Speaking of candor, candidates and conflicts

By Jon Ralston

Friday, Aug. 5, 2011 | 2 a.m.

Catching up on some stuff left in the reporter’s notebook in your Friday Flash:

• You don’t hear this very often: It’s relatively unusual for a political operative to come on “Face to Face” and impart the unvarnished truth when it hurts his cause. But this week, Tim Williams, the political director for the Clark County Republican Party, responded thusly when I asked him if he is concerned that the GOP machine remains nonexistent”:

“Yeah, I’m very worried about that — not just me but other leadership — that we do not have a machine that’s in place right now that can take our candidates to victory.”

Williams — to use the verb du jour in politics — pivoted quickly to insist, “We will have a machine in place.” But later in the program, he also suggested the Republicans are “disorganized.”

Plenty of time to fix that, right?

Kudos to Williams for his candor, but I wonder if the powers that are Republican will ever again permit him to come on the program. I hope so.

• Kihuen’s hat thrown in ring? On that same “Face to Face,” Andres Ramirez, a longtime local and national Hispanic activist, repeatedly mentioned state Sen. Ruben Kihuen as a candidate who will help Democrats in 2012. Kihuen appears to be inching closer to a congressional bid, but Ramirez all but said he is in, claiming he is “likely to announce soon.”

Indeed, Kihuen seemed intent on telling me this week how broad his support is, expressing pride in his Hispanic heritage but insisting he has a rainbow of support for Congress. He seems in to me, too.

There are those who think these Democrats declaring their candidacies for Congress before any districts exist — Speaker John Oceguera and ex-Rep. Dina Titus have done so already — is unseemly. But:

1. When has that ever stopped any pol?

2. They need to get busy raising money.

Ramirez kept talking about the riches the Democrats have with five all-but-announced contenders for three congressional seats. Right.

If Kihuen announces, that would also indicate to me that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — aka the Meddler in Chief — is not dissuading him. And that has to infuriate Titus, Oceguera, state Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford and state Sen. John Lee.

• Only in Nevada? I am surprised there is not more outrage over District Judge Todd Russell’s refusal to disclose his long-standing relationship with the then-chairman of the state Republican Party in a case where the plaintiff was … the state Republican Party. Russell of Carson City, a former law partner and current land investor with congressional hopeful Mark Amodei, decided a case in Amodei’s favor without a peep about his ties to the man who watched the hearing from the audience.

Amodei may not have been technically a party to the action, but he was a de facto party as chairman of the GOP. And Russell’s subsequent claims that he did not know Amodei was running for Congress are risible.

Is it because we are inured to the incestuous nature of our little state, where you don’t need Kevin Bacon degree-of-separation games to connect dots? Maybe.

More details here.

• On the other hand: Russell made three fine choices for special masters to handle redistricting. Bob Erickson is one of my favorite Legislative Counsel Bureau employees in the 25 years I have interacted with the bureau — a nonpartisan, smart guy. Carson Recorder Alan Glover also is known as a solid, unbiased sort. And Tom Sheets, an attorney who has worked for the state and federal government in various capacities, has a good reputation.

It is true that this process, still to be determined after a September hearing, seems to be the judge simply making it up as he goes along. Yes, the Legislature should have done its job. Yes, both parties should now be satisfied with this selection. And, yes, rules should have been clear beforehand and a commission should have been appointed by lawmakers if they couldn’t reach a resolution.

But now we have a judge, who in September will decide how he interprets the Voting Rights Act vis-a-vis majority-minority districts, making a decision that could very well be appealed to the state Supreme Court.

I wonder how many Democrats will have announced their candidacies for Congress by the time this is resolved.

• Speaking of that northern congressional race: Can we make a deal that Treasurer Kate Marshall will stop saying she is responsible for being the state’s economic steward and the national Republicans will stop blaming her for all of Nevada’s economic ills? The first claim is grotesque hyperbole and the second is, as I said on “Face to Face” this week, patently false.

Think either will listen to me?