Lyn Nofziger was one of Ronald’s Reagan most trusted and influential strategists, dating back to the days of the Gipper’s stint as governor of California.
He and I met at a political convention in Reno sometime in the mid-1990s and became email “pen pals.”
He ended up on my subscriber list for the “Greatest Conservative Political Newsletter Since the Days of Teddy Roosevelt” – later renamed “Muth’s Truths.”
Lyn told me to call him anytime I’d be in DC so we could get together. I did on every visit.
We always had breakfast at the Old Ebbitt Grill – just across the street from the White House – where he was treated like royalty. And those breakfasts, as much as anything, helped shape my political future.
Lyn would regale me with tales of the Reagan legacy, as well as toss out pearls of political wisdom that I would gather up like a squirrel gathering nuts for the winter.
In fact, it was Lyn who advised that I’d never get to play big in politics unless I spent some time working in DC. He likened it to an actor going to Hollywood.
And that advice is what led me to take the job as executive director of the American Conservative Union back in 2001.
Lyn’s specialty, as Reagan’s press secretary in the gubernatorial days, was dealing with the media.
And he would often remind me that reporters are allowed to ask any question they want, but that they’re not entitled to an answer simply because they asked.
For campaigns, Lyn insisted on message discipline – and refused to allow the media to control the narrative by filtering the candidate’s message through their lens.
“The purpose of a political campaign is to win an election,” he taught me, not to win the hearts of minds of the press. I’ve never forgotten it.
* * *
Fast-forward to this past weekend.
Kelly Chapman, one of my Campaign Boot Camp graduates, who is still a member of my candidate coaching program, did an interview with a reporter, Kate Reynolds, for blubber-blogger Jon Ralston’s Nevada Independent online news site.
SIDENOTE: I never tire of reminding folks that the Indy was actually founded as a non-profit news publication by me in 2009.
It started as the conservative Nevada News Bureau. I spun it off to Elizeth Crum, our editor at the time, a couple years later.
She proceeded to run it into the ground.
Ralston, after losing his job at just about every media outlet in Nevada, eventually wormed his way into Crum’s warm embrace, took it over, and slapped the Nevada Independent name on it.
You’re welcome, Jon.
But back to the story…
* * *
Reynold’s article on Chapman’s race for Assembly District 41 – against DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) candidate Vinny “The Smartest Boy in the Room” Spotleson – came out yesterday.
And as is often the case with the Indy’s reporters – unlike their publisher – it was fair, balanced and objective.
Kelly and I exchanged a few texts about it. She was satisfied, if not surprised, with how it came out. But, I warned…
“The trick they (the Indy) play is they do a professional job in the article… then Ralston comes along afterwords and craps all over you.”
And – BOOM! – like clockwork, or one of Pavlov’s dogs, “Heeeere’s Jonny!”
In his personal blog – I think it’s called “The Flasher” or something – after the article was published, Ralston wrote…
“I see by Kate’s excellent preview that Assembly hopeful Kelly Chapman, who would not complete a standard survey of issues, said this: ‘I’ve watched families struggle more with affordability, education, and feeling safe. For a long time, I was just waiting for somebody else to fix it, and eventually I decided, OK, why not me?’”
That part’s absolutely true.
I started working with Kelly in late 2023. And I asked her the standard, “Why are you running?” question.
She had decided to run during the legislative session that year – shortly after Joe Lombardo took over from the disastrous Sisolak-Ford administration and started “getting sh*t done.”
She told me she had overheard in a restaurant two gadfly candidates whining about how they lost their elections the previous November and decided that if these knuckleheads could run for office, why couldn’t she?
So she did.
Crime was her big issue because a few years earlier one of her friends and co-workers had been murdered by a homeless guy.
She also noted that the cost-of-living under Biden-Sisolak-Ford was sky-high while our public schools remained at the bottom of the barrel. So the quote in Reynold’s article was absolutely accurate.
Re-enter the Pampered Prince of Political Pundit Prevarication.
“Wait,” Ralston continued in his little blog, “hasn’t the guy who endorsed you fixed this stuff?”
You see what he did there?
Chapman was clearly talking about her decision to run for office in 2023, when Joe Lombardo had only been in office a few weeks.
But Ralston tried to reframe it as if Chapman was talking about Lombardo when she decided to run again THIS year in an effort to drive a wedge between Kelly and the governor.
As if anybody on the Lombardo campaign would fall for such a ham-handedly obvious effort at divide-and-conquer.
Nevertheless, it again earned The Little Reporter Who Couldn’t Make in the Big Leagues August’s “A$$hole of the Month Award” – for the 96th consecutive month running.
Congratulations, you putz.* * *
Let’s wrap this up by going back to Ralston’s shot at Kelly for choosing not to “complete a standard survey of issues.”
That survey was sent to Kelly after the interview with the reporter. And with Nofziger’s wisdom still ringing in my ears after all these years, I advised her not to complete it.
The survey is a “gotcha” list of questions trying to get candidates to go on record about issues that that the candidates aren’t necessarily running on.
And it asked them to rank their answers from 1 to 5, with 1 being “strongly disagree” and 5 being “strongly agree.”
Here’s one example: “Nevada should ban plastic bags at grocery stores.”
Seriously? Of all the issues out there that voters are talking about right now, plastic bags is what you want to ask about? Only a moron would answer that question.
Kelly’s bonehead DSA opponent answered: “Agree.”
Again, as per the Nofziger Nostrum, reporters are allowed to ask any question they like, but candidates are under no obligation to answer them.
The candidate’s job is to win their election. And you don’t do that by getting off-message talking about things the reporter wants to talk about rather than what voters want to talk about.
Well done, Kelly. Carry on.
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“I don’t understand much about politics…” – Liberal blubber-blogger Jon Ralston, 1/2/20