Airola on the defensive

Saturday, Oct. 7, 2006 | 7:54 a.m.

Jerry Airola's office is done in stained wood and deep-pile white carpet, with space enough to dwarf its contents, which include a couch, a table, a desk and a Tiffany-style Oakland Raiders lamp with inlaid black glass team insignia.

Doug Gillespie's office is all desk and roughly a quarter the size, with plastic blinds and a view from the eighth floor of City Hall, where he has sat for the past four years in a chair that faces Sheriff Bill Young. Only a wall keeps the men from making eye contact over their desks.

Airola's office is about six miles from Young's, Gillespie's is about six feet, and with only five weeks left in the race for Clark County sheriff, the difference in distance may well be a metaphor for the campaign.

In recent weeks, Airola was forced to hire new campaign consultants - a few local advisers the sheriff candidate says would rather have their names remain unknown, or, as Airola puts it, "kept on the Q-T."

This, political observers agree, is a bad sign.

"It means that he has hired people (who) have no confidence in him," said local campaign consultant Gary Gray, who isn't involved in the race.

People who have no confidence in the millionaire candidate, perhaps, but every confidence in his checkbook.

"He is going to be taken advantage of, in my opinion," UNLV political scientist David Damore said. "Let's just say that (consultants) don't always have the best interest of their clients in mind."

Gillespie has stayed constant with Kent Oram, a seven-time sheriff campaign consultant who makes no apology for being a "good old boy" so long as he's good. And most of Gillespie's dirty work was done for him when Airola was dragged out in the media and knocked down by Metro's top brass.

"Politics is a contact sport," Young said.

Airola shot himself out of the gate early and fast, with commercials, mailers and billboards enough to make him stand apart from the 15 other starting candidates. The primary race, Airola's first political contest, cost $1.7 million. The money was mainly his own, spent big and bold as the scrutiny it drew. The bad press began.

First it was stories that questioned Airola's police credentials and dissected his business dealings, one lawsuit at a time. Then came the Aug. 8 press conference where Young attacked Airola on camera, calling him, not just unfit for the job, but crooked - not even a real cop.

Still, some saw seed for a successful counterattack buried beneath the damning press conference, which seemed desperate enough to be dangerous for Gillespie. Even Airola's well-traveled then-campaign consultant, George Gorton, who orchestrated wins for Arnold Schwarzenegger and Boris Yeltsin, said he had never seen anything like it.

So when Airola returned fire with a weak, one-page flier, a "Statement by Jerry Airola Regarding the Attacks on Him by the Old Boys Network," it looked like a ball had been dropped.

"That press conference, with all due respect to some really good people who were there, had equal opportunity to backfire as it did to be the home run that it was," said Ryan Erwin, a local campaign consultant and an armchair observer of the race.

"Had the Airola camp been prepared, they probably could have turned what ended up being a pretty difficult blow into something else. But for some reason, they didn't."

Gillespie won the primary with almost 38 percent of the vote. Airola came in a distant second, with about 22 percent.

It's not exactly a coronation, Damore said of the campaign to succeed Young, "but it's pretty much an insider's job."

Gorton said Las Vegas voters appeared uninterested in the sheriff race. His avowed political litmus test - cab drivers - reportedly balked when asked about the election. And then Gorton balked, too, leaving Nevada to run a campaign in Turkey.

Airola has been on the defensive ever since. He machine-guns through interviews with protest points: He knew Gorton was leaving, he's not trying to buy the election, he didn't lie about his education or experience, he's being railroaded by meddling Good Old Boys, he's got a solid campaign strategy and yes, he's a cop. He is. He swears. He has photocopied diplomas to prove it.

"They made people believe I stood there and baldface lied that I was a cop," Airola said. "Well, that's pretty easy to fix, isn't it? All I have to do now is come out and say, 'I didn't lie to you. Here's my certificate. Here's my background. Here's who I was.' "

Unfortunately for Airola, his easy fix requires exhaustive explanation. It wasn't a lie, he says - he's a reserve California deputy on hiatus pending court consideration. A Merced County sheriff department sergeant said Airola was "separated" from the department - but not fired. Semantics, Airola says. His total law enforcement experience is less than three years.

Happily for Gillespie, the time spent discussing Airola's credentials kept campaign conversation away from questions that might have actually jarred the undersheriff - like whether it's a good idea for the head of Metro to always come from within? Or whether the sheriff really needs to be a cop at all? And why the nightly TV news never seems to have a shortage of crime footage.

Gillespie, who makes up in thoughtfulness what he lacks in punch, touts his nearly 26-year Metro career as reason enough for his election: "I've done a lot of positive things. I think the department has done a lot of good things, and I believe strongly that it's a good police department."

The undersheriff says he's considered "almost an incumbent." Others would call it an anointment. The difference could have been Airola's gravy.

"He had a classic opportunity of insider versus outsider; successful businessman versus career cop," Erwin said. "Had he gotten out and framed it the appropriate way, you'd have a race that is probably marginally close, or at least within striking distance."

But Airola waited until attacks died down to parade his new pitch: Metro's multimillion-dollar budget would be best managed by a businessman. Namely, himself.

Airola became a CEO first and cop second. He recently sold more than half of his helicopter company to investors in preparation for becoming sheriff.

Then he came up with examples to push his point: The head of a hospital isn't necessarily a doctor, the chief of General Motors didn't start by assembling cars on the line.

"I cannot put my police background against Doug Gillespie's police background," he said. "But the thing that people don't always understand is that the sheriff is not always the operational person. The sheriff's job is the administration, it's the politician, it's the marketing person, it's the guy who's got to go out and sell the ideas."

This grates at Gillespie and Young, who didn't work behind the wheel of a cop car and up the ranks to be told how to do their job.

"What I do for a living is a profession, and it takes a lot of work," Gillespie said. "It takes commitment."

Airola's rejoinder? The men in Metro's ivory tower don't know any better.

"All the reasoning in the world, it's going to be difficult for them to see anything different," Airola said. "I'm the person outside looking in."

His rogue businessman narrative has enjoyed limited appeal. Airola was recently endorsed by the Henderson Chamber of Commerce. He also reports support from the local Black Panther Party and Nation of Islam, endorsements Airola says fall under his "protest vote."

Yet neither the protest vote nor the new pitch is enough to reverse recent polls, which show Airola's support hovering at a point of no return. Oram, Gillespie's pollster, doesn't reveal his numbers but was willing to acknowledge his tabulations don't add up nicely for the businessman. Consultant Gray agreed from the sidelines: "I think the job has been done on Airola."

Airola, though, just scoffs. Not everyone can afford to be so sure. The standard rule is that campaigns aren't over until the donations dry up, Gray said. The self-funded Airola is almost impossible to extinguish. He could slip through, again, on his own dime.

"If I wanted to, it's true. I could spend stupid money on the campaign," Airola said. "Obviously I'm not going to spend every dime I've got."

This, from a man who says he honestly doesn't know what he's worth.

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