They Only Have Themselves to Blame

It is not surprising after the solid butt-whipping the Republican Party received at the hands of the Democrats in last week’s election that a number of stories about party disarray have surfaced. Some of them are bitter-edged recriminations that blame the voters for their lack of trust. Some, like what I have written, hold a tinge of gloat because the neocons who stole the party got what they so richly deserved. As a Republican Assemblyman who was recently defeated by the rigorous efforts of the Republican leadership, I have a personal interest in those stories. My contention is that while there may be some party disarray, this really is the end result of a concerted effort on the part of the leadership to purge the Republican Party of any and all moderation.

I lost my primary in August to a candidate (John Ozark) who did not even live in my district until shortly before primary voting ended. The “ideologues” in my own party wanted me out of this seat badly enough to ask as many as eight people to run against me. Last winter, I received a call from Heidi Gansert, the Nevada Assembly Minority Leader, asking me to step down in favor of Bob Seale, the man who held my seat before me, and I refused. Not one of the eight, including Seale, agreed to run, until they found Ozark, a candidate who has been trying to get into the Assembly through “district hopping” for the past 4 years at least. When Ozark agreed to run, the campaign of lies and deception started. The overblown yellow journalism that George Harris (publisher of Liberty Watch), Chuck Muth (a political blogger and not a Republican) and Ed Vogel( a Las Vegas Review-Journal stringer) cooked up about my forgetting to turn off the contribution page on my website during the special session this summer is a prime example. The story did not once mention all of the other Republican Assemblymen and Senators who, in the intense confusion of a special session being on, then off and then on again, also forgot to turn off their own websites. That incident, along with many other lies and half-truths, was used as a direct attack during and after the primary as a purging effort and to ensure that only the “ideologues’” mouthpiece was elected. The level of hypocrisy shown by these people is staggering. They complain about “ethical challenges,” but a check on the financial disclosures of John Ozark will show an interesting disparity in what he declared and what was spent. Just how much does it take to send out over a dozen high-end mailers in a primary? These “ideologues” ignored their own polls that showed that I had the highest fiscally conservative voting record in the Assembly, choosing instead to back a totally untried candidate, agreeable to anything they said and willing to be led about by the nose, as long as he got to play Assemblyman. But as history now shows, this strategy backfired terribly for them, causing the loss of a Republican seat and a Democrat supermajority in the Assembly.

There are similarities between a number of races race and mine. Many moderate representatives are honest and interested in representing all of their constituents, not just the “pure” Republicans. The problem is, the leadership may not be as ethical or as interested in representation. The GOP Nevada State Party Chairwoman, Sue Lowden said this about me, “He is too honest, we can’t trust him.” And if you go back and check the campaign literature, the Democrat attacks regarding these representatives were along the same lines. They never questioned the candidate’s honesty, but merely claimed he or she couldn’t be trusted. Isn’t it interesting that the GOP leadership never came to any of these folk’s defense? I believe it is because they are statesman, not politicians and where the GOP stands right now, statesmen need not apply.

Because of all of this “cannibalism,” I chose to support Ellen Spiegel, the Democrat Assemblywoman-elect in District 21. This is not because she isn’t a Republican, but because she was the only ethical candidate. Ellen will represent all the citizens in District 21, and not just those who reflect “party purity.” Now Harris, Muth and the assorted members of their cabal blame me for the Nevada Assembly’s Democrat super majority. Perhaps they should look into a mirror to fix blame.

Nevada Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley should send them a large, expensive fruit basket as a thank you for their efforts in the Democrat majority’s victory.