Everywhere he went on his three-day rural tour of northern Nevada, Democratic gubernatorial candidate says the questions were the same -- water and jobs.
It was no different in Yerington, where Reid stopped Saturday afternoon for a tour of the Nevada Copper Mine.
During an interview with the Mason Valley News prior to heading to tour the mine, Reid emphasized his economic plan which he released when he announced his candidacy, said he would soon be releasing an education plan, and he said his ability to create collaboration could help solve the dispute over Walker River water rights and strike a balance between saving Walker Lake and preserving Lyon County's agricultural interests.
Acknowledging that Lyon County has the highest unemployment rate in the state, Reid said his economic plan specifically addresses the issues facing both rural and urban areas in the state.
"Some of the elements of the plan are specifically targeted for rural Nevada, and other parts of it will work better in Reno or Vegas, so I think there's a way to plan to improve the entire state," Reid said. "You don't have to leave anybody behind."
Reid said his primary concern is getting the citizens of Nevada back to work so they can enjoy the quality of life they deserve.
"What I'd tell people here is that I'm the first candidate for governor that's put out a plan about how we can create jobs,' Reid said. "It's impossible having quality of life if you don't have a job. A job is fundamental."
Reid said his plan to create jobs is laid out in the 30-page plan he released when he announced his candidacy. He said the plan is available on his website.
"The day I did that I said that anybody else that wants to be governor should either tell me I'm wrong or put out their own plan or I'd just assume they agree with me, and so far apparently everyone agrees with me because nobody else has said a word about it," Reid said. "So I guess what I'd say to Lyon County is I'm the gubernatorial candidate that has a plan to create employment in our state."
When asked about his views on the dispute about Walker River water rights, something his father, U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, has been intimately involved with, Rory Reid said the solution is just a matter of getting all the parties to find common ground.
"You can either fight over water or you can try to find a win-win situation where everybody gets most of what they need, but maybe not everything," he said. "It wasn't very long ago that Lincoln County and Clark County were fighting over water and ultimately we reached an agreement that protected the rural lifestyle and the economic interests in Lincoln County and the economic interests of Clark County. I think that's possible anywhere in the state."
Reid, who is the chairman of the Clark County Commission, said he has spent his career in local politics, and he said he would take the same approach as governor that he's taken at the local level.
"It doesn't matter if you're a Republican, a Democrat or an Independent, you want to have good roads and clean water and in local government you try to identify the problem and then find ways to bring people together to solve it and you don't have to worry about partisanship," he said. "I'm going to apply that approach to Carson City. I think it will work well because Carson City is constantly bogged down by stuff that has nothing to do with what's really going on. I've learned to cut through that, I think.
"You make people deal with each other. It's easy to criticize, throw stones from a distance, but if you put people in a room together that disagree with each other, almost always the truth emerges somehow, it's organic, so I would do that on complicated issues," he added. "I'd bring opposing points of view together and make them listen to each other. Usually there's a way to find a compromise that works for everybody."
Reid said he needs more information before taking a position on the proposal to make the former Arimetco mine a superfund cleanup site.
"I need more information on that and I need to understand whether there's a state role in that or whether it's a purely federal issue, so partly what I'm doing out here is I'm telling people what I think we need to do, but I'm also listening," he said.
Reid challenged the other gubernatorial candidates to spell out their specific economic proposals.
"I recognize how important it is that people have jobs and I have a plan to improve employment, and I recognize how important it is to diversity our economy so we don't continually go through this boom and bust cycle," he said. "I have a plan and I hope that others running for governor join the debate."