One less Democratic primary to worry about

And then there was one.

A season that started with the possibility of Democratic primaries for Congress all across Las Vegas will end up with just one, after state Sen. John  Lee’s announcement this week that he’ll run for re-election instead of the House of Representatives.

(That leaves only former Congresswoman Dina Titus pitted against state Sen. Ruben Kihuen in the new 1st District, a contest Democrats don’t seem to be able to avert.)

Lee’s decision allows state Sen. Steven Horsford to concentrate on a general election match-up against Republican state Sen. Barbara Cegavske, whose campaign is really aimed at raising her profile for a statewide bid in 2014.

Lee gave several reasons for his decision. He didn’t want a bitter primary with Horsford to jeopardize Democrats’ chances of winning the seat. He didn’t want to spend the years in Congress it takes to gain the seniority to become effective. And he believes he can work on “Nevada issues” more in the state Legislature than in Washington, D.C.

All perfectly legitimate, but also things that everybody — including Lee — knew long before he earnestly declared his candidacy in August. And, recall, he said then that “Today, many of my efforts here in Nevada are being thwarted by special interests and politicians focused on their own career and not the future of the nation.”

Thank God we fixed that problem, huh?

But seriously, Lee said in an interview that his sojourns to Washington, D.C. to raise money and take meetings related to his bid for Congress gave him some insights into the often-grueling life of a western congressman, and he found it didn’t appeal to him.

“I actually got to be a congressman for two or three months. It’s kind of a scared straight kind of thing,” Lee joked. “My heart wasn’t there.”

Instead, he’ll try to return for a final, four-year term in the state Senate, where he’s served since 2004. He’ll be ineligible to run after that because of term limits.

There’s only one problem: After Lee said he was going to run for Congress, Assemblyman Kelvin Atkinson said he was going to run for Senate. Atkinson lives in Lee’s Senate district, and post-redistricting, most of Atkinson’s Assembly precincts are there.

And that means Lee will very likely be facing a Democratic primary anyway. Atkinson said he’s leaving his options open as to where he’ll run, but adds “I’m definitely running for [state] Senate in 2012.”

A quick glance at the maps shows that, if Atkinson wants to stay near his Assembly base, he has only two choices, Senate District 1 (Lee’s seat) or Senate District 4 (the seat currently held by Horsford).

The only problem with moving there is that Assemblywoman Dina Neal — daughter of longtime District 4 state Sen. Joe Neal — has already declared she’s going to run for her father’s old seat.

So Atkinson can face the daughter of a beloved political figure, or he can run against Lee, whose reputation for being a conservative Democrat runs so deep, he was offered audiences with Sean Hannity and John Boehner during the last Legislature, if only he’d become a Republican and throw the balance of power to the GOP. (How, one wonders, could Lee have resisted those entreaties?)

For the record, Lee says if he was going to switch, it would have been last time around, and he avers when asked if he’d consider it now. “I’m pretty satisfied,” he said. “I have never in my life had that thought.” (Notice, that’s not an absolute no.)

But Lee’s decision undeniably helps the Democrats, who’ve managed  to clear one more field.  

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist and author of the blog SlashPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/SteveSebelius or reach him at 387-5276 or SSebelius@reviewjournal.com.