Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2006 | 7:16 a.m.
You see candidates do it all the time: In the argot of campaigns, it's called inoculation.
Sensing an impending attack from the opposition, contenders will adopt a "best defense is a good offense." So they will inject buzzwords to create a prophylactic effect - accused yes-men become "independent," for example.
But never in two decades of covering campaigns have I witnessed an inoculation of the magnitude being attempted by secretary of state hopeful Danny Tarkanian. There is enough potency in this shot to do more than immunize - it might just be fatal.
Tarkanian, the son of legendary basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, is running against fellow fortunate son Ross Miller, scion of former Gov. Bob Miller. The younger Tarkanian is ignoring the advice of friends and advisers and embarking on an unprecedented strategy: He is going public with what he calls prevarications being whispered about him by the Democrats.
"I have nothing to hide," he declared this week, and thus he plans to disseminate to the media a document with the headline, "Lies About Danny Tarkanian."
It's one thing to sit down with a Fourth Estater and chat privately about what the opposition might be hoarding in its opposition research folder. But to offer up the information and then urge the media to use it - that is all but unprecedented.
The marquee item in the document is about his ties to telemarketers, the same subject that state Sen. Mike Schneider raised against Tarkanian in a 2004 legislative race. After he lost, Tarkanian sued Schneider for defamation, and the case remains unresolved. This same stuff was contained in what is known as "The Harry Reid packet," opposition research the senior senator's folks compiled on Tarkanian when the coach's son mused about running against the U.S. senator two years ago. That information is believed to be in the hands of Ross Miller's campaign.
Tarkanian's document leads with the telemarketing stuff, and it is jarring:
"LIE: Danny created phony companies to defraud elderly citizens and/or that Danny was the resident agent for companies that defrauded elderly citizens. Or in the alternative, Danny was almost indicted for telemarketing fraud."
Hadn't heard all of that. But now I have. And so have you. And then:
"TRUTH: Danny was an attorney who practiced in a variety of areas, including corporate law. He incorporated well over 100 companies and he was the resident agent for most of the companies he incorporated, as are most attorneys who perform incorporations.
"A man who had once served as a ball boy while Danny played at UNLV hired Danny to incorporate a nonprofit company for him. He subsequently hired Danny to incorporate other companies, and referred several friends to Danny to have their companies incorporated. This person, along with some, but not all, of the friends he had referred to Danny, was later indicted for telemarketing fraud.
"Danny had no involvement with the indicted businesspeople or their businesses except to act as their attorney for incorporation. The state attorney general's office investigated Danny to determine whether he was involved.
"Through his attorney, Danny contacted the attorney general's office and offered to meet with them to answer any questions they might have. The attorney general's office never asked to meet with Danny."
There is more about telemarketers and other issues in the three-page document but I will stop there - I don't want Tarkanian to do too much of the Miller campaign's work. The simple truth is that the Democratic contender's folks have been trying to connect the dots to make this sound worse than Tarkanian does here but have been unable to do so yet. My guess is they will be happy to discuss it now, though.
When I mentioned that the Miller folks also were saying that he recently had been slapped by the Supreme Court for practicing law without a license, Tarkanian said it was true, but that it was the result of helping out his parents and a family friend.
"So they are going to use that, too?" he wondered with a hint of melancholy. "I guess I better add that."
And so the "Lies About Danny Tarkanian" document got longer Tuesday.
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