How Del Papa lost before the governor’s race began

Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2000 | 12:43 p.m.

Editor's note: This is the third in a series of six excerpts from the new book, "The Anointed One," by Sun political columnist Jon Ralston. This series, exclusive to the Sun, will run daily through Friday.

In early 1997, prodded by Democratic legislative leaders, Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa indicated that she would run for governor. She had very few people willing to work on her campaign and even some Democrats didn't want to stand in front of the Guinn freight train.

The following, taken from Chapter 4, "The Short, Unhappy Candidacy of Frankie Sue Del Papa," is a distillation of what happened after Del Papa got into the race.

On Tuesday, Aug. 26, 1997, Frankie Sue Del Papa held her first campaign fund-raiser at the Polo Towers, a time-share complex on the Las Vegas Strip. Although almost every Democratic officeholder, including Gov. Bob Miller, was listed on the invitation, none of them showed up at the event, which raised for her only $30,000. Not one casino executive graced the scene.

And if that weren't depressing and embarrassing enough for Del Papa, that same week news of Guinn's love of labor began to surface.

First, Guinn had been named the keynote speaker of the annual AFL-CIO convention in Las Vegas the next month. The Guinnites knew what kind of signal that would send, which is why Guinn had been working on his longtime friend, Blackie Evans, the iconic head of the labor organization. Guinn had also informed Evans and others that he might be open to signing a bill giving state employees collective-bargaining rights, which had been anathema for Republican governors (and even some Democratic chief executives) in the past.

Del Papa, more significantly, had a frosty relationship with the Culinary Union, the largest labor organization by far in Nevada, which represents the casino workers and is a potent grass-roots force. Guinn's campaign manager, Pete Ernaut, had already fashioned an intermittent colloquy with D. Taylor, the Culinary's staff director and local leader.

Ernaut had been helpful on several union issues during the 1995 Legislature, and he had kept in touch with Taylor ever since. Guinnite Billy Vassiliadis was also a friend of Taylor's and others in the Culinary hierarchy, including John Wilhelm, Taylor's boss, and Glen Arnodo, the up-and-coming Culinary political director.

Guinn not only knew Evans, but he also had a close friendship with Andy Anderson, the police union chief. Among his myriad extracurricular duties, Guinn had served as chairman of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department's Fiscal Affairs Committee. And the last time the cops were up for a raise, Guinn made the motion. Anderson was there the moment Guinn announced.

Del Papa, by contrast, had never sought to develop relationships with any of the labor folks.

Yes, she had a friendship with Danny Thompson, an ex-assemblyman now running the AFL-CIO's political and lobbying arm in Carson City. But the Culinary leaders actually felt she had gone out of her way to be hostile during her term. She had done nothing to help the union in its protracted struggle with the Frontier Hotel on the Strip, the longest-running strike in America. And when she had to rule on whether sidewalks in front of the anti-union MGM Grand could be used by Culinary pickets, she not only ruled against the labor organizers, but also fired a deputy who was sympathetic to their position. Add in building-trade leaders who were enraged about her office's rulings in prevailing wage cases, and she had serious trouble with labor.

Although she was a veteran pol, Del Papa seemed clueless about how serious her problems with labor really were. She had convinced herself that the rank-and-file would admire her for her independence and that she didn't need any coziness with the leadership.

The Guinnites knew that if Del Papa could be denied the AFL-CIO endorsement in September, it would set her campaign reeling. And they were working the inside to ensure that the Democratic candidate, a natural for a labor endorsement, was snubbed.

Danny Thompson tried to help her. He had offered her the keynote slot at the convention, which she turned down. Then he called the White House to try to knock Guinn off the speaking list at the AFL-CIO convention.

Del Papa chewed out Evans when she learned Guinn had received the plum. It was stupid, said one Democrat at the time who was sympathetic to her cause and familiar with the machinations. She called the White House after the fact and had them call the AFL-CIO. She didn't change the outcome, but she did manage to incense the troops on the ground. She yelled at Blackie in her shrill way and their perspective is she has never lifted a finger to help. Worse, she had no organization, not even a campaign manager to help her work the inside.

Del Papa tried to counter the swelling tide before the AFL-CIO convention by putting out the word that she had met with Steve Wynn in early September.

Wynn had pledged to give as much to her as to Guinn and insisted later that the state had the classiest choice in history. Del Papa gushed that Steve Wynn treated me like the vice president of the United States. He pulled all of his (property) presidents in (to talk about giving money to her campaign). Del Papa quickly ensured that word of Wynn's bet-hedging became public, hoping it would cause other casinos to follow suit, but that didn't happen. For example, Del Papa tried to call Gary Primm, the head of Primadonna Resorts. But she was told she would have to go through Primm's political adviser, who just happened to be Sig Rogich.

(Del Papa was indeed rejected by the AFL-CIO at the convention in September.)

Del Papa left the AFL-CIO convention downcast. The antagonism, the snubs, had sent her reeling. She had only $250,000 in the bank, a quarter of what Guinn claimed to have. Her chief adviser, Kent Oram, was threatening not to do the race unless she could pay him more than she had already raised.

Del Papa was torn because she still believed Oram could deliver law enforcement. What she didn't know was that Anderson, the police union chief, had already committed his organization to Guinn -- not because of Oram, but because of Guinn's performance on the police budget board.

Ten days after the convention, word surfaced that Guinn had chosen three honorary campaign chairmen -- well-regarded Clark County Commissioner Bruce Woodbury, Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, and, the big coup, Reno women's rights activist Patty Becker. All Del Papa could do now, with all the state talent on the Guinn side, was to run a campaign out of Washington, which would surely prove disastrous.

Del Papa went to Washington shortly after the convention, cautiously hopeful that Emily's List and others would ignite her candidacy. She and her friends, including Gordy Fink and Bill Prezant, had worked day and night preparing a $2 million financial plan. But the Emily's List representative didn't even open her plan, treating Del Papa as if she were a first-time contender. They wanted her to commit to spending $1 million she didn't have and probably couldn't obtain as soon as they wanted her to. Del Papa left Washington despondent.

By early October, Oram was all but a Guinnite and Del Papa's campaign was inert. She received a call from a major mining-company executive who wanted to support her after meeting with Guinn, Rogich and Ernaut. It's like doing business in Indonesia, he told her. They were threatening and promising. But that was hardly encouraging to Del Papa. Quite the contrary. The full realization of what she was up against began to weigh on her. And she didn't have the stomach, the will for it.

On paper, ironically, Del Papa had nothing to be down about. Guinn appeared to be a prohibitive underdog in most surveys. She had all the name recognition she needed; Guinn still had none.

In fact, all Del Papa's second thoughts occurred as she enjoyed what polls were showing to be a 20- to 25-point lead. She was on the verge of quitting a contest she was winning by a landslide. But the polls couldn't overcome her personal angst, her fundamental aversion to fundraising, and the ruthless efficiency with which Ernaut & Co. had boarded up the doors to every special-interest house.

On Oct. 16, 1997, Pete and Wendy Ernaut were shopping for furniture in Reno when the call came in on his cell phone. Del Papa was through: The news would break on television that night, and in the newspaper the next day. Ernaut was hardly shocked -- he had been predicting as much. But it was four months earlier than his timetable; he didn't think she would raise the white flag until February, just after the campaign disclosures were released.

As he thought about Del Papa's departure in the ensuing days, Ernaut began to realize the significance. Evaluating the Democratic field in his mind's eye, he found it to be fallow. He figured that while state Sen. Joe Neal might get in, he was a fringe candidate who would have no impact. Las Vegas Mayor Jan Jones, the only potentially viable candidate, surely would not get in. She and Rogich were very close, and he had assured everyone in the campaign that she was out. My mindset was there was nobody left, Ernaut recalled thinking.

Two weeks after she dropped out of the race, Del Papa later asserted, she received a call from the Washington, D.C., office of Emily's List. Just a quick call to let the attorney general know that the group had looked at her financial plan, and it was the best the group had ever seen. They would use it as a national model.

WEDNESDAY: Jan Jones Takes a Pass.

"The Anointed One," by Jon Ralston, is available for $17.95 from all major bookstores in the greater Las Vegas area; it's also available from the Las Vegas-based publisher, Huntington Press, at 252-0655.

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