Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Columnist Jon Ralston: Big Dog was big hit in Nevada

It was 15 years ago, and I still vividly recall the phone conversation. Tom Wiesner was running for mayor against longtime City Councilman Ron Lurie and casino character Bob Stupak. When veteran Clark County Commissioner Thalia Dondero entered the race late in the game, I suggested in a column that the dynamic had entirely changed.

Lurie and Dondero possessed political bases and Stupak had money and was willing to do anything to win. Wiesner seemed the odd man out. I mused in a column that if he had known Dondero was going to run, Wiesner probably wouldn't have filed.

When I picked up the phone the day the column appeared, the Big Dog was frothing. The diatribe lasted about five minutes, with the highlight being this comment, in as loud a voice as he could muster: "No woman would ever scare me out of a race."

Then, Wiesner took a breath, paused, and declared, "All right. I'm done." As he exhaled, I could almost see him smiling, having spent his vent. I mumbled some acknowledgement and he hung up.

That was the Big Dog in a nutshell. Boisterous, blustery, in your face but somehow hinting at a bear-like gentleness and never too serious about anything, be the subject politics, football or beer.

His zest for living makes his death last week that much harder to accept. Just the thought of Wiesner, who invigorated any room he walked into and who seemed as robust as when he played football for Wisconsin more than 40 years ago, dying of leukemia seems impossible.

But when ex-County Commissioner, ex-Regent Wiesner finally succumbed last week at the age of 63, the Republican Party here lost its most enduring symbol and the state lost a man who combined public service, business acumen and personal charm to become one of Nevada's most indelible figures.

Wiesner was one of those rare people who had a presence -- not just because of his size but because people knew when he spoke, he actually had something to say, because he always had a needle at the ready for politicians (even the ones he liked) and because he was a generally likable, engaging guy. In a world populated by phonies and poseurs, Wiesner was the kind of man who could be at ease in the rarefied suites of the political and social elite but who would just as soon be sipping a Pale Ale at The Draft House or Big Dog's or Holy Cow.

My favorite Big Dog memory actually came about a year after he lost that mayoral primary. It was the summer of '88, about 3 a.m., in the French Quarter of New Orleans during the Republican National Convention. I was walking down the street when I heard my name called out. I turned around to see Wiesner motioning for me to come over as he and another large man leaned on each other.

Both were, shall we say, having an extremely good time. I approached and Wiesner pointed to the man next to him who, like the Big Dog, could barely stand up. Wiesner pointed to his partner in bacchanalia and declared, "I'd like you to meet Tommy Thompson, the governor of Wisconsin."

I smile even now just thinking about it, just as I do when I remember how later we would become neighbors and I would see him walking quickly down the street early in the morning with his dogs. Occasionally, he would see me through my window and bellow to me -- just my last name -- and keep walking. Wiesner was not a guy who liked to chit-chat. Small talk? There was nothing small about him.

With Wiesner, the cliche never more clearly applied: What you saw was what you got. He was the prototypical ex-jock, the man's man who was plain-spoken, who couldn't be pretentious if he tried, who said what was on his mind without regard to the consequences.

As the Republican National committeeman, he bled for the party just as he surely gave his all to the Badgers when he led them to the Rose Bowl in 1960. But he also wasn't afraid to criticize his own, especially when it came to making sure Republicans were really Republicans.

He once talked publicly about what he saw as Republican Kenny Guinn's Democratic leanings. And yet, when Californian Aaron Russo exhumed Wiesner's old quote to try to bury Guinn with it in the 1998 GOP gubernatorial primary, Wiesner was furious about that, too. It was one thing for the Big Dog to growl at Guinn, but who was this guy trying to nip at the man who had become the GOP's standard-bearer?

Wiesner, despite his football player, tavern owner persona, was no dummy. He was one of the most persuasive spokesmen for city-county consolidation, and he brought it up during that ill-fated run for mayor 15 years ago.

Which reminds me of a footnote to that story from 1987: Turned out I was right -- Wiesner ran fourth among four candidates in the race Lurie eventually won. We would chuckle about it later.

But every dog has his day, and Wiesner, successful businessman, Republican stalwart, all around good fellow, had plenty of them. Just not nearly enough.

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