Been getting some hate mail recently.
Some readers say David Flippo is the Republican nominee in Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District. So I should support him simply because he has an “R” after his name.
For example, here’s a lovely note posted to me on X by Virginia Starrett a few days ago:
“You are a traitor to all Rs. Getting TBT elected is a horrible goal no matter what. I hope you are getting paid enough to retire. This betrayal should be the swan song of your ‘career’ as an influencer.”
Well, since we have a lot of new readers, perhaps now would be a good time to set the record straight.
Conservative First, Republican Second
Let’s start with this: I’m a CONSERVATIVE first. “Republican” a distant second – though I usually do vote GOP.
I have no obligation whatsoever to support a candidate simply because they’re from the same party. It’s the candidate’s obligation to EARN my support, not the other way around.
Over the years I’ve often – and still do – support conservative candidates from the Independent American Party (IAP) or Libertarian Party.
In fact, in this year’s election I’m supporting the conservative IAP candidates in CD2 (Lynn Chapman) and the Secretary of State’s race (Brad Barnhill).
And for those who know about the running battle I’ve had with Nevada SOS Aguilar over the past three years, that should tell you something about just how bad the GOP candidate, Jim Marchant, is.
And yes, on occasion when the GOP candidate is especially bad, I’ll support the Democrat – as I did in 2016 against a number of Republican legislators who voted for the largest tax hike in Nevada history in 2015.
And there’s no way in Hades I’d ever vote for Brian Sandoval again for anything.
Yet there are still some who would vote for David Duke just because he had an “R” after his name. Fine. Your vote, your choice. But that’s not how I roll.
Enter Flippo
Now let’s talk about Flippo.
If he and his campaign somehow, miraculously, find a way to blow this CD2 race, it won’t be because of me or the voters of CD2 who choose not to vote for him.
If they lose this seat, it will be THEIR fault for switching races at the last minute even though nobody was begging them to do so. Pure opportunism.
And for the record, my problem with Flippo isn’t so much philosophical. I mean, he talks “conservative.”
Then again, so did Sandoval.
No, my problems with him are mainly political.
He first ran for the State Assembly in Las Vegas in 2022. He lost. In the primary. Came in THIRD.
But instead of maybe running for that seat again in 2024, he somehow decided that getting smoked and coming in third in a Republican primary made him the perfect candidate to run for CONGRESS in the 4th District in Las Vegas.
Failing Upward
Same with Stephanie Phillips.
She’d had never run for anything before, but decided she should start at the top: U.S. Senate. And she got her pantyhose in a twist when I wouldn’t support her.
Here’s the thing: Anyone has the right to run for whatever seat they want. However, they do NOT have the right to be taken seriously.
Then there’s Drew Johnson.
I suggested he run for the Assembly in 2022. Instead he ran for county commission. And lost a winnable race.
Then he ran for Congress. And lost again.
Now he’s running statewide for Treasurer, a job he has no qualifications for whatsoever.
Talk about failing upward!
The Carpetbagger Shuffle
But back to Flippo.
He again lost in the 2024 Republican primary in a race where his campaign used some absolutely disgusting campaign tactics against his fellow GOP opponent – which I won’t rehash here, but in retrospect was a harbinger of things to come.
With money of his own to burn and desperate to get himself elected – it’s clearly an ego thing with him – he decided to run for CD4 in Las Vegas again this year.
But it quickly became obvious that despite again running a gutter-level campaign against his Republican opponent, Cody Whipple, he was in line for yet another embarrassing primary loss.
Then Republican Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada’s northern 2nd congressional district announced, just weeks before filing for office opened, that he would not seek re-election.
Ever the opportunist, Flippo then decided at the last minute to switch out of the CD4 race he was sure to lose again in the primary and instead run for Amodei’s CD2 seat – despite the fact that he needed GPS to even find northern Nevada from Vegas.
He then proceeded to run another of his patented scorched-earth, bottom-of-the-barrel campaigns against an honorable and respected former GOP state senator, James Settelmeyer, whose family has been ranching in the district almost since the time we got statehood.
But as luck would have it, President Trump – who unlike the Pope is not infallible – endorsed Flippo late in the campaign even though Amodei and Nevada’s GOP governor were backing Settelmeyer.
And it was enough to put him over the top.
But since Flippo’s previous candidacies were never taken seriously, especially for a general election, he was never seriously vetted.
And now the wheels have come off the apple cart.
No Healing, No Peace
Immediately after the primary, I wrote that Flippo’s campaign had a lot of healing to do with Republican voters for the open wounds he inflicted. But he foolishly never did so.
He also never made peace with Amodei. Nor did he even bother to call Settelmeyer after the primary, let alone apologize for the crap he pulled.
No, he and his consultant brain trust just decided to take the Republican vote in the general election for granted because – I guess in their minds – those voters had nowhere else to go and it’s an overwhelmingly GOP district.
Oh, sure, he was able to trot out some post-primary endorsements by some GOP elected officials. But come on. They really didn’t have much choice if they wanted to continue running for office in the future.
Ink by the Barrel
Which brings this home to another of Flippo’s strategically foolish decisions.
There’s a very old rule in politics, which I teach candidates in my Campaign Boot Camps: “Don’t pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel and paper by the ton.”
I’ve updated it to add “or bandwidth by the gigabyte” to include podcasts, bloggers, and online news sites.
Yes, I backed Settelmeyer in the primary. And after Flippo won, I also never heard from him and pretty much just wiped the race off my radar screen.
What’s done is done. Bigger fish to fry. Move on.
Waking the Honey Badger
Ah…but then there’s “Brutal Brittany.”
For the record, Brittany Sheehan is an extremely talented writer and an extremely experienced political activist.
And yes, she’s been a paid political columnist for Nevada News & Views – of which I’m the editor and publisher – for almost two years now.
But she’s a freelance writer. An independent contractor. As such, I don’t tell her what to write, what to write about, or how to write it.
Generally speaking, I don’t need to. We’re usually on the same page.
But there have been occasions where I’ve suggested a story that she wasn’t comfortable with and she chose not to cover it.
And there are rare times when she’s taken a position which was opposite of mine – especially when she roots for Taylor Swift’s Kansas City Chiefs.
And that’s fine. Nothing wrong with respectfully agreeing to disagree.
But that’s not what Flippo’s lead consultants – Rory McShane and Woody Johnson – chose to do. Instead, they decided to keep poking the bear over Brittany’s writing about Flippo in the primary.
The Thing About Us Writers
Now, here’s the thing about us political writers – both old media and new.
There are an infinite number of things we can choose to write about every morning when we wake up. There’s never a shortage of material.
But if you p*ss us off, then we’ll actively and proactively look for things that may not exactly be helpful to your campaign.
And by continuing to criticize and attack Brittany online and in social media after the primary – often personally, not just politically – boy, did they wake up the honey badger and have reaped the whirlwind for it.
She hasn’t made anything up. She just started digging. And digging. And digging. And started writing about what she found – especially about Flippo’s finances and military record.
Frankly, she’s been doing the vetting on Flippo that the GOP *should* have done long ago.
And she’s so thorough and detailed in her reporting that national media has been linking to her articles and using them as background for their own stories.
It’s the sort of stuff that led Rep. Amodei to say, in announcing that he was not supporting Flippo in the general:
“The guy is a fraud. … I’m not having my last action walking out the door to hug a guy who I think is a fraud.”
About That “Bias”
As for accusations of bias by Nevada News & Views, I’ll point out that we’ve published pro-Flippo articles and opinion columns as well – including one by “Superman” himself, Dean Cain, just a few days ago.
It’s not our fault if the pro-Flippo side hasn’t submitted more for consideration.
Yes, voting for Chapman or the Democrat could cost the GOP this seat. But that’s not the fault of Republicans who warned against nominating Flippo in the first place.
If he hadn’t pulled his carpetbagger stunt, the GOP wouldn’t be divided. And there’d be no doubt Republicans would hold this seat.
That said, the worst thing you can do if you’re disgusted by Flippo is to stay home and not vote.
That doesn’t just hurt Flippo. That hurts every other GOP candidate up and down the ballot, as well as the two ballot questions.
Speaking of which: YES on 7. NO on 6.
That is all.