Yes, I’m Voting for Rory Reid
Posted by Michael Zahara on Mar 9, 2010
I didn’t plan to start this early, but I was at Stonewall last week for the first time in several years and a lot of you were surprised to see me and Rory Reid having a nice talk and me wearing his sticker. In fact, I was the first person he spoke to when he walked into the room. His photographer sensing a Pulitzer moment, snapped about 400 pics, but there was no violence!
I turned around to a room full of slack-jawed observers who all thought Rory Reid would stab me. If Jessica Sferrazza didn’t cut me, why would he?
Just because I plan on firing his Pop, doesn’t mean I’m flushing Rory yet; I like the guy and he makes me laugh too! He has one of the driest senses of humor and you have to be pretty sharp yourself to ‘get’ him. I’ve sat through those boring Commission meetings and sometimes I swear he and I were the only guys who ‘got’ what he was cracking wise about.
But on a serious note, Rory Reid is to be commended for restoring some integrity to a badly damaged Commission–Chris G-G notwithstanding–in the aftermath of the Erin Kenny, Lance Malone, Dario Herrera, and Mary Kincaid-Chauncey fiascoes that did grave damage to the public’s perception of the board.
I find that he is exceedingly fair to his colleagues and to persons with business in front of the board. He’s dull, but he is one of the smartest persons in the entire state and in public life, sometimes Dull is Desirable, and I’ve written that that should be his campaign theme!
Is Rory Reid a flawed guy? Yes, but we’re not electing Jesus who would have trouble getting out of a primary today because we generally don’t like to vote for guys in evening gowns and sandals.
I’ll get into further details this fall before the election, but Rory Reid has given me no reason to fire him yet and you may find this odd from me, but I’m not inclined to fire anyone who I believe is doing a good job and/or making an earnest effort.
You have to be a real shithead for me to kick you out of office or work toward your defeat in either party! Some were surprised when I wrote that I voted for Chip Maxfield—a flawed guy, oh yeah!—but my constituents out here just loved him and he was Johnny-on-the-spot in dealing with my neighbors and friends.
You don’t fire that kind of politico.
Now I live in Susan Brager’s district and all I hear are complaints about she and her staff; it’s no wonder her own website gives her only ‘one star’; she’s a lousy Commissioner and completely disinterested in her constituents; she deserves to lose this cycle, and lose badly:
Just because I may disagree with you doesn’t mean that you and your views don’t have value to me so long as you’re not screaming in my face about what we disagree about.
I would much rather jump off from what we do agree on, rather than what we don’t, and work from there.
I’ve found that much more effective over the years.
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Stonewall’s Derek Washington is to be commended for his leadership and chutzpah leading that group. As a Dem who has sat in leadership all over the place, I know how hard it is to keep everyone happy and to actually get something done.
Stonewall Dems’ Derek Washington has revived a moribund party caucus!
Organization is not our party’s strong suit and this was this season’s first meeting I attended where club members far outnumbered political candidates; that tells me Washington is actually leading—a foreign concept to most here!
More than 100 people were there that evening!
I am one who would rather seek forgiveness than ask permission because nothing ever gets done if you dilly-dally and fart around all day. Nowhere else in the country have I seen so many people wanting to be chairman of this or president of that, and then not do a damn thing!
They’re just collecting titles or seeking attention in my view.
The idea is to always leave the place better than you found it and Stonewall will be a better place when Derek Washington is done with his work!
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I spoke with Roberta Lange that evening too and she is working hard to pull the Jefferson-Jackson dinner together with Al Snore. How one does this in a few weeks is a mystery to me having co-chaired the 2006 effort, but if anyone can do it, Roberta can.
Gore’s recent screed in the New York Times proves he is still completely out of touch with the realities of a bad economy:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/opinion/28gore.html
He does look good in an evening gown and did get elected twice as VP–unlike that Jesus guy–and he’s seen here playing a young Grace Kelly at the Oscars!
The R-J and others will be brutal on her…errr, I mean him!
Lange told me that they did try to get Vice-President Joe Biden too but that the coordination couldn’t be achieved.
Let’s clear up a few things that have gotten out of hand: The dinner is $150 and the non-dinner speech part is only $30…some of the rumors out there were off the charts because the R-J didn’t report things as clearly as they could have, I guess.
In a piece full of surprises today for my readers, I actually support the state party taking over the JJ dinners in both Clark and Washoe and holding them on successive days and tried to get that considered for a long time to no avail.
We are one of the few state parties that doesn’t have an annual fundraising mechanism and I blame Rebecca Lambe-Jolley for that; she blocked any consideration of same because that would have taken money away from Harry and made the party less dependent on him.
The trade off for the county parties would be to host opposite calendar JJ Brunch buffets which are much, much cheaper to put together. Here, figure at about $14 per plate plus tax and tip, you should be able to clear $25+ on a $50 ticket—the price is more reasonable and attendance would be packed in both counties!
Generally, you’re shooting to take way better than half from your ticket price points after expenses.
Brunches are much cheaper fundraisers to host!
Don’t believe me? Our 2006 quote at the Rio was over $60 a plate and I got ‘em down to $34 and change; you never accept the first price on anything though I’m told that this year’s event will cost in the neighborhood of $80 per plate…plus tax and tip!
With our unions and deep-pocket supporters’ cash strapped, it’s going to be very difficult to break even, much less turn a profit.
Yes, we’ll be eagle-eye watching those who stuff their pockets as they did over the last two years.
No one took a dime in 2006 and all donated their efforts to increase the take which is the whole point of this type of event!
It’s time to put your foot down Andrew Martin and crack the whip of fiscal discipline for ClarkDems with this dinner.
No consultants, no publicists, no insiders pocketing thousands…and you’ll make some money!
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Senator Patty Murray Files: I’m getting very close to writing her US Senate seat off too. She came out hard against the Yucca license pull efforts because her state is home to Hanford where a lot of Yucca materials were to have come from.
Things are very icy between Patty & Harry these days. Not only is Harry Reid ruining the entire Nevada Dem ticket for 2010, but Washington state’s too!
The license application pull effort is the first real maneuver, but we will be years in courts, as utilities and states will sue the US government and Nevada too, and we’ll see ballot initiatives to grant Nevada’s full-time adult residence an annual royalty check within 4+years too.
Even if Yucca were to absolutely die–it won’t–it wouldn’t be until 2025-ish–maybe much longer–before all of the court dramas end.
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Will Ross Miller Step Up?: Assemblywoman, Kathy McClain now running for SD07, is under investigation from the Nevada Secretary of State for what is now three different instances of stealing her donors’ money, apparently fattening her PERS account with it in what I believe is a criminal misuse of her funds and direct violations of NRS 294A, which covers covers election related issues.
Absolutely nothing in the NRS allows for a miscellaneous ‘J’ expense of taking other peoples’ money who donated in good faith and then turning around and apparently stealing it to enlarge your own pension fund with it. It is Campaign Contributions and Expenses, and stealing ones own campaign funds for pension expansion is never a legitimate use of those funds under any legal definition or interpretation of the NRS.
I believe it has gone from a civil matter to a criminal issue because she allegedly committed fraud by using her campaign funds to enhance her public pension take, so Catherine Cortez-Masto should be very interested in this too!
Both the NVSOS and the AG will now have to state definitively whether or not campaign funds under Neveda law can be used for personal use/benefit because Ms McClains’s constituents filed a legitimate complaint.
Answering on the wrong side of the issue could cost both their re-election this year.
We have already determined that the IRS considers all three thefts of campaign funds to be taxable income.
The matter should be forward for her state felony indictment and prosecution and on February 27, 2010, her attorney requested an extension to respond, so that would bring the matter to one day before candidate filing expires this Friday!
That is some set of balls on this hyper-corrupt broad, huh?
It should also be noted that NVSOS, Ross Miller, did not push any credible reforms over the last four years; at least none that he really ever worked the floors of the legislature on.
If Ross Miller gives Ms McClain a pass for her misconduct and outright thievery to benefit only herself with other peoples’ money, he can kiss his political future goodbye!
Yet another inductee into Nevada’s Hall of Shame is one hyper-corrupt Assemblywoman, Kathy McClain!
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I saw Assemblyman Marcus Conklin, filing at the BOE and he gets five stars for candor in telling me that he gave serious consideration to not running and why!
Thanks for sticking around Assemblyman Marcus Conklin!
Would you care to be Speaker? I think that if you tried, you’d beat the assumed new Speaker!
I don’t know Mr Conklin that well, but he is exceptionally smart–he ‘gets’ it–and had we lost him, that would have been a devastating blow to the party and the seat would have flipped to the GOP this year. Babs Buckley has kept him in the background and largely out of the press for obvious reasons; she doesn’t like to share or play nicely with others.
If I were a member of the Assembly, Conklin is the guy I would want in charge of recruiting, not Assemblyman Kelvin Atkinson who has trouble spelling ‘the’…and his own name, or John Oceguera.
In fact, I would be very supportive of and would vote for Marcus Conklin to be the consensus new Speaker over the power hungry and corrupted John Oceguera…and so would a lot of other members!
Thanks for sticking around Marcus; we need you and your brains and you never make the pages here because you’re doing your job and doing it well in my view!
Mike Zahara
03092010
www.WatchdogWag.com
