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The surprising moves of current, would-be officeholders
Friday, March 5, 2010 | 2 a.m.
Catching up with the Friday Flash of some of this week’s events:
• Mayor Brown? As the ever-modest Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman continues to talk as if the mayoralty must remain in his name, floating his wife, Carolyn, as his successor, I flushed out one other potential contender this week on “Face to Face.”
I had heard Larry Brown, a close ally of Goodman’s when he was on the City Council, was musing about coming back to the city after a brief stint on the Clark County Commission. People usually step up from the relatively powerless council to the potent commission. But considering the current, volatile commission makeup and his chance to be mayor, I wasn’t surprised when I heard Brown, ever ambitious, might want to be called “Your Honor.”
On the program this week, Brown, annoyingly saying he anticipated the question, tried an initial dodge by talking about how focused he is on the city’s budget problems. Undaunted, I pressed on and he acknowledged, “I have been approached.”
(Side note: We always hear that line about being approached, as if it would sound too egomaniacal to have thought of it yourself. Who are these people who always “approach” folks to run for office? Is it always the same people who “approach” these potential candidates? Or are there roving gangs of approachers?)
Brown said he will “think about it down the road,” and when I asked one last time if he were interested, he offered: “I could be.”
Meaning: He is.
Brown would be an interesting contender — well liked, broad support base, ability to raise money as commissioner. He would be viable against any of the councilmen who have thought about it. But the wild card is the same as it was during the last two open mayoral seats: A wealthy outsider who decides to spend a fortune to win the race.
The last two — Goodman and Jan Jones — were such types. Is there another one out there? I would guess so — someone like Larry Ruvo, the spirit man, or Don Snyder, the ex-gamer/banker, both deeply involved in downtown projects?
Looking forward to that contest in 2011.
• Is this all they have? I know it’s early (although the primary is only 95 days hence), but I was quite distressed (it happens every two years) by the performance Wednesday night of the four leading contenders to replace County Commissioner Rory Reid. I will not single out any of them — state Sen. David Parks, union stalwart Greg Esposito, ex-School Board Member Mary Beth Scow and Planning Commissioner Ron Newell. They were, as a group, awful.
Awful how? you wonder.
If you walked into the Painters Hall where the Henderson Democratic Club met, you would have thought you had stumbled into a Clichés, Evasions and Pabulum Convention. On questions about the rural water pipeline or home rule or UMC, we heard they need to studied, looked at carefully, certainly not committed to at this time.
At first, I wished I had stopped by Starbucks first. By the end, I was longing for Glenlivet.
I suppose it is a constant refrain from those of us who cover campaigns: When you get a chance to talk, say something. Even more frustrating is when they get away with it or rely on sound bites that don’t reveal anything about what they might do in the elected post or reveal promises they can’t keep (Bush 41 in ’88 and Gibbons the Only One in ’06).
I suppose I should be optimistic that it will get better from here, both in that race and up the ticket. But for some reason, Pollyanna has left the building.
• Brave new legislative world: Assembly Minority Leader Heidi Gansert’s stunning announcement she will not seek re-election is interesting — she said she wanted a break from elected life and who can blame her? — but not nearly so provocative as two trends it underscores.
One, it reinforces the split within the state GOP. Gansert is seen as a moderate, but only because she has been willing to make deals to close sessions. She may not always have been the strongest leader, but she often invoked conservative principles. And that compromising to get legislation through is seen as a crime inside the Tea Partying GOP — it shows what we are in for during Campaign ’10.
Second, while there is always significant turnover in the Legislature from session to session, the changes come 2011 could be unprecedented. Because of term limits, retirements and electoral defeats, you may have half of each chamber populated by rookies.
Luckily, there are no huge or complicated issues on the docket for the 2011 Legislature.
Jon Ralston’s column appears Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.
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"Luckily, there are no huge or complicated issues on the docket for the 2011 Legislature."
/sarcasm
A $2 Billion budget deficit awaits! Who wants to help figure out how to close it? All you have to do is demonize everyone, promise to Make Them Pay, and proclaim yourself to be an exemplary citizen, worthy of the votes of your constituents. It'll be great! You get to sit in a big room with 62 of your helpless, hapless peers and argue about the best way to distribute the misery among the working class, children, poor, elderly, and disabled. No experience necessary!
Maybe 50% newbies will find an "out of the box" solution.
They can't do any worse than the last few session, in my opinion.
All we've seen for years is bandaids on a broken leg.
It's a math problem, and there is no "out of the box" solution, Louise. All of the fat has been cut; of course, they could amputate that broken leg, but a more rational and sustainable approach is needed. I advocate we diversify our tax base by adding a corporate and/or personal income tax, and diversify our economy by providing incentives to new industries. Of course, the "fixed income conservatives" will scream, but we have to govern for the future of our children.
The cat is out of the (political) bag:
Voters have caught on to the shenanigans of the elected "politically-expedient".
Phony double-dealing self-serving mealy-mouth lyin' politico dogs have been caught and exposed for the help-their-pals losers that they are.
Nowhere in any state, other than California, is there such a dire monetary shortfall caused by horrendous mis-managing, ridiculously over-spending, and improperly undertaxing that is seen in Nevada.
And these current elected politico fools in office now see their uncovering and exposing in the making.
In short, they are running for the hills. And deservedly so.
It's too bad there's no late night infomercial selling "Politico Be-Gone".
Great column! LMAO!
It would have been funnier if it wasn't true.
Hey Jon,
It's really not all that hard to fix the big budget shortfall. Actually it's a piece of cake
to fix it and keep any subsequent shortfall manageable.
But it will take some political will and having people get out of the consensus trance of things will get better soon.
For most companies it will be like having a root canal with no novacaine. It's not about taxes, it's about survival.
The real problem is how to create an economy where money flows into Nevada and not out.
We need to restructure our state wide economy to take advantage of what we have in Nevada, so we fix the these problem and do not have similar massive economic problems in the future.
We need a new Governor that knows how to solve the problems, some legislators with more than marshmellow for backbone and citizens who DO NOT want to live in poverty.
It's not rocket science. Most of our shoot ouselves in the foot mentality is from having a lack of real leadership, too many morons spouting too much ideology and dogma and not enough people actually working to solve the problems.
The really huge problems have yet to hit the fan.
We have about a two or three year window to get the ship on course or Nevada will be Somalia West.
Things are bad now, but worse is yet to come if we don't do some very smart things right now.
Read the latest annual reports from MGM-Mirage or The Sands. Zombie's live.
You can pretty much bet they file for BK if Macau has any sort of negative blip.
Both companies are financially all smoke and mirrors. Neither of them can cover their loan payments from cash flow. They are using capital. It will run out soon.
When the capital runs out ... look out below.
Fred Conquest
Democratic Candidate For Governor
John, we've been watching your new TV show. I wanted to tell you that you are pandering to (kissing the asses of) politicians who appear on your show a bit too much.
I got really irritated with you when you kept talking about the State "stealing" money from Southern Nevada public agencies. You know darn well that LEGALLY the counties, school districts, water agencies and the like are just branches of State governmment. The State owns all tax revenue, and local agencies only get to keep what the Legislature and Governor let them keep.
If we in Southern Nevada want to control the Legislature and the Governorship, we've got to get a stranglehold on Clark County Republicans who have been instrumental in getting people like Governor Zero elected. Truth gets good people elected, not ash kissing from TV commentators.
In addition, I almost threw up watching your interview of Commissioner Larry Brown, where he was completely washing his hands of the County Commissioners having any accountability for the conduct and misconduct of County employees. That's a load of baloney. The Commissioners are elected by the voters, and they, not the County Manager, are politically, morally and legally responsible for making sure County employees are responsive to the public.
After your interview with Commissioner Larry "The Weasel" Brown, I made a mental note to send money to anyone who runs against him for Mayor.
So knock off the rhetorical b.s. and ash kissing on your TV show. Over the years, we've expected to hear honesty and the FACTS from you.
A couple more episodes like the ones last week, and I'll just nuke you off my TIVO.
I agree, we have real problems going on here, county employees, basically stealing and protected by the county commission hands off policy, yet you choose to kiss their ask. I watched that show, its been hard to find your show since channel three keeps moving you. A few more like that with Comm Brown, and I to will start watching Jeopardy instead.