Friday, Oct. 1, 2004 | 6:31 a.m.
Jon Ralston hosts the news discussion program Face to Face on Las Vegas ONE and publishes the Ralston Report. He can be reached at (702) 870-7997 or at [email protected].
WEEKEND EDITION
October 2 - 3, 2004
The era of No Personal Responsibility and No Shame has arrived (or is it just continuing?), with no end in sight.
No, this is not another take on the odor emanating from the City Hall cesspool, where fingers are pointed everywhere but inward as conveniently amnesiac, perpetually arrogant officials use their offices to benefit themselves and/or their friends and family. That has been a responsibility- and shame-free zone for some time.
This is about Campaign '04. And with just over a month until Election Day and less than two weeks before infernal early voting begins, candidates are shamelessly talking about irrelevancies and irresponsibly ignoring any substantive debate. And, in so doing, they treat the electorate as if it is full of fools -- and voters respond by proving them right.
I expect the looniness -- the woman who told me a girlfriend is voting for John Kerry solely because John Edwards is "hot" or the guy who asked me why I haven't exposed the real secret behind why the dump is being constructed at Yucca Mountain: It's planned as a secure haven for politicians when the next terrorist attack occurs. How did I miss that?
The utter lack of respect that officeholders and candidates have for elective office reflected in what they say and how they behave has catalyzed the initiative process, now being used as a weapon of first resort as opposed to a refuge of last resort.
This biennial lament, the pundit's pathetic whine, is especially loud this year. From the presidential race on down, the dumbing down of political discourse continues apace in 2004.
Controller Kathy Augustine's defiance in the face of the inevitable is but an exclamation point to a year in which up is down. Augustine willfully admits -- admits! -- to flouting state ethics laws and coercing her staff to be campaign gofers and she doesn't see why she should resign.
Although I -- and many of my Fourth Estate colleagues -- relish the spectacle of an impeachment trial, as much for Augustine's public hanging as for the Gang of 63's high-horse contest, at long last, folks, has she no shame?
But there are plenty of other embarrassment-free transgressors, starting with a president who refuses to acknowledge that consistency can ever be a sign of stubborn denial and a challenger who refuses to acknowledge that inconsistency can be evidence of situational, political calculation.
Closer to home, Rep. Jon Porter and Tom Gallagher are trying to outdo each other in silliness. Each is portraying the other as a carpetbagger who is soft on the dump. How stupid they must think you are.
Gallagher says Porter is a Republican rubber stamp while asking us to believe he will be what no successful congressman ever has been: independent from the leadership. Porter says Gallagher is a rich guy who has represented all kinds of awful special interests while neglecting to mention he is a member of the beloved insurance industry. How gullible they believe you to be.
In another high-profile race, County Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald isn't satisfied with eviscerating opponent David Goldwater for supporting the largest tax increase in history. She finds it necessary to add taxes he didn't support and falsely claim he was the deciding vote on the increase. If they air it, you will believe it.
On the other hand, Goldwater wants you to believe that Boggs McDonald is in the pocket of developers because he is anti-growth and she is not, without any regard to the potential downside to shutting off the growth spigot or if that is even possible. But if it's what you want to hear, you will sing along.
And then we have the epicenter of shamelessness and irresponsibility in Carson City, where the tax temblor continues to radiate aftershocks a year-plus later. I'm still not sure what is worse -- the behavior of the Democrats or the Republicans.
The Democrats refuse to stand up and proudly say why they voted en masse to support all those taxes, which were to support their core beliefs in education and health care. If they don't acknowledge it, maybe it didn't really happen.
As for the Republicans, those who voted against the tax increase are boasting about it without informing their constituents that they would have backed the largest tax increase in history, just slightly or substantially smaller. The worst offender, perhaps, is state Sen. Ray Shaffer, who is bragging that he never voted for the $833 million package but probably won't tell voters why: He had gone fishing in Hawaii while the rest of the Gang of 63 finished the people's business.
And there are more frightening manifestations of this new era, too: Lawyers and doctors and George Harris, oh my. The doctors can't make a living, the lawyers care about victims and Harris, like the Monty Python knight whose limbs keep getting lopped off, doesn't know when he's beaten. But if they keep talking, someone will listen.
Ultimately, to provide the peroration to this lamentation, I end where I began. The most shameful and irresponsible behavior still comes from the voters, many of whom will flock to the polls long before Election Day just so they can dispense with their voting rights like the weekly trash.
The reason that City Hall scandals go unpunished, that willful violators of ethics laws can clutch onto their offices and dissembling candidates can get elected is because they know the dirty little secret of American politics:
Most people just don't care.
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