Some Random, Post-Election Drive-by Muthings

Guest column by Chuck Muth

• The 2010 Angle vs. Reid election is over! Let the 2012 Heller vs. Berkley race begin!

• Nothing fans the flames of fury over illegal immigration more than seeing all the money spent to publish and print sample ballots in Spanish (but no other language!) at taxpayer expense. At least we don’t have to change the language to accommodate all the illegal Canadians coming here across our northern border.

• The knock against Angle from jump street was that while she was the most conservative candidate in the primary, she couldn’t win the general – and she didn’t. Was anyone really surprised?

• The best news about the end of this election cycle? Scott Ashjian’s 15 minutes are finally up. The con man/huckster who tried to pilfer the tea party name got a putrid 1% of the vote. Loser….with a capital “L.”

• Turns out actions DO have consequences. Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio was ousted as Minority Leader by members of his caucus this week because of his very open and very public endorsement of Harry Reid.

• Elected Republicans who joined Republicans for Reid absolutely have the “right” to endorse Democrats. But if they really want to be free to endorse liberal Democrats, then they should run as independents rather than Republicans on the ballot and see how that works out for them.

• The most pleasant surprise upset Tuesday for conservatives: Republican Ira Hansen defeating GOP establishment pick Jodi Stephens in Assembly District 32 in Reno. But don’t cry for Jodi. Word on the street is she’ll end up with a high-paying consolation prize in the Sandoval administration.

• Another pleasant surprise – though she came up short – was the performance of IAP candidate Janine Hansen in Assembly District 33 in Elko. Janine scared the socks off the GOP establishment in that race and pulled a third of the vote which, I think, is a record for their party.

• A disgusting, last-minute robo-call by AFSCME - the government employees’ union - attacked the wife of Republican state Sen. James Settelmeyer over an issue that had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the state senate race. Fortunately, AFSCME member Kevin Ranft got his political butt whooped by Settelmeyer, 66 percent to 29 percent.

• And finally, Democrats in the Assembly elected John Oceguera to be that body’s Speaker next session. In his acceptance statement, Johnny O said, “Right now every one of us has the responsibility to become part of the solution, not part of the problem. There will be honest disagreements, but let those disagreements come with a real plan and specifics instead of simply slogans.”

• You know, slogans like “become part of the solution, not the problem.”

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Chuck Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, a non-profit public policy grassroots advocacy organization. He may be reached at

chuck@citizenoutreach.com.

Raggio Out As Minority Leader

After losing the support of (presumably a majority) of his caucus over his endorsement of Democrat Harry Reid in Nevada's US Senate race, state GOP Senator Bill Raggio withdrew his name from consideration to continue as minority leader.

Veteran Republican state Sen. Bill Raggio, R-Reno, won’t be minority leader in the upcoming 2011 session, withdrawing his name from consideration for the leadership post today after getting GOP criticism for backing Sen. Harry Reid in the Tuesday general election.

The 10-member GOP Senate caucus instead unanimously supported Sen. Mike McGinness, R-Fallon, as minority leader. A member of the Senate since 1992, McGinness is in his last legislative session because of term limits.

[...]

“I withdrew my name,” Raggio said. “If it unifies the party and pacifies some folks who are still agitated, that’s fine. My goal is to unify the party instead of splinter it.”

Yes, it is strange for someone who endorsed a member of the opposition party in a hotly-contested race to speak of party unity. Of course, it appears there a few things Sen. Raggio doesn't understand.

“There are a lot of agitators like Chuck Muth in the world and Tea Partiers who think I committed a mortal sin because I didn’t support Angle,” he said.

[...]

“There’s no way I could support her,” he said of Angle, who ran a bitter primary challenge against Raggio in 2008.

This has nothing to do with Sen. Raggio not supporting Angle. He could have not supported her, he could have supported and voted for Harry Reid, without losing his leadership post or raising the hackles of anyone in his caucus. But that is not what he did.

The chasm is wide between not supporting a candidate and publicly endorsing the candidate's opponent, in fact creating a situation in which the opponent could use his name and status in its campaign commercials, especially so for a member of the party's leadership. Raggio has certainly been in politics long enough to know that. But he apparently couldn't get past the hurt feelings Angle caused him in the prior election.

Raggio got to make his point. And he rightfully lost his leadership position because of it.

The Wave That Missed Nevada

The Republican party rode a tsunami of voter disaffection to historic gains in the 2010 midterm elections, picking up, at current count, 66 seats in the House of Representatives and five in the Senate, gaining a majority of governorships and, apparently, flipping 17 state legislatures to GOP majorities. Dissatisfaction with the slow economic recovery and the government's handling of it was a major factor.

Yet in the state arguably hardest hit by and slowest to recover from the downturn the wave was hardly noticeable. One of the biggest targets of the Tea Party movement, Senate majority leader Harry Reid, retained his seat, garnering a majority of the votes cast and incumbent CD-1 representative Shelley Berkley won in a landslide. GOP challenger Joe Heck in CD-3 barely squeaked by incumbent Democrat Dina Titus, who was herself swept in by the Obama wave in 2008 and who would hardly have been a lock under any circumstances, by less than 2,000 votes.

None of the state's constitutional offices switched parties, with the Democrats retaining all 4 offices they held and Republican governor-elect Brian Sandoval, replacing incumbent Jim Gibbons, whom Sandoval defeated in the primary, representing the only new face among them.

While the Republicans were able to achieve gains in both the state Assembly and Senate, the pickup of two seats in the Assembly and one in the Senate is far from extraordinary. Predictions of a four-seat pickup in the Assembly were not uncommon in recent weeks. Although they no longer have a veto-proof majority in the Assembly, Democrats still hold 26 of the 42 seats and maintain control of the Senate 11-10. With Nevada gaining an additional Congressional seat and redistricting on the agenda, these represent potentially powerful majorities.

This also ensures there will be an intense battle over how to close the state's projected budget deficit, which is somewhere between $1.5 and $3.0 billion, depending on who you ask. While voters denied the Democrats a veto-proof majority, they also traded a governor who staunchly (stubbornly, in the opinion of some) opposed tax increases for one whose commitment, I believe, is, shall we say, not so staunch.

It appears that the state with the most to gain by change elected to retain the status quo. In the next 24 months Republican strategists will have to figure out why.

Note: Changed last paragraph from original.