NoisyRoom.net

By: Chuck Muth
Nevada News and Views

TODAY’S NN&V HEADLINES

• Angle Wins Washoe County Straw Poll (Angle for Senate campaign) – Reno, NV – Sharron Angle (R-NV), a former state legislator who leads Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) in the latest polls conducted by Mason-Dixon and Rasmussen, proved victorious over the weekend by handily defeating all primary Republican opponents in a straw poll conducted in Washoe County, Nevada’s second largest county.
• Lowden: In It to Win It (Sue Lowden) – I am excited to announce that my campaign successfully raised more than $800,000 during our very first quarter in our campaign to replace Harry Reid. This is over twice the amount of money Danny Tarkanian raised in the same period of time, and significantly more than he has raised in his combined two quarters of fundraising.
• Open Letter to Washoe County’s Education Establishment (Todd “Taxpayer” Bailey) – Recently, the Governor of the State of Nevada put forward several proposals that will change the way education is delivered in the state. While many claim that these are simply the desperate moves of a politician seeking re-election, I can assure you that the conversation regarding these issues goes far beyond the Governor’s office.
• Public Employees Unions Are Sinking California; Could They Do Same to Nevada? (Warner Todd Huston) – Steven Greenhut has a great piece in the Wall Street Journal about how the evils of public employees unions are destroying California.
• All for Our Country? (Mark Noonan) – That phrase is emblazoned on the seal of our great State of Nevada. Fine, noble words, indeed. But is anyone here in Nevada attempting to live those words?

Click here to read these stories at the Nevada News & Views site!

SURVEY SAYS!

Do you think Gov. Jim Gibbons still has a chance to win the Republican Party nomination in the GOP primary this coming June?

• You betcha
• No way, Jose

To cast your vote in today’s online survey, click here!

MUTHS TRUTHS

• Political reporter Ben Spillman of the Las Vegas Review-Journal has the scoop of the year in his Political Eye column this morning: “Donors back Democrats, Republicans.” Film at eleven.
• Having apparently botched “fixing” health care, Harry Reid & the Democrats are now switching their attention to fixing the unemployment problem, which likely means extending the misery for the unemployed much, much longer. If only Democrats would stop “helping,” maybe things would get better.
• The fallout from the “Massachusetts Miracle,” where Republican Scott Brown won the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Teddy Kennedy, continues. Today, Democrat Beau Biden, son of Vice President Joe Biden and Delaware attorney general, announced that he will NOT run for his dad’s old U.S. Senate seat after all. With Biden scared out of the race, that seat will now likely go to Republican Rep. Mike Castle.
• Meanwhile, RJ publisher Sherm Frederick says in his blog today that Arkansas U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D) may announce a decision not to seek re-election as early as this week, and that there’s a rumor going ‘round that “Nevada Democrats have approached former Sen. Dick Bryan to consider stepping in should the politically crippled (Sen. Harry) Reid start thinking like Blanche Lincoln.”
• From the Department of Go Figure, the Associated Press is reporting today that “Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s refusal to raise taxes is boosting his stature with a re-energized national GOP, even while his state faces severe budget cuts to education, health care and social service programs.” Sound familiar? Still think Gov. Jim Gibbons is dead meat in the GOP primary?
• Speaking of Gov. Gibbons, his office announced today that the governor will deliver a special state-of-the-state speech on Monday, February 8, 2010, during which he will call for a special session of the Legislature to deal with the ongoing budget crisis. Citizens are encouraged to send empty cans to Carson City in advance to make sure there are plenty of them available for legislators to once again kick down the road rather than lay off non-essential government workers and eliminate non-essential government programs and services.
• Congressman Dean Heller (R-NV) sent a letter on Friday to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner expressing concern over Chrysler’s decision to run advertisements during the Super Bowl which will cost about $2.5 million per 30-second spot. Chrysler has received $15.5 billion in taxpayer bailout funds to keep the company afloat.
• Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sue Lowden wrapped up what has been described by campaign aides as a very successful rural tour yesterday and made it out of Reno ahead of a snowstorm and in time for dinner with conservative talk-show icon Rush Limbaugh, who’s in Vegas this week as a judge for the Miss America Pageant.
• Meanwhile, fellow GOP opponent Danny Tarkanian is borrowing from Lowden’s playbook and announced yesterday his own rural tour which is scheduled to begin Thursday in Tonopah and hit Hawthorne, Yerington, Minden, Fernley and Fallon. The campaign will then swing through Lovelock Winnemucca, Battle Mountain, Elko, Eureka, Ely and Pioche next weekend.
• Tarkanian expects to be back in Vegas next Sunday night for dinner at Wienerschnitzel’s with fellow GOP candidate and former conservative talk-show host Mike Wiley who will be returning that same day from his own rural tour of Adelphous IV, Berengaria VII, Rigel V, Starbase Earhart and Camp Khitomer.
• Conventional wisdom says that Republican Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki would benefit greatly in the GOP primary for U.S. Senate for the persecution he suffered at the hands of Democrat Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto which, Krolicki claims, was at the behest of Sen. Harry Reid. And while that may, indeed, help him in the GOP primary, it would also likely come back to bite him big time in the general against Reid who is expected to have $25 million to permanently affix “Indicted” as Krolicki’s middle name throughout the campaign.
• The smart money says Krolicki will walk up to the edge of the U.S. Senate abyss, look down….and opt to run for re-election as lieutenant governor after all.
• For all the liberals out their having a cow over the Supreme Court ruling that corporations can now participate in our elections – especially those raising the argument that corporations aren’t “people” – I’ll make you a deal: I’ll support banning corporations from participating in elections of government representatives if you’ll support banning the government from taxing and regulating corporations. Deal?
• And by the way, as the ever-astute Tray Abney of the Reno Chamber of Commerce pointed out on Face-to-Face Friday, the Constitution says “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.” It doesn’t say, “except for corporations.”
• Considering their backgrounds, experience, records and campaign styles, would Rory Reid, Ross Miller or Danny Tarkanian be taken seriously as candidates for governor, secretary of state and U.S. Senate respectively if not for sharing the same last names as their famous dads? Not.
• And finally, The Nevada News Bureau, which operates through a grant from Citizen Outreach Foundation, has launched a new political blog which will be authored by Elizabeth Crum, the bureau’s managing editor. “The Blog” can be found HERE

OTHER NEWS & VIEWS

Concern Growing Over Lowden Campaign’s Handlers

In response to my column yesterday calling into question why the Lowden for Senate campaign hasn’t been responding to the myriad attacks coming from Team Tark’s campaign – some legitimate, many not – a longtime GOP leader who requested anonymity sent me the following email:

“I don’t know what Robert Uithoven (Lowden’s campaign manager) is doing, but they need to pull their heads out and start punching back quickly with responses to this garbage coming from him (Danny Tarkanian). When I read Tarkanian’s latest hit piece my initial thought was just as yours – there was no Taxpayer pledge back then. Why didn’t Uithoven IMMEDIATELY respond to this, like TODAY?!

“It aggravates me to no end that I read TWO guest editorials in Nevada News and Views by Tarkanian over the last week – and a hit piece by this jerk-off reporter Ben Spillman yesterday in the Las Vegas Review-Journal – but NO RESPONSE from Lowden’s campaign. Is she going to respond in a guest editorial? At the very least issue a statement through Constant Contact to all of those people on the master database of Republicans.

“It’s time to knock this Tarkanian BS down once and for all. The fact that it hasn’t happened yet is the fault of Lowden’s campaign handlers. Plain and simple. The point is obvious: Who is Sue getting consulted by, and is what they are telling her the right thing? I’m worried about it.”

Join the club.

TUBE TIPS

• Democrat Rep. Shelley Berkley goes Face to Face with Jon Ralston tonight. The program airs at 4:00 pm Monday through Friday on KVBC Channel 3 in Las Vegas, as well as NBC affiliates in Reno and Elko. http://www.lasvegassun.com/videos/face-face/
• Sam Shad’s guests today on the Nevada Newsmakers program will be Grant Gerber, Wildlife Advocate. The program airs on KRNV-TV Channel 4 at 12:30 pm in Reno and on Cox Cable Channel 123 at 4:30 pm and 11:35 pm in Las Vegas. http://www.nevadanewsmakers.com/

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

• “A poll done for the AFL-CIO after the election showed that union families voted for the Republican, Brown, by a margin of 49-46 percent. True, Brown only carried union households by three percentage points, but he should have LOST that bloc by 40 percentage points.” – Rich Galen of Mullings.com
• “The Republicans run a risk in nominating (Brian Krolicki for U.S. Senate). People might turn away from him because, after he [won] the primary, Harry Reid would have a card with which to nuke him.” – pollster Brad Coker, referring to Krolicki’s indictment which was dropped last month
• “If we’ve learned anything from Massachusetts, it’s that Republican candidates need to focus on Nevadans, not Harry (Reid), to win the primary this June, before they can ever hope to beat Reid in November.” – blogger Kelly Anderson Wright
• “(Nevada legislative) Democrats are paralyzed by fear – fear of doing what they really believe in and thus being defeated in November. They are enablers of the worst kind, giving in to what they believe is political reality, ever willing to compromise their principles to maintain their standing.” – Las Vegas Sun columnist Jon Ralston
• “(Nevada) Democrats need to get their union pals to accept concessions and get off the gravy train whose tracks they helped build.” – Las Vegas Sun columnist Jon Ralston