The Las Vegas Review-Journal headline reads this morning: “No job growth foreseen for LV Valley in 2010.” Now maybe I missed it, but has anyone seen even one substantial and immediately doable proposal to actually help employers and budding entrepreneurs actually create new jobs in Nevada by any of the gubernatorial candidates from any party?
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Danny Tarkanian reportedly raised $377,290 for the fourth quarter of 2009, and amount which Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report characterized as OK but not stellar. “He is going to need to do better.
Meanwhile, fellow GOP U.S. Senate candidate John Chachas reportedly raised $251,523 during the same period. Not bad for a candidate almost no one has heard of yet and who hasn’t registered in any polls to this point. On the other hand, Chachas has also pumped $1.3 million of his own money into the race and is expected to start spending a lot of it in the next few weeks….which means his name ID is about to soar.
According to the Fresno Bee, former California Gov. George Deukmejian endorsed Danny Tarkanian for the Nevada U.S. Senate race on Thursday. Added to the fact that Tark’s campaign team also is based in California, one would almost think Danny would be better off running against Barbara Boxer in the Golden State than against Harry Reid here in the Silver State.
Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki says John McCain and other Washington establishment figures are urging him to jump into the already crowded U.S. Senate race. Personally, I think he ought to just run for re-election and then keep his options open for 2012, but if he makes the plunge….what the hey; the more the merrier.
According to the Sun report, Krolicki is being wooed because the current field is judged to be “second tier” candidates. OK, maybe so. Problem is, so is Krolicki. He’s not going to scare anyone out of the race or cause Nevada Republicans to suddenly say, “He’s the one!” The only person who could possibly pull that off now, this late in the game, is Congressman Dean Heller.
Or former Gov. Kenny Guinn.
Former Nevada state senator and conservative icon Ann O’Connell endorsed fellow Republican Mark Amodei for U.S. Senate on Thursday; interesting since it was O’Connell’s endorsement of Amodei’s billion dollar-plus tax hike in 2003 that most people believe cost O’Connell her seat in the 2004 GOP primary race against former Sen. Joe Heck.
“More than 50% of voters in Rhode Island are independents,” notes Brendan Miniter in Political Diary. “Voters in Connecticut, Maine and Vermont have all elected an independent as either governor or U.S. senator in the past decade. In Massachusetts, 51% of the state’s voters are not affiliated with a political party, and a lopsided number of those independents voted for Republican Scott Brown.” I wonder if Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman thinks Nevada is similarly fertile ground for an independent run?
Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Montandon won a straw poll of Republican insiders in Clark County Tuesday night. The straw poll results showed Montandon with 34%, Gov. Jim Gibbons with 29%, and Brian Sandoval with 26%. ‘Twould seem the favorite candidate of the establishment still has some work cut out for him among the party’s rank-and-file, while reports of Gov. Gibbons’ political demise may still be a bit pre-mature.
“Ron Knecht to chair Gibbons campaign in capital,” read the headline on the RalstonFlash email last evening. “OK. Now he’s really dead,” Ralston deadpanned, referring to Gov. Jim Gibbons re-election campaign. “The one-term assemblyman, now a regent and presumably still a Bob Beers sycophant to chair Gov. Jim Gibbons’ campaign in Carson City? First the pathetic, almost nonexistent fundraising. And now the man nicknamed Dis-Knecht. So sad. I feel…sympathy.”
According to a story in Wednesday’s Mohave Daily News, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sue Lowden “asked for a show of hands, and everyone agreed that anyone with a pre-existing (medical) condition should be able to obtain health insurance. It’s not a partisan issue, Lowden said, and it could be voted on as a stand-alone bill.”
That calls for some clarification. Is Sue suggesting that the government should require private insurance companies to cover individuals with pre-existing conditions – which would be akin to requiring insurance companies to provide home owners with fire insurance after their house was already on fire? Or is she suggesting a taxpayer-funded government option for individuals with pre-existing conditions? Or something else entirely? Inquiring minds wanna know.
And finally: An awful lot of conservatives would LOVE to see the author of McCain-Feingold and the architect of the GOP’s disastrous presidential election of 2008 retire from his Senate seat in Arizona. But John McCain simply refuses to go off into that good night voluntarily. So many conservatives have been encouraging former conservative Rep. J.D. Hayworth to challenge McCain in the GOP primary this year…..and J.D. is considering it.
Is J.D. serious? McCain seems to think so, as he launched a pre-emptive attack ad this week on the very radio station where J.D. currently works as a conservative talk-show host. Game on? Not yet. But don’t be surprised. BTW: Hayworth is will be the featured keynote speaker at this month’s Lincoln Day Dinner in Reno.
