(Michelle Rindels, Associated Press) It was the perfect campaign setup for a Republican congressional candidate who showed up in an F-350 pickup and dusty work boots — a room full of potential voters settling in for a barbecue lunch he brought them on a recent Friday at the senior center in rural Pahrump.
But instead of shaking hands inside, Rep. Cresent Hardy spent much of his time outside, crouched over glowing coals and an industrial-sized Dutch oven as he tended to a bacon-infused potato dish for his constituents.
It was emblematic of the spotlight-shirking freshman congressman, who acknowledges the red wave serendipity that swept him into office in Nevada's solidly Democratic 4th Congressional District in 2014, and the tough road he has to keep the seat in the opposite currents of a presidential year.
“Cresent is, first of all, a workhorse and not a show horse,” said Rep. Mark Amodei, a veteran congressman who's in northern Nevada's safe Republican district and is much more at ease talking with the media than Hardy, who joked that he “runs from newspapers.”
