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.

Excuse me if I gloat

Excuse me if I gloat.


Anyone who has read my blog will wonder at the title, especially based on who we now have as our President-elect. In my humble opinion Obama is going to administrate an economic and civil rights disaster of historic proportions, especially since he now has a congress and senate amenable to his stated Marxist policies. My friends, America is on the verge of losing its vaunted freedoms and you handed our country over, and that is partly why I’m gloating.

Here is Nevada, I was the target of the Liberty Watch crowd, an odious group of party Purity Republicans who attack anyone who disagrees with a single splinter in their plank. Rather than support a conservative who can cross the aisle to get things done, they published and circulated lies about character, voting records and even what was said in a televised forum, all in an effort to put their puppets into office; puppets who would support their ongoing system of corruption and favoritism. The reason I’m gloating is because that effort here was done against me and it is symbolic of what the Republican Party did for the past 8 years nationwide.

This does not mean that the Democrat Party is even one iota less guilty of the same tactics. One of the best representatives I know is Rosemary Womack, a Democrat. Her own party drove her out of her Assembly office because she had committed the sin of disagreeing with Barbara Buckley, the Assembly Speaker. Rosemary wanted to be an actual Representative, not just another drone politician.

Back onto the Republican side, an obsequious little kid by the name of John Ozark was put in against me by Liberty Watch. Never owning any home in Nevada and not even living in my district when he began proclaiming that he knew my constituents best, Ozark began parroting the lies written for him by the magazine’s publisher. What was published about me would be actionable as libel, fraud and even slander if it were done in any state other than Nevada, but here we do things a little differently. We put our crooks into office…well, not this time.

Ellen Spiegel is woman who reminds me of Rosemary. She ran as the Democrat for my Assembly seat and I supported her. Yes, I supported a Democrat and you Party Puritans can kiss my rosy red rump. Compared to Ozark, Ted Stevens is an innocent man. Ellen was not supported by her party, which tells you something. She is not a puppet and she is actually willing to study the issues that affect the district. We have talked about several ideas and what bills could be used to move them forward. These ideas would make it easier for small business to prosper and remove some of the burden from the economic backs of the taxpayers. Does that sound like Nancy Pelosi to you? To me, it’s a reason to gloat.

I am also gloating because so many of the Liberty Watch crowd got their clocks cleaned in this election. Many of them were Assembly members and Senators who joined in on the lies and corruption I saw behind the scenes in Carson City. Sometimes it doesn’t matter who gets into the office, just as long as who was there is out.