Tube Tips: I’ll be appearing on Mitch Fox’s election night show on Channel 10 in Las Vegas this evening from 8:00 – 9:00 pm, followed by a cameo shortly thereafter on KXNT 840 AM from around 9:00 – 10:00 pm.
We’re still in the midst of a double-dip recession, Nevada has the second worst unemployment number in the country, we lead the nation in both foreclosures and bankruptcies, “Obama’s Katrina” is dumping oil on American beaches, and 80 percent of Nevadans want something done on illegal immigration along the lines of what Arizona recently passed. So which pressing issue is Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nevada) and Congress focusing on?
Potty parity.
I kid you not. According to CNSNews.com, with everything else going on, Congress is actually wasting time hearing a bill (H.R. 4869) co-sponsored by Berkley “mandating that the number of toilets for women would need to equal or exceed the number of toilets for men” in federal buildings.
And some people still wonder why tea party folks are so pissed off at Washington?
Speaking of the tea party movement, Scott Brown was the “tea party” candidate in Massachusetts. Scott Brown never was and never will be a movement conservative. He was only about as conservative as you can be in the present political environment to win as a Republican in Massachusetts. A Sharron Angle-like conservative NEVER would have won that Massachusetts seat last January.
So the question that will face Nevadans tomorrow morning if Sharron Angle, not Sue Lowden, is the GOP’s U.S. Senate nominee in Nevada, is whether or not Sharron, unlike Brown, is too conservative for a purple state with a Democrat majority like Nevada. Hope I’m wrong, but I can’t help but think the Tea Party Express and Club for Growth just might end up being responsible for re-electing Harry Reid.
Which reminds me: Isn’t it time to eliminate contribution limits to candidates? After all, there’s too much at stake in elections – and big money will always find a way into campaigns.
The two biggest problems we have under the current speech-regulating laws is that (a) candidates need to spend more of their time talking to potential donors than potential voters, and (b) outside groups will spend their money in uncoordinated ways which often do more harm than good to the candidate they’re trying to help.
Or in the opposite case, non-Nevada organizations may well have propped up a Republican U.S. Senate candidate who couldn’t have done what was done on her own, leaving Nevadans with the possibility of sending an unprepared and ill-equipped campaign into the general election lion’s den. Outside PACs, not the campaigns themselves, may well have determined Nevada’s fate this year.
Is that really in the best interest of our electoral system?
No restrictions; unlimited donations; full disclosure on the Internet within 48 hours of receipt. That’s the campaign finance reform we need.
