Columnist Jeff German: How many votes can money buy?

Friday, Nov. 1, 2002 | 11:18 a.m.

If you vote for John Hunt for attorney general this year, you'll also be voting for Mike Shustek.

That's because Shustek, the chief executive officer of Vestin Mortgage and a variety of related companies, not only has poured many tens of thousands of dollars into Hunt's campaign, but he also has been running his own "independent" campaign to elect the Democratic candidate.

He's become Hunt's alter ego.

"What I'm trying to do is make sure the best candidate wins," says Shustek, who has tangled with the attorney general's office and state financial investigators in the past. "All I want is a fair playing field."

Make that the fairest playing field money can buy.

Shustek can't really expect us to believe that he's throwing money Hunt's way out of any civic duty. He's not. He's simply trying to buy access to an office he hopes will be kinder to him if he ever again lands in hot water with regulators. One of his companies, Del Mar Mortgage, once was seized by the state over alleged wrongdoing, but later was returned after Shustek agreed not to play a direct role in management.

Today Shustek is playing an old game of political muscle, made popular here by the casino industry. It's a game the voting public has come to dislike.

"This is a good reason for somebody to change campaign funding laws," says Don Williams, a political strategist in Las Vegas for 45 years. "It's dangerous to the electoral process."

Williams, who is not involved in the attorney general's race, says he rarely has seen anyone go to this length to elect a candidate.

Shustek, his companies and his employees have contributed $173,000 to Hunt's campaign. The flamboyant financier also has hosted fund-raisers for Hunt and donated the use of his private plane. All of these contributions were reported by Hunt.

But look what else Shustek has done "independently."

He has put together television ads, a radio commercial and a campaign mailer for Hunt. He also has paid for mobile billboards, sent out a personal letter urging Nevadans to vote for Hunt and organized a small army of volunteers to go door-to-door hanging campaign literature.

Oh, and he has enlisted the aid of Vestin's spokesman, NFL great Joe Namath, to record a phone message endorsing Hunt to 200,000 homes in the state.

It's Shustek's job, not Hunt's, to report these activities to Secretary of State Dean Heller.

So far Shustek is late in filing his expense report. But he estimates that he may have spent an additional $150,000 to $200,000 on the "independent" Hunt campaign.

By now you should get the feeling that Shustek doesn't like Hunt's Republican opponent, Brian Sandoval, who's comfortably ahead in the polls.

You're right.

Sandoval filed a complaint with Heller in September, questioning whether Shustek and his friends were circumventing campaign reporting laws to steer cash to Hunt. Heller still is investigating.

Imagine how Sandoval feels now -- after learning that Shustek also is running his own campaign against him.

Not since Venetian owner Sheldon Adelson's $2 million attempt to defeat three county commissioners in 1998 has one person so blatantly devoted so many resources to a political race locally.

Adelson created a political action committee to defeat three county commission candidates -- incumbents Myrna Williams and Erin Kenny and newcomer Dario Herrera. The casino mogul funneled the $2 million through the committee for radio and television ads critical of the three candidates.

Political consultant Kent Oram, who's working for Sandoval, was asked to help the three candidates fend off the Adelson assault in 1998.

"We thought it was over the top, and we went out and pretty much showed people that one guy was trying to buy the commission," Oram says.

On Election Day in 1998, Williams, Kenny and Herrera all won their races. Having blown $2 million, Adelson learned a big lesson and has not since mounted a similar campaign.

The odds are that Shustek will learn the same lesson on Tuesday.

Like those who have tried to muscle an election before him, he'll learn that the voters are smarter than he thinks.

He'll learn to spend his money more wisely.