(Jim Clark) – Nevada Republicans are well aware that state GOP Chair Sue Lowden resigned last September to announce her candidacy to run against Sen. Harry Reid for US Senate on the Republican ticket.
This left the state party in the caretaker hands of the vice chair while kingmakers nosed around for a qualified successor. They found one. Dr. Chris Comfort, who maintains dental practices in Elko and Las Vegas, actually campaigned for the thankless volunteer job and was overwhelmingly elected to the post on November 15 at the Nevada Republican Central Committee meeting in Hawthorne.
I skipped that meeting because I had season football tickets and that was the date of the California vs. Arizona game in Berkeley. Therefore I never really got a chance to know Dr. Comfort until last week when he came to speak at a Washoe County GOP town hall meeting.
Comfort is quite an interesting guy. His appearance and demeanor are reminiscent of Fox News’ Glenn Beck. He is at ease with people and a very effective communicator. He began his presentation by “working the room” … going to each of the 50+ persons present to introduce himself and shake hands. Then he took the microphone.
He described himself as both a dentist and a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. He told us his aim is to create an environment conducive to restoring Nevada to a proper focus on our Constitutional underpinnings.
To illustrate his point he distributed “Constitutional compliance” ratings of congress by the New American Magazine. Republican Dean Heller scored a perfect 100 while Democrats Dina Titus and Shelly Berkley both scored zero. Sen. John Ensign scored 100 percent while Democrat Harry Reid scored 5 percent.
For starters Comfort has assigned himself a primary mission between now and November 2010 of assembling all of the people and resources it takes to defeat Harry Reid’s re-election bid. In his mind if we defeat Harry Reid we defeat Socialism.
In the process he intends to make the GOP safe for all who believe in the Constitution. He told us that 76 percent of Nevada Republicans are conservative, 11 percent moderate and 3 percent liberal but that the party has room for all. Because you can’t win elections being divided he intends to strive to set common values and strategic directions which all Republicans can buy into.
Comfort already has a treasurer and an information technology head. He plans to attain his goals through systems, creativity and leadership. Among his aims are the establishment of a permanent Nevada GOP headquarters somewhere near Interstate 215 in Las Vegas, a satellite office in Carson City and creation of an endowment fund.
He intends to establish membership levels in the Nevada GOP based on annual commitments of financial support and to have 100 percent transparency on the GOP web site showing how contributions are being spent.
He has secured a financial commitment from the Republican National Committee for funds to pay for “voter performance” programs (this is contrasted with voter registration programs since registration is only one goal; then you have to get them to the polls, hence the term “voter performance”).
Comfort has targeted 164,000 Nevada conservative Democrats and independents as potential GOP votes for 2010. Lastly he told us that his fondest dream is to get on the Glenn Beck show to raise money to defeat Harry Reid.
If that happens the two could be mistaken for twins.
(Jim Clark is president of Republican Advocates, a vice chair of the Washoe County GOP and a member of the Nevada GOP Central Committee. He can be contacted at tahoesbjc@aol.com)
