What it is really like on a campaign: learning what's at stake

A campaign isn't just about hard work and logistics. It's also about real lives.

So what's all this work we're doing to elect Jacky Rosen to the Senate really about? For many of us on the crew, it's about fighting the Trump/GOPer wrecking crew that is running the country into the ground for the benefit of plutocrats. But for the people we meet behind the doors we knock on, their Republican U.S. Senator's lies are a threat to life itself.

This ad, from a Democratic associated group, catches the sense of danger.
.Their Republican Senator has been playing politics with their lives.

A local Reno free paper, the Reno News and Review, clarified how Dean Heller has weaseled and waffled to play to Trump and his Koch Brothers-associated funders.

On June 23, 2017, U.S. Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada said of one ACA repeal measure, “This bill would mean a loss of coverage for millions of Americans and many Nevadans. I’m telling you right now, I cannot support a piece of legislation that takes insurance away from tens of millions of Americans, and hundreds of thousands of Nevadans.”

... For months, Heller threaded a needle on the issue that drew criticism from left and right. He endured a humiliating scene when, seated beside Donald Trump, he heard Trump threaten him publicly.

“This was the one we were worried about,” Trump said. To Heller: “You weren’t there. But you’re going to be. You’re going to be.”

Then, to the audience: “Look, he wants to remain a senator, doesn’t he?”

An alliance of conservatives headed by the Kochs said they had assembled a war chest whose purpose was to protect Republican senators—but only those who had voted against the ACA.

... On April 5 in Clark County, Heller spoke to a closed meeting of the Nevada Republican Men’s Club, whose meetings are normally open. According to a recording of that meeting leaked to the Las Vegas Review Journal, Heller said he supported repeal of the ACA and blamed other senators for preventing its repeal.

“If we have 51 Republicans that will vote to repeal and replace, it will happen,” he said. “We need 51 votes. And right now we know there’s three votes we’re missing for that 51—John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski.”

... By August this year, Heller was trumpeting the damage he and other Republicans had been able to do to the ACA: “We did eliminate the [individual] mandate. We did get some of the taxes. I did push back and postpone the Cadillac tax and some of those issues.”

Last month, the Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity PAC started running ads in Nevada supporting Heller.

Dean Heller cares about himself and his rich buddies. No wonder plenty of Nevadans know they need a different Senator. They need one who believes "health care is a right, not a privilege."