Las Vegas Sun

March 19, 2024

Mucking up the political picture

When Tony Dane's Nissan truck was repossessed in 1998, then mysteriously disappeared from a North Las Vegas impound lot, an employee of the repossession company said he called the right-wing activist to question him.

Dane's response: He took the truck back because he needed it to fulfill a contract for delivering campaign signs, the employee testified in court.

Dane said the conversation never happened and called the whole incident a set-up. Eventually, charges of burglary, grand larceny and possession of a stolen vehicle were reduced to a single count of taking a vehicle without consent because prosecutors lacked evidence tying Dane to the theft. He pleaded no-contest, with the understanding that if he paid $470 in restitution and completed 100 hours of community service, the charge would be dropped, which it was.

Such is the tenacity of Las Vegas' fringe political operatives, who return just about every campaign season despite their largely unsuccessful records.

Armed with anonymous fliers, automated phone calls and faux Web sites designed to look like their opponents', they back the campaigns of 20-year-old candidates or out-of-state salesmen with the same last name as the incumbent - and then they try to mask their involvement.

They work for little or nothing and seem motivated by ideological positions or the sheer enjoyment of political gamesmanship and dirty tricks.

They are folks like Tony Dane.

Although political dirty tricks have been around since the nation's infancy, Community College of Southern Nevada history professor Michael Green says he detects a new twist on that old theme locally, spurred in part by the Las Vegas Valley's growth and corresponding professionalizing of campaign management.

"With dirty tricks today, I am seeing a trend," he said. "They tend to be associated with the fly in the ointment. In the old days, dirty tricks were about trying to keep power. Now it's about tugging on Superman's cape and spitting into the wind."

Mainstream professional consultants tend to be pricey and often cater to corporate as well as political clients, said Steve Wark, who has worked in a dozen states for the Republican Senate Campaign Committee.

But there also is a sort of subclass, a B-list if you will, of those who, as Wark said, work on campaigns "part time, as a hobby, as an obsession."

Lacking significant resources, these operatives often resort to nickel-and-dime political tricks, creating an atmosphere in which any quick hatchet job can be attributed to a short list of the usual suspects.

Tony Dane tops that list.

In 1996 Dane ran against Assemblyman David Parks, D-Las Vegas, now the Assembly's only openly gay legislator. During the campaign, individuals with ties to Dane sent out a collage of newspaper reprints including a story about a 10-year-old boy accused of raping two younger boys. Those articles were wrapped around an endorsement of Parks by The Bugle, a local gay newsmagazine.

"They were kind of hate-filled messages," Parks recalled. "They were very homophobic."

Dane lost the race, and a printer later accused his campaign of stiffing the company. Dane, who had been homeless in the early 1990s after some bad investments, blamed his campaign manager.

Hit-job mailers are a favorite of operatives like Dane.

Former Las Vegas Councilman Steve Miller recently wrote a hit piece for 20-year-old County Commission District E candidate Priscilla Flores. It accused incumbent Myrna Williams of being asleep at the switch and challenger Chris Giunchigliani of promoting marijuana. Included were photographs of Williams with her eyes closed at a commission meeting and Giunchigliani standing in front of a chalkboard that reads, "We have a right to use marijuana."

The letter mirrored earlier anonymous mailers and phone calls with the same message.

Initially, Miller denied writing the attack ads, even after being confronted with the fact that an electronic copy of the mailer listed him as the author.

"I don't understand how that could possibly occur," he said.

Later, Miller confessed, saying he had not wanted his political enemies to know about his involvement.

"It may offend some power brokers, but extraordinary methods must be used to overcome the million-dollar campaign war chests of incumbent politicians like Michael McDonald and Myrna Williams," Miller said. "I sometimes get in binds, but I am not going to just shut up."

Miller's self-exposing blunder and his taking-on-the-establishment mentality are two common traits of part-time political operatives.

Take the 2002 campaign of salesman David Parks, who just happened to run against - you guessed it - Assemblyman David Parks. The clear intent behind having a challenger with the same name as the incumbent seemed to be to confuse voters.

Dane initially said he was not involved but later apologized for lying to the press after his fax number was found on the challenger's election filings.

A judge threw the challenger Parks out of the race when he could not prove he was a district resident.

Another favorite trick is registering your political foe's domain name - let's say, www.judgenancybecker.com. That tactic not only blocks candidates from using the most logical Web address for their campaigns, but also allows opponents to post negative information about candidates on Web sites likely to be found by voters searching for basic information on a political race.

Dane brags, for example, that he owns many of the domain names that Nancy Becker, a Nevada Supreme Court justice, could use.

Similar methods have been used by Republican anti-tax campaigner George Harris, who has backed many failed ballot initiatives such as the attempts to repeal the 2003 state tax hike, to ban public employees from holding office and to give North Las Vegas voters a chance to vote on city wage and salary contracts. Two years ago, he registered the domain name www.rayrawson.com, when state Sen. Ray Rawson was fending off a challenge from Rep. Bob Beers. The site provided "information" about Rawson, much of it factually questionable.

But like Dane and Miller, Harris' missteps caused him trouble.

One of the pictures on the Web site belonged to a newspaper, which blew the whistle on the site and demanded that Harris remove the photo, which he did.

From the Web to automated phone calling, technology has made it easier for the little man to make a lot of noise in politics.

Dane, for example, owns a computer system that can put out thousands of automated calls an hour. He recently used it to call for County Manager Thom Reilly to step down because strip club owner Michael Galardi claimed during the G-Sting political corruption trial, in which two former Clark County commissioners were convicted last month, that Reilly took a bribe.

Dane said later that he was defending Republican County Recorder Fran Deane, whom Reilly had earlier asked to step down while Metro Police investigated her for allegedly selling early access to public documents.

But as with most Dane schemes, the impact was questionable. Reilly is held by many on both sides of the aisle as above reproach. In fact, when a judge gave G-Sting defense attorneys the opportunity to call only one witness to testify that Galardi was a liar, they chose Reilly. Deane, meanwhile, remains under investigation and has decided not to run for re-election.

While technological advances can provide the minority with a democratic-sounding "stronger voice," many mainstream consultants say the often-amateurish political maneuvers and fraternity-style campaigns of operatives like Dane stifle the elective process.

"It's disingenuous and detrimental to political discourse in Nevada," said Republican consultant Jim Denton.

"They are effective in driving down voter turnout because voters are disgusted with everything," added Gary Gray, a Democratic consultant and Giunchigliani's husband.

But Dane says if his actions reduce voter turnout, that's a good thing.

"If I deter people from voting, good. Leave voting to people who know what they are doing," he said.

With another five months left in the election season, it's safe to say Nevadans can count on more shenanigans.

"There's always going to be mud you can sling," Green said.

And as long as Las Vegas is home to folks like Dane and Miller, you can probably count on it being slung.

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