Robert Holloway, 64, said he’s launching the Fair Nevada Elections PAC because he blames Lowden for a breakdown at the 2008 state Republican convention.

Convention officials allowed proceedings to come to a halt after supporters of presidential candidate Ron Paul appeared to have mustered more delegates than eventual nominee John McCain.

Paul was considered an insurgent candidate and McCain the favorite of the party’s leaders.

Lowden was chairwoman of the Nevada Republican Party at the time, although she wasn’t in charge of the convention. That responsibility had been delegated to former state Sen. Bob Beers, who is now Lowden’s campaign treasurer.

“It would not have stopped without her agreement,” Holloway said. “They ended the convention in the middle of an election.”

Thoughts anyone?

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER HARRY REID (D-NV): He talked about CBO saying that there would be $54 billion saved each year if we put caps on medical malpractice and put some restrictions — tort reform — $54 billion. Sounds like a lot of money, doesn’t it, Mr. President? The answer is yes. But remember, we’re talking about $2 trillion, $54 billion compared to $2 trillion. You can do the math. We can all do the math. It’s a very small percent.

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From their press release:

The balance of the convention will feature educational sessions from The Leadership Institute and panel discussions and speeches featuring Chris Simcox, co-founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps; Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave; Tawfik Hamid, former Muslim Brotherhood leader; Judge Paul Pressler; Colin Hanna, President of Let Freedom Ring; Major General John K. Singlaub and many others.

More information can be found at their website.

Lowden, a board member and treasurer of gaming company Archon Corp., is a former one-term state senator, retired Las Vegas news anchor and former Miss New Jersey. She said she plans to contrast her experience as a businesswoman with Reid’s life-long career in politics.

“My credentials are diverse,” she said. “That’s a good thing. People are tired of people being lifelong politicians.”

She also took aim at Reid’s central campaign argument that his position as majority leader benefits Nevada, citing the state’s dismal return of federal tax dollars and bottom per capita ranking for stimulus money.

“It’s an election year,” she said. “He’s going to step up his efforts to look like he’s doing what he can for Nevada.”

Nevada gets back about 65 cents of each dollar residents pay in federal taxes.

And this is far more significant than if a suspiciously large number of operatives for a purely “private” outfit had been found systematically bending and breaking the law, because ACORN receives and spends taxpayer money — lots of it — and had carried the imprimatur of official partnerships with the IRS, the Census Bureau … the kind of “cred” that in the political world comes only from “who you know.”

Yes, ACORN has friends in high places — friends who are still stonewalling attempts to trace where all that tax money went … perhaps because they know who still has cookie crumbs all over their hands.

It didn’t start with those undercover videos made by a couple of independent filmmakers posing as a prostitute and her pimp, visiting various ACORN offices around the country and getting helpful advice on how to hide their income and “qualify” for a tax-subsidized mortgage to set up a house of ill repute, declaring three of their dozen (albeit imaginary) underage illegal immigrant prostitutes as “dependents.”

That was just a final shoe dropping loudly enough that the problem could no longer be ignored.

Smoke? Fire? Washington Democratic leaders have opted to just lay low and not smell nothin’.

Despite all this evidence and a request in writing by 28 GOP senators — and despite the fact the U.S. Senate voted 83-7 on Sept. 14 to block ACORN from bidding for any more federal grant money — “Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is refusing to hold a Senate hearing on ACORN’s activities,” the National Republican Senatorial Committee complained Wednesday.

Mr. Reid replied additional investigations might distract lawmakers from addressing more important matters, including health care and economic recovery.

Sue Lowden beating Reid by 10 percentage points, 50% to 40%.

…

GOP hopeful Danny Tarkanian beats Reid by seven points, 50% to 43%.

…

The health care debate is not helping the majority leader, though. Most Nevada voters (52%) oppose the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats, while 45% favor it. These figures are fairly close to the national average. As is the case across the country, intensity is with the opposition. Just 29% of Nevada voters Strongly Favor the congressional plan while 46% are Strongly Opposed.

Support for the health care plan is closely correlated to voting preferences. Among those who oppose the proposed health care plan, Reid’s support is in the single digits against both Republicans. However, among those who support the health care effort, support for Reid’s GOP challengers is in single digits.

Read the full report here.

Commentary: Amodei proposed legislation with tax hikes, some of which are now in place. He is quoted saying this about taxes: “You want business to pay as much as they can and still be happy to be here. If they get unhappy being here, they go elsewhere or stop.” Sounds like a moderate to me, but we’ll see how his campaign rolls out.

On Wednesday, before he addressed a Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Reid joined the chamber’s board members for a meet-’n'-greet and a photo. One of the last in line was the Review-Journal’s director of advertising, Bob Brown, a hard-working Nevadan who toils every day on behalf of advertisers. He has nothing to do with news coverage or the opinion pages of the Review-Journal.

Yet, as Bob shook hands with our senior U.S. senator in what should have been nothing but a gracious business setting, Reid said: “I hope you go out of business.”

Later, in his public speech, Reid said he wanted to let everyone know that he wants the Review-Journal to continue selling advertising because the Las Vegas Sun is delivered inside the Review-Journal.

The piece generated about 75 letters to the editor and coverage by the New York Times, Politico, CNN, Fox News and other news organizations. Here you can find the column and response.