• HotAirPundit is reporting that Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain-Feingold now leads conservative challenger J.D. Hayworth by just 5 points “in Arizona’s hotly contested Republican Senate Primary race, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely primary voters.” Go J.D., go!
• That Tea Party Express endorsement of Sharron Angle in the Nevada U.S. Senate race yesterday actually potentially benefits both Angle and Sue Lowden. Angle for the obvious reason; however, should Lowden still win the GOP nomination in June the fact that she was found to be less “right-wing” than Angle will help her deflect attacks by Reid that she’s an extremist in the general election in November.
• Yesterday, Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Sandoval issued the following statement: “As the only candidate in the gubernatorial race who put forward a plan to solve our state’s short-term budget deficit without raising taxes, I’ve made a commitment to the people of our state to not raise taxes.” Know what else? He’s also the only Republican gubernatorial candidate who is unwilling to put that commitment not to raise taxes in writing. Which means it’s not really a commitment at all.
• Speaking of Sandoval, he’s twisting himself in knots over that pledge he signed in 2002 promising to oppose gay marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships. He told the Nevada News Bureau today that he didn’t think the term “domestic partnerships” as used in the 2002 pledge were the same as the “domestic partnerships” approved last year by the Nevada Legislature which he told the Las Vegas Sun last September that he supports.
• I guess it all depends on what the meaning of “is” is.
• Unbelievably, Sandoval also said that getting caught breaking a written pledge he made on the campaign trail “is an example of why I don’t think signing pledges is a good idea.” Yeah, because it’s so much easier to document when you break them!
• Actually, this is a perfect example for insisting that double-speaking politicians sign the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. It’s all but money in the bank that if Sandoval doesn’t sign the Tax Pledge he’s gonna support tax hikes if elected governor. He’ll just say the term “tax hike” didn’t mean the same thing on the campaign trail in 2010 as the term “tax hike” during the 2011 legislative session.
• Speaking of the Tax Pledge, Nevada Republican U.S. Senate candidate Chad Christensen signed the federal version of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge yesterday. He was already a signer of the state legislator’s pledge, but the federal version is worded differently, necessitating the new John Hancock. This now means the only major GOP candidate in that race who hasn’t signed the Pledge is also the only guy who doesn’t live here: John Chachas.
• Speaking of Chachas, he was on the Heidi Harris radio show in Las Vegas yesterday and said he supports a path-to-citizenship immigration reform proposal whereby immigrants in the United States illegally would have to pay a fine, all their taxes, make an application for citizenship and wait like everybody else. While immigration hard-liners will call this “amnesty” and oppose it, it’s not an unreasonable notion as a starting point for negotiations.
• Meanwhile, tempers are flaring over in the Assembly District 5 GOP primary race between Tibi Ellis and Tim Williams. As I hear it, campaign fliers for state Sen. Barbara Cegavske, Sharron Angle and Williams have been grouped and passed along as a “slate” by Grassroots Nevada.
• Ellis is reportedly livid and over the moon about it because for some reason she sees it as a “screw you” from Cegavske. But I’m also told that Cegavske says she has no control over an outside group distributing her campaign fliers along with campaign fliers from other campaigns. Ellis, however, reportedly doesn’t believe her. Oh, how I love campaign season!
• The Nevada Republican Party filed formal complaints today with the Nevada Ethics Commission against Secretary of State Ross Miller and State Treasurer Kate Marshall. The GOP alleges that Miller and Marshall, both Democrats, listed their public office phone numbers as campaign contact numbers when filing paperwork with the Secretary of State’s office for their respective political campaigns, a violation of Nevada law. This is exactly the sort of thing the Nevada GOP should be doing but wasn’t doing under Captain Chris DisComfort. Bravo to the party’s new executive director and communications director.
• Now if only they can find some chickens and goats and a video camera.
• Former Clark County GOP chief and judicial candidate Bernie Zadrowski won a legal fight yesterday when the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed a District Court decision to remove opponent Amber Candelaria’s name from the primary election ballot for failing to meet the requirements for a specified number of years of experience as a practicing attorney.
• In case you missed it, NEWS 4 in Reno caught up with Republican state senate candidate Ty Cobb in the hallway yesterday and asked about his Friday night sign-kicking episode (which, I repeat, Todd Bailey had NOTHING to do with). Cobb’s answers ain’t pretty.
• And finally, the Associated Press reports this afternoon that “Gov. Jan Brewer has signed into law a bill making Arizona the third state to not require a permit to carry a concealed weapon.” Bully for Arizona! Nevada?
