouldn’t have even bothered to pick up the phone to save the jobs of the 10,000 construction workers and contractors who built CityCenter, or the 12,000 hospitality and gaming workers employed there today.
On Thursday, Lowden told conservative radio talk host Heidi Harris that she would not have called banks to encourage them to go back to the negotiating table with CityCenter developer MGM Mirage–as Sen. Harry Reid did–to save 22,000 Nevada jobs.
“I don’t think I would’ve interfered like he did with the businesses and made special phone calls to financial institutions,” Lowden said.
But just yesterday Lowden stood on the steps of the federal courthouse to claim she takes the side of subcontractors who worked on CityCenter and are involved in a lawsuit with MGM Mirage, adding that “their families their children, their business are at stake.”
Those same businesses–and the crane operators, dump truck drivers and metal workers they employ–wouldn’t have had a job site to go to without Reid’s intervention. CityCenter would never have opened, and the 12,000 dealers, valets, cooks and dishwashers who work there would be unemployed without Reid’s help.
Are those the “big guys” Lowden says she wouldn’t have picked up the phone for? If Lowden wouldn’t have saved CityCenter, how can she claim she stands up for “the little guys, the backbone of Nevada,” as she said yesterday?
No wonder her supporters are jumping ship.
The GOP Senate candidate’s remarkable admission comes on the heels of one of the worst weeks yet for her campaign:
· Lowden’s campaign is coming off a month of being battered by Bartergate, a scandal that made her a national laughingstock for her suggestions that Nevadans should barter livestock for health care.
· Political columnist Jon Ralston gave Lowden’s new ad, in which she belatedly defends the barter comments, a D for truthfulness and said it should have a “laugh track.”
· One poll shows Lowden losing by seven percentage points to Sen. Reid, and putting up a weaker showing than perennial candidate Danny Tarkanian.
· A Review-Journal poll released today shows Lowden neck-in-neck with conservative Sharron Angle, who has gained momentum on the heels of endorsements from conservative groups such as the Tea Party Express.
Lowden also erroneously claimed on the program that she wouldn’t have taken up the cause of these “big guys” because the calls were made during negotiations on TARP legislation. In fact, the calls were made long after TARP negotiations took place and the bill was passed.
“Sue Lowden thinks nothing of lying outright to try to get what she wants,” said Reid campaign communications director Kelly Steele. “The 12,000 people who work at CityCenter today–and the 10,000 who helped build it–have jobs because of Sen. Reid. Sue Lowden talks a big game about how she stands up for the worker, for the little guy, when it’s politically expedient. But her admission today that she couldn’t be bothered to make a few phone calls to save thousands of Nevada jobs tells a very different story.”
