I attended last night’s Nevada Republican Party special meeting in Las Vegas where former Gov. Bob List was elected as the party’s new National Committeeman, replacing Joe Brown who has been appointed to the state’s Gaming Commission. A few observations:
Gov. Jim Gibbons was a no-show. Again. How fortunate for the state party that it’s titular head can’t find time to hang out with the unwashed masses. No wonder his approval number is a single digit.
Sen. John Ensign did not show up to apologize for all the trouble his messed up personal life is causing the party, both here in Nevada and nationally. But, hey, at least he apologized to his DC colleagues, right?
No one would speak on the record or publicly about Ensign. But off the record only one person I spoke to came to his defense. The party regulars almost unanimously think the guy should resign – and that he’s likely to do so by the end of summer if one more shoe drops.
Meanwhile, someone must have been passing out some LSD before the meeting, because a serious discussion about Assembly Minority Leader Heidi Gansert possibly running for governor next year was in the air. Or maybe that was just the cabbage boiling in the kitchen.
The good news about this idea, as noted by a conservative Assembly Republican who was at the meeting last night (which rules out Joe Hardy or Lynn Stewart), is that such a move would at least get her out of the Assembly where she did a pitiful job this last session as the GOP’s “opposition” (rubber stamp) leader.
The bad news, of course, is that Gansert would be equally bad as governor as she was minority leader. If not more so.
Then again, she couldn’t possibly be more inept as Gibbons, right? Of course, that the same thing they said about her as a possible replace for former Republican Assembly Minority Leader Garn Mabey – and look how THAT turned out.
Sharron Angle was “in the house” and gave a typically energetic speech about her challenge to Sen. Harry Reid. Angle continues to be far and away the best GOP grassroots campaigner in the state who actually does more to help Nevada Republicans by 9:00 a.m. every day than John Ensign does in a year.
Some guy named Chuck Kozak spoke, telling the crowd of folks who had never heard of or from the guy before that he, too, was running against Harry Reid. And to endear himself to the crowd, Kozak’s rather uninspiring remarks pretty much consisted of listing all the out-of-state non-Nevadans he’s hired to run his campaign.
Yeah, he’s going far.
I think the most impressive and most promising Republican who spoke last night was John Guedry. He all but announced that he was running against Rep. Dina Titus (D) and, even though a newcomer on the campaign stage, was savvy enough to downplay the biggest knock against him in his brief remarks, noting that while he’s a banker, he’s a community banker, not a Wall Street banker. Smart move. Good inoculation.
GOP gubernatorial candidates Joe Heck and Mike Montandon spoke. Montandon seems to have a slight edge right now among the party faithful, but Heck, a doctor by trade, unveiled a very memorable campaign slogan which just might catch on and resonate over the coming months – especially if Gibbons and Ensign continue to self-destruct and embarrass the party and the state: “I’m the cure for what ails Nevada.” That could sell.
Ran into James Smack at the meeting. He ran for Congress a couple years back up in northern Nevada. And while his chances against Rep. Dean Heller in that race were nil, he’d have an EXCELLENT chance against tax-hiking, big government RINO Assemblyman Tom Grady. Folks who know James need to give him some encouragement to make the challenge in next year’s GOP primary.
Some party insiders are furious with Gov. Gibbons for a recent appointment to fill a vacancy for the Nevada Attorney for Injured Workers. Although Republican Melodie Swanson of Las Vegas was interested in the position and is eminently qualified for it, Gibbons gave the spot to a Democrat Party activist from Douglas County who I’m told has no background or experience in this area. Another fouled up Gibbons appointment? What are the odds?
Chuck Muth is a virus inside Republican body politic. He is an infectious agent whose ignorance and intolerance will continue to do damage our party. Not his party, our party.
Hey Chuck, why don’t you go back and accomplish your grand design of creating a viable and successful Independent party. Right? That’s why you left our party. You did leave Chuck that is beyond debate. You left so go… oh that’s right you failed. Like when you were executive director of the party or that debacle you got into in Utah… you failed.
People like you Chuck are scoundrels and agitators that the party needs to divest themselves of. You don’t deal squarely with others and your passions are allowed outside properly circumscribed bounds. You are again, a virus and a pathogen.
When I was executive director of the party, we became a Republican-majority state for the first time since Reconstruction. Now the GOP is well over 100,000 behind the Democrats.
I didn’t leave the Republican Party; the Republican Party left Ronald Reagan.
And as for the rest of my personality flaws, at least I’m not afraid to put my real name to my opinions, “RealConservative.”
Chuck,
Do you know anything about James Smack other than that shares your wacky ideas about government?
Perhaps if you had been at the state convention in Reno last year you would be aware that he was one of the ringleaders of the Ron Paul Brigades. I saw his big smiling grin on the projector screen when he requested that the rules of the meeting be replaced with a Mike Weber special. He couldn’t even do it right as Bob Beers asked him to go back to the person who was instructing him what to say so that he could actually explain what he was trying to do. His run against Heller was part of Wayne Terhune’s vindictive quest against the actual Republican Party of the state (one has to wonder whether in Terhune’s magical fantasy world his candidates actually won and he is currently planning his own run for governor). The Nevada GOP was already in a bad situation in 2008, having our convention disrupted by fanatics was not helpful.
So, someone like Tom Grady who actually helped to set up the Lyon County convention is a Republican in Name Only. However, someone like James Smack who helped turn the state convention into a fiasco is someone who should be encouraged to run against a sitting Republican. I would say that if there are any Republicans in Name Only it would be people such as yourself, except that you are not even a Republican in Name anymore.
Congrats Chuck, you just came out in favor of one of Greenspan’s errand boys. I can only assume that Jeff is laughing himself silly underneath that tin foil hat of his.
I’m with Chuck – before we can hope to take back our state, we have to clean up our own house first. Our main targets should be the RINOs. Once we clean house in 2010, we’ll be in position to get a solid conservative message out and win big in 2012. Money will be tight, so we can’t spread ourselves too thin – first things first.