Columnist Jon Ralston: Attack against Malone backfires

Sunday, April 30, 2000 | 10:42 a.m.

Jon Ralston, who publishes the Ralston Report, writes a column for the Sun on Sundays and Wednesdays. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or by e-mail at ralston@vegas.com

Mark Brown, political operative for a prominent Las Vegas company, and Tom Skancke, local lobbyist, had had enough.

They were disgusted, personally and professionally, with the Las Vegas elected official. Brown's company had suffered at his hands; so, too, had Skancke's clients. They decided upon a course of action: They would take him out. And they had help. Not just from other consultants but from the elected official himself, whose scandalous performance on one issue created an opportunity for a challenger.

Brown and Skancke knew they were up against it, though: The incumbent had a huge war chest and a slew of campaign advisers. They would have to shoot to kill, and if they did not get their trophy, their masters would suffer the consequences.

The year was 1997. The elected official was City Councilman Matthew Callister. And unlike their current efforts to erase Clark County Commissioner Lance Malone, Brown and Skancke were very public about what they were doing, yet they managed not to become the focus. Callister's foolish secreting of checks from Brown's then-employer, the Howard Hughes Corp., became the central issue of the campaign and led to his downfall, by 63 votes, to Larry Brown.

What they accomplished so ruthlessly against Callister, Brown (now with Station Casinos) and Skancke have truly mucked up against Malone. Like Callister, he was ripe for the plucking because of that Spring Valley neighborhood casino vote and his culpability in Airportgate, where commissioners helped their friends and political associates garner lucrative concessions at McCarran.

It's not because Brown and Skancke dissembled about their involvement -- the petulant media mewling on that score is grating. What? Someone involved in politics lied to the Fourth Estate? Stop the presses.

But while lying to the media is no cardinal sin in this world, incompetence is. Skancke may have believed that he could get around state law, and Brown may have feared that Station Casinos would be demonized and help Malone deflect attention from his own weaknesses. But since everyone knew the piece was a Station-orchestrated tactic, why be anonymous?

Their explanation that they were afraid of retaliation from Malone might make sense, especially considering that the commissioner and ex-cop actually went to the extreme lengths later of clandestinely taping a conversation with Brown. But the logic disintegrates when you consider that these two guys publicly went after Callister, who was known as a cunning and potentially vindictive pol.

So they weren't afraid of Malone. Fueled by the attention the campaign against the commissioner was getting, they recklessly proceeded on a course that caught the attention of federal authorities and will be investigated by the state Gaming Control Board. They also didn't count on Malone's attorney, Don Campbell, who is as focused and determined as any advocate in this state. Brown and Skancke might have gotten away with it if not for Campbell, whose filing of a lawsuit led to more reckless behavior, including alleged threats and extortion that Malone reported to the feds, whom Campbell used to work for.

And so they have taken attention away from Malone's idiotic comments and vote at that meeting as well as his implausible explanation for why he changed his mind after committing at least thrice to Brown and others: that between a Friday when he made his last commitment and the Wednesday of the neighborhood casino vote, he decided to look at a map and realized this really wasn't a neighborhood casino, after all. Right.

But those questions are now obscured by the legal jeopardy into which Brown and Skancke have placed themselves, and the commissioner's intention to cast himself as a victim from now until November. And will any competitive candidate actually file against Malone after this sea change?

The loop often closes as history repeats -- or tries to repeat -- itself in Nevada politics. Callister recently nosed around about running against Malone. Maybe Brown and Skancke, who helped end Callister's career back in 1997, would be willing to let bygones be bygones. This time, though, Callister would have to cash the checks.