Former bank exec Guedry to try to unseat Titus

Former bank executive and longtime Southern Nevadan John Guedry says he will challenge Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., for her seat in Congress.

With the help of the Republican National Congressional Committee, expect Guedry to try and link Titus to polarizing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and stoke anti-incumbent sentiment among voters.

Guedry has enlisted the help of political consultant Ryan Erwin of Las Vegas, a health care specialist who helped create controversial but effective ads in 2004 that depicted doctors fleeing Nevada on foot. The ads were credited with helping encourage voters to approve a $350,000 cap on malpractice damages for pain and suffering.

Having Erwin and the Republican National Congressional Committee on board early suggests Guedry will be the front-running challenger to Titus in 2010. He does face primary opposition from Brad Lord-Leutwyler of Henderson, a Republican who on his Web site says the Republican party establishment has “lost its way.”

During an interview Tuesday, Guedry, who has never held political office, described himself as a moderate who supports modest health care reform and won’t strictly hew to America’s most strident conservative leaders such as radio host Rush Limbaugh.

“We have an extreme left and an extreme right agenda and the people in the middle aren’t talking,” Guedry said. “I’ve seen us move further and further away from a common-sense approach.”

When it comes to health reform, Guedry says, “Reform is needed, it is just how you address that reform.”

He didn’t get into specifics, other than to say health care reform should preserve high-quality aspects of American care, such as the use of advanced technology to produce drugs and equipment and that people with pre-existing conditions or those who want to leave their jobs shouldn’t have to fear losing their insurance.

Whether the nonpartisan rhetoric on the day of his announcement will hold up through a tough campaign remains to be seen. Conservative activist Chuck Muth says Limbaugh’s rhetoric resonates with millions of listeners, many of whom are voters who will demand candidates take strong conservative stands.

That’s why Republican politicians who have challenged Limbaugh in the past have in some cases regretted it.

“They don’t have to agree with him on every issue, but they better listen to him,” Muth said.

In addition to motivating Republican voters, Guedry would need to attract independent and Democratic voters in order to wrest the seat from Titus.

In 2008 Titus knocked off incumbent Republican Jon Porter by winning 47 percent of the vote to Porter’s 42 percent. Since then, she’s presented herself to voters as a centrist who has opposed proposals by President Barack Obama to change mortgage interest deductions for primary homes and change the way itemized deductions are calculated for people earning more than $250,000.

“She’s here to represent her constituents in the third district,” Titus spokesman Andrew Stoddard said.

Given the state of the national economy and Nevada’s high rate of home foreclosures, Titus and her supporters will probably remind voters early and often that Guedry is a former banker.

Wall Street banks have been the subject of outrage on behalf of voters who say the banks contributed to the economic recession by backing bad loans, then profited from the debacle through the $700 billion troubled asset relief program, or TARP.

On Tuesday, Democrats sent a message criticizing Guedry for accepting a bonus in 2008 while working for City National, which accepted $400 million in TARP loans.

Guedry didn’t hold a position at City National that required reporting the amount of the bonus to the Securities and Exchange Commission, but in February a bank spokesman confirmed to the Review-Journal that Guedry recieved a bonus, albeit, “significantly lower than in previous years.”

In a written statement Tuesday, Sam Lieberman, chairman of the Nevada State Democratic Party said, “John Guedry claims he’s outraged by federal spending, yet he had no problem taking a bonus while his bank took $400 million in taxpayer money.”
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