Columnist Jon Ralston: Beware of pols whispering sweet nothings

Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2000 | 9:39 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 through e-mail at ralston@vegas.com.

The technique is as old as politics, presidential and otherwise: candidates producing rhetorical candy while in the company of one audience, though the words may be less sweet elsewhere.

Nevada's quadrennial insignificance in the White House race has produced some memorable examples of candidates playing for fools state officials who endorsed them and voters who believed in them. In 1988, for example, Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis, campaigning in Minnesota toward the end of his disastrous campaign, promoted the idea of a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain.

Shortly afterward, in the dead of night, the head of Dukakis' Nevada campaign slinked out of the state. (Only Dan Quayle, then campaigning for the vice presidency, actually made anti-Nevada comments in Nevada. Shortly after the infamous Screw Nevada Bill passed Congress and targeted Yucca Mountain in 1987, Quayle declared in Las Vegas that he thought the bill made sense.)

This year, though, in the earliest presidential candidate sellout of the state and despite promises from his Nevada adherents that he really adores us and the gaming industry, George W. Bush has set a new standard for geographically convenient rhetoric. It's already been reported that as part of the scorching attempt to reduce John McCain to ashes in South Carolina, Bush allies used McCain's gaming contributions as a way to hurt him with the religious right. But the Bush campaign, it turns out, also directly used the gaming issue in South Carolina, in a mail piece that, ironically, declared: "John McCain Says One Thing, But Does Another."

The gaming broadside in the Bush ad closely mirrors a casino attack in South Carolina carried out on radio by a Christian Coalition-aligned group. The integration between such special interests and campaigns, routinely denied by both sides, is manifest, just as it was this week when religious righters Pat Robertson and James Dobson criticized McCain.

Bush may be able to perform his distancing dissimulation on the third-party attacks. But he can't run away from his own mail piece. The hypocrisy is stunning and pervasive.

In a piece that accuses McCain of saying one thing and doing another, Bush inhabits the phrase perfectly. The piece lambastes the Arizona senator for claiming "he battles the special interests, but has received $51,700 from gambling interests." This from the man whose mother came to Las Vegas late last year to raise money for his campaign at a casino executive's house and from dozens of gamers, including Mirage Resorts' Steve Wynn, Mandalay Resort Group's Mike Ensign, IGT's Chuck Mathewson, Boyd Gaming's Don Snyder, Park Place Entertainment's Mark Dodson, the Venetian's Bill Weidner and Santa Fe Resorts' Sue Lowden. At that event, the Bush campaign raised more money from gaming types -- close to $60,000 -- than he accuses McCain of taking in that mailer. Saying one thing and doing another?

Heaping untruths onto hypocrisy, Bush, in the flier, also claims, "No wonder the Las Vegas Sun said McCain may be the candidate friendliest to the gambling industry." The implication is that the Las Vegas paper, which would know best, has labeled McCain as gaming-friendly. That, though, never occurred. The story cited in the mailer was an Associated Press article that happened to appear in the Sun last July and detailed the presidential candidates' stances on gaming. The characterization of McCain came from a Washington-based AP reporter, not the Sun. A reformer with results, eh? If this mail piece is any indicator, a better slogan would be: "A Hypocrite Who Lies."

Yes, Bush is behaving within a long, bipartisan tradition. And, yes, the gaming industry and many Republicans from Gov. Kenny Guinn and Rep. Jim Gibbons on down will continue to support Bush for the reason most people are backing the Texas governor: They think he's going to win.

I am reminded of that classic scene in "Klute" when Jane Fonda, playing a prostitute, moans passionately while in bed with a john and then coldly pauses to glance at her watch. I just hope the state's Republicans -- and Nevada -- get more out of this than a one-election stand.