Bush To Campaign In Remote Desert Town With No Known Democrats

Maybe a hippie or two made a wrong turn after Burning Man and ended up in the Cowboy Capital of Elko, Nevada, but the place remains one of the most solidly Republican areas on Earth.

It's a fine western town, where the local saddlery has supplied famous pretend cowboys from Teddy Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan. And Republican Senator John Ensign is in enough trouble in this reddest of red regions that he needs a boost from the Decider In Chief to motivate the faithful, who are increasingly unfaithful and satanic these days.

Could Ensign actually lose to Jimmy Carter's son, who moved to Nevada five years ago? Probably not, as Ensign's leading by 13 points this morning. But the sparsely populated north is completely dominated by the increasingly Bay Area/Lesbian/Software/Liberal vote in Reno, which has become a very distant East Bay suburb.

Meanwhile, Republican Jon Porter is suddenly in danger of losing his 3rd District congressional seat (suburban Vegas) because his own top aide snitched on Porter's fund-raising schemes. Not exactly slapping around a Vegas cocktail waitress in a parking garage, but it's something.

 President to visit Elko in run-up to election [Las Vegas Review Journal]

 Porter releases phone records, schedules; Former aide sticks by his claims [Las Vegas Sun]