You would think that after her less-than-stellar performance on Jon Ralston’s “Face to Face” program in March that Republican CD4 candidate Barbara Cegavske would be better prepared to answer simple, basic questions in Monday night’s candidate debate with fellow Republicans Danny Tarkanian and Dan Schwartz.
And you’d be wrong.
For example: If you say on your campaign website that you’d cut $1 trillion from the federal budget, don’t you think you should be able to tell people SPECIFICALLY where some of those cuts would be made?
You’d think.
But you’d be wrong.
As for Schwartz, I don’t know the man. Have only met him casually a half-dozen times or so. But after all these years in the campaign “biz,” I know the type.
All too many businessmen make a lot of money in business, get the political bug and say to themselves, “Hey, how hard could it be?”
Welcome to the real world.
Now, if Mr. Schwartz was running for, say, the state assembly…fine. But no, he decided to start right at the top and run for Congress. As such, it was not exactly a shocker that his debate performance Monday night was flat and thoroughly uninspiring. Especially for conservatives.
For example, although he’s selling himself as a “constitutionalist,” he lauded RomneyCare. Hello?
Not…ready…for…prime…time.
On to Door #3.
There are other criticisms many will level against Danny Tarkanian, but I’ll tell you one thing: the guy shows up ready to play.
He’s prepared. He’s studied the issues. He anticipates the question. And he has a solid answer. You may not like or agree with his answer (e.g., he supports taxing your Internet purchases), but he has one, it’s usually specific, he can justify it, and he isn’t afraid to defend it.
He also probably has the best chance of actually beating Democrat anointee Steven Horsford in the general election in November.
Alas, at this point none of the three has joined Sen. Dean Heller, Rep. Joe Heck and Rep. Mark Amodei in signing the Taxpayer Protection Pledge promising us they won’t vote to raise our taxes.
Instead, all three are taking the same side on this issue as Ralston himself, Harry Reid, the DailyKos and MoveOn.org vs. over 90% of the incumbent Republican members of Congress.
Sorry, but that’s a deal-breaker for me. And I live in CD-4. I wonder what the Libertarian candidate is up to in that race?