SPECIAL EDITION: Muth’s Truths PLUS: January 17, 2024

COMPLIMENTARY EDITION

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* Big news in Nevada Republican politics this morning…

* It was announced that Republican Senate Minority Leader Heidi Gansert has stepped down.  Sen. Robin Titus – a former Assembly Minority Leader – has been tapped to run the caucus for the remainder of this election cycle.

* Gansert was a well-known moderate.  Titus is well-known for having one of the most conservative voting records in the Legislature over many years.  Hard to see this as anything but an upgrade for conservatives.

* Now, about the Assembly Republican Caucus, which can’t even agree on how to endorse candidates – including those already endorsed by the governor – thanks to petty arguments over rules and bylaws…?

* The playground spat seems to be over jockeying to see who will be the next Assembly Republican Leader in November to replace Minority Leader P.K. O’Neill – who seems to be the only caucus member who doesn’t know he won’t be the leader next session.

* As Jack Warden so eloquently put it in the football movie The Replacements: “I’ve seen monkey-sh*t fights at the zoo that are more organized than this.”

* In other news, Carly Sauvageau reports that “Cari-Ann Burgess has been appointed as the interim registrar (of voters)” in Washoe County.  Previous ROV Jamie Rodriguez announced her resignation right after the holidays.

* Burgess was deputy registrar under Rodriguez and “was an elections administrator for over five years in Minnesota before her time with Washoe County.”  She was appointed by a split 3-2 vote.

* Meanwhile, back at Crazy Town…

* Confusion and anger over the Nevada GOP’s upcoming “Chaos Caucus” on February 8^th continues to build – and will get even worse this weekend when actual mail-in ballots begin hitting voters’ mailboxes.

* Let’s start with this lead paragraph from the lead story on the front page of today’s Las Vegas SUN…

“The Clark County Republican Party is still without a clear list of venues in the Las Vegas area for its planned presidential nominating caucus next month.”

* Lovely. They’ve only known about this since last SEPTEMBER.

* I’m getting emails every day – even from regular subscribers who have been reading my writing on this subject for months. For example…

“I have attended caucuses in the past and found them to be chaos and most definitely STUPID and easy to rig!  Who is responsible for this confusion?”

* ANSWER: The Nevada Republican Party.

* Not the Secretary of State.  Not the county Registrar of Voters. Not the Democrats. Not the Chinese.  Not the Russians.

* The Nevada GOP.

* In its infinite wisdom, the party’s Central Committee voted for Chairman Michael McDonald’s extortion scheme to forbid candidates wanting to participate in the party-run caucus from filing as a candidate in the official state-run primary.

* Pure genius.

*  I’m also getting emails from party volunteers at county GOP offices advising that they’re getting calls from voters every day infuriated over the fact that Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis aren’t listed on their primary sample ballots. For example…

“Chuck, I’m getting people asking me why Trump and DeSantis aren’t on the primary ballot.  Trying to explain how the party could be so stupid has been hard.”

* Tell me about it.  Welcome to my world.

* Some voters are asking if they can write in Trump’s and DeSantis’ names on their primary ballot.  The short answer: No.

* And here’s a new twist, as noted by Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Victor Joecks last night…

* The mail-in ballots include this standard warning: “VOTING TWICE IS A CRIME: A voter who votes twice in the same election or attempts to do so is guilty of a FELONY CRIME and is subject to prosecution.”

* That warning only applies to people who try to vote twice in the PRIMARY.  It does NOT include people who vote in the state-run primary AND the party-run caucus.  They are considered two SEPARATE elections.

* But good luck explaining that to voters who aren’t actively involved in this process.  Many will vote in the primary and think they can’t vote in the caucus lest they be hauled off to the hoosegow.

* Worse, the Nevada GOP is hypocritically dissuading people from voting in the primary, perpetuating the notion that it’s insecure and subject to being manipulated.

* Yet that exact same primary system will be used in the June primary for non-presidential candidates, as well as the general election. Which will, once again, retard GOP turnout in those elections.

* Remember, Republicans lost a U.S. Senate seat in 2022 by fewer than 8,000 votes while more than 175,000 Republicans stayed home – many believing their vote wouldn’t count because “it would just be stolen anyway.”

* Joecks notes that there are some 640,000 registered Republicans in Nevada and predicts that turnout could be fewer than 40,000 – which is certainly possible considering Trump’s blowout win in Iowa.

* Why show up to the terribly inconvenient caucus if you already know Trump’s going to win in a landslide, right?

* And that opens up the possibility that Nikki Haley will get more votes in the February 6 primary than Trump and DeSantis will get in the caucus. Think that will confuse voters and fuel even more conspiracy theories?

* As such, the party and the Trump/DeSantis campaigns are urging Republicans to vote for “None of the Above” on their primary ballots – which holds out the possibility that Haley could lose the primary to NOTA!

* Don’t laugh. It’s happened before.  In 2014, the Democrat candidate for governor in Nevada lost to “None of the Above” in the primary.

* Could the Nevada GOP possibly screw this up any worse?  Um, unbelievably, yes.

* Talk about “ballistic podiatry”!

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

“The more prosecutors go after Trump, and the more the media breathlessly report on the charges, the more Republicans see him as a victim.” – Columnist Debra Saunders

“As for the Democrats, they’re boxed in. We maintain that the only possible worse choice for the Democrats at the top of their ticket would be Kamala. … Our view is if the economy continues to improve – a truly open question – Biden can win. If things deteriorate, he’s toast. In 2016 Democrats tethered themselves to Hillary – the only person who could lose to Trump. In 2024 they may do the same thing.” – Stephen Moore, Committee to Unleash Prosperity

Mr. Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, publisher of Nevada News & Views, and founder of CampaignDoctor.com.  You can sign up for his conservative, Nevada-focused e-newsletter at MuthsTruths.com.  His views are his own.