Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Paul Adams

Paul Adams, 51, is tall and trim with a clean cut of silver hair. He's polished and polite, though not afraid to share a salty opinion about, say, John Kerry. In short, he has the unmistakable quality that exudes "ex-military" and "West Point graduate."

Some of the most explosive anti-war protests were tearing across the country when Adams was considering colleges. His contrarian streak, he said, led him to West Point, where he was on the intramural track team before graduating in 1976.

At the Military Academy, he learned discipline, team-building and focus.

"Once a decision is made, implement it. Don't just keep blowing in the wind," Adams said, probably not making a Bob Dylan reference.

Adams served in military intelligence before the Army selected him for an elite law school program. He became a military lawyer, prosecuting and defending 100 courts martial before being medically discharged in 1986 and going to work for Tobin & Tobin, the oldest law firm in California.

He made partner before leaving for another firm, where he again made partner. The work bored him. In early 1996, a client hired him to help build a new company that designed and built machines for manufacturing companies. They revved it up and sold it.

He moved to Nevada full time in 2002, became president of the Las Vegas West Point Society and then chairman of Nevada Veterans for Bush in 2004. Last fall he was elected GOP chairman.

He has been married to the same woman for 30 years. They've raised two daughters, one adopted from Korea.

To sum up: Paul Adams has achieved lots of success in life.

He is immensely smart and talented, Republicans say.

Then some of those Republicans keep talking and say he's totally ill-equipped to be the GOP chairman right now.

He's doesn't have the experience or necessary relationships. His charge-ahead personality, together with all that past success in other endeavors, has left him without the bridge-building temperament needed, at least not right now, say insiders and activists.

Steve Wark is a former GOP chairman and a prominent political consultant who says he knew the current election cycle was going to be one of the toughest in memory for Republicans. As Adams considered taking the chairmanship last year, "I counseled him against it," Wark said.

Republican fortunes were already sliding. President Bush's poll numbers were sinking. Republicans in Congress were enduring scandal and a restive base. The war in Iraq dragged on.

Nevada Republicans faced the prospect of defending all six constitutional offices with a new chairman and executive director.

Adams says the old soldier in him loves this charge-the-hill scene of potential bloodbath or glory: "Everybody said, 'Why would you want to do this?' But I have startups and business turnarounds in my background. When somebody says, 'This is gonna be difficult,' to me, that means, this is gonna be fun."

His favorite book is Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged," which is about the lonely hero, the productive creator under siege. Adams picks it up all of the time, he said. He may want to pick it up again today.

Wark said everyone admires Adams' smarts and fortitude. Adams is "light years ahead of Collins in intellectual abilities," he said. Nevertheless, that doesn't change the current reality. "He was entering into a difficult campaign cycle and didn't have the depth of relationships required to ensure success."

The party apparatus doesn't have the money, expertise or experienced volunteers to be an important resource for candidates right now, Wark said.

Chuck Muth, a former GOP executive director, said he doesn't envy Adams because the new chairman hasn't had time to forge the relationships needed to raise money.

"By the time he establishes those relationships, the election will be over," Muth said.

Adams concedes that when he started raising money, many donors had no idea who he was.

Indeed, many Republicans interviewed for this story say they can't talk about Adams because they don't know him. Those include Sig Rogich, Pete Ernaut and Jim Denton, big-time Republicans who have the connections Adams needs to complete his ambitious goal: Turn the state party into a well-oiled machine.

Traditionally, the parties in Nevada haven't been very powerful. Strip and development money have tended to contribute to candidates rather than parties. After every election, the Nevada Republican Party usually shuts down until the next election year, when new leadership and new activists have to recruit candidates and volunteers, raise money and hire talent.

Adams wants to create a permanent operation, one that never shuts down and is always organizing the grass roots, developing political talent, raising money, attacking opponents.

The current reality is something far different. In 14 Assembly districts, Democrats are running unopposed. Rogich called that "conspicuous."

Nancy Dallas is on the executive board of the Federation of Republican Women. "It's just a very disorganized state party right now," she said.

At last month's state convention in Mesquite, only 135 delegates showed up, hundreds fewer than in years past.

"It was a terrible turnout," Muth said.

The convention also served as the denouement of a conflict over the party's bylaws that pitted Adams against impeached state Controller Kathy Augustine. Adams pushed for a change to bar the party from providing any support - financial or otherwise - to convicted felons or impeached elected officials, such as Augustine.

The change in the bylaws passed after much debate. Adams called it common sense.

As Adams supporter Joe Brown, an influential Las Vegas attorney and Republican national committeeman, said: "If the Republican Party can't stand up for integrity, then we've lost our compass."

To some party activists, though, the provision amounted to a personal war on Augustine and highlighted Adams' divisiveness.

"I realize some people believe he's done the right thing," Dallas said. "But other people don't. What have you accomplished? A split in the party."

Although Adams seems easy-going in an interview, questions about his temperament have come up. During the 2004 campaign, he participated in a focus group following one of the presidential debates. A Kerry supporter challenged Adams about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, asking him where they are.

Adams slammed his fist on the table and yelled: "They're probably buried in Iran or Syria." Tempers grew so hot that the group was excused.

Then there's Adams' nearly daily attacks on Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada whom he accused last year of doing a "despicable dance on the graves of our service members" by "playing politics with national security."

Reid has many Republican friends, including Rogich.

"I'm the wrong guy to ask about that," Rogich said of Adams' attacks on Reid. Rogich then launched into a defense of Reid's acceptance of free ringside boxing seats from the state athletic commission (which Reid has since said he should not have accepted).

Many activists also wonder what Adams' point is, given that Reid won't be running again until 2010.

"Why aren't we banging away on Dina Titus or Jim Gibson?" Muth asked, referring to the Democratic gubernatorial candidates.

Adams said Titus and Gibson are doing a fine job of beating on each other, and he fears that Reid is on the cusp of creating a Democratic machine here that must be stopped. Adams also seems genuinely baffled by the clubbiness of Nevada politics, wherein some partisanship is considered out of bounds.

"Why should he get a free pass?" he asked of Reid.

For now, Adams continues to enjoy the support of the influential Republicans who helped him become chairman, including Brown and Las Vegas businessman Jim Marsh.

"I think he's a standup guy, and I think he'll be fine," Marsh said.

Brown was more even effusive: "He's the most devoted, conscientious, organized, dynamic party chairman in a long time."

November will be the test of that praise.

archive