‘Are you disappointed too?’, asked one of my political admirers who is the guy responsible for my launching The WatchdogWag Project blog.  ‘Of course I am and I think that everyone else is too’. 

‘Then why are you holding back and not firing like you do with everyone else on the ‘co-mayor’’? 

Ouch!  

Coming from this particular guy, that really stung me and he was right; I was holding back. 

I don’t know where his train jumped the tracks, but my ally then showed me a LexisNexis-type listing of press mentions and quotes versus the duly elected mayor’s and I knew it was time to respond to critics who accused me of a double-standard and holding back because he is my friend and I designed his last effort. 

That listing made him look like a media-hog and like he was usurping the mayor and the other council members too leading a prominent Dem he thinks is an ally to start calling him ‘Dick’ Cherchio behind his back!

Funny, but a brutal assessment for an appointee!

I don’t think Richard Cherchio has ever gotten over losing to Shari Buck—he is very competitive and driven—for that council race in 2007 and it does seem to me and a whole lot of other people that his appointment to replace her when she beat Will Robinson for mayor has been more about evening scores with her than tending to his own constituents. 

And for that, now his election chances are shaky as he has managed to earn himself many very powerful enemies and only the first CCE reporting due at the end of the month will tell the story of money raised. 

Bad omen?:  His GOP opponent had 5 times as many guests at his recent event as were reported by Cherchio’s allies at his at the same joint. 

That said, he is winning the mailers game by number of pieces, but the anti-Cherchio doorhangers are absolutely brutal.

I told him in 2007 that we’d lose but that he’d be appointed for the effort when she became mayor—with her vote yet—but that didn’t seem to be good enough in retrospect. 

The headline following his 2007 loss:  Shari Buck easily wins third term  

That should have served as a daily constant reminder that she is still the powerhouse in her home base ward and Richard has done little, if anything, to expand his base.  He’s counting on Dem partisans and his HOA friends to put him over the top this year. 

Reflecting back, I think that he may have thought that civic office would be like union leadership he held for years; he’s left an impression with many people that he doesn’t respect that as mayor, Shari Buck is the Chief Executive Officer and that she controls the agenda by office definition. 

There are political opposites and fierce rivalries and then there is respect for the respective elective offices and the processes in place to run governments; someone has to be and is elected as the captain of the ship.

To many people, Richard isn’t respecting the office of mayor of North Las Vegas, much less the actual mayor!

The duly elected Captain Merrill Stubing of NLV’s ’lil Loveboat isn’t Richard Cherchio! 

Council and commission offices are always to prioritize within ones district boundaries first—especially when you’ve yet to be elected!!!–you must shore up your own base and Richard Cherchio hasn’t done that too well. 

2nd bad Omen?:  Though Dem majority by voter registration, North Las Vegas–like most American suburbs–has a comfort in electing Republicans like Christensen, Buck, Montandon, and most recently, Assemblyman Scott Hammond who beat back a strong challenge by Dem Louis DeSalvio for the Christensen open seat in 2010.

That Richard would take such bold, if not downright foolish political risks, by leading a renegade faction instead of letting the completely useless and term-limited Robert Elliason or the termed-out Will Robinson do the heavy lifting is stunning in its complete lack of understanding the nuances of politics and the bloodthirsts inherent therein.

The Army doesn’t place new recruits as Generals for good reason and neither does politics!

A big part of that is Richard’s need to be involved in everything and run everything too.  He tried to hold on to the leadership of a local Dem Party club when such positions are never held by persons holding public offices, and no, I didn’t write about that conduct, nor did I write about his over-involvement with the HOA Alliance after his appointment either.

My bad.

That over-involvement and micro-managing reads as being a busybody to a lot of people in North Las Vegas, but he is sincere and hates corruption though his failure on the Turnberry disclosures , his making arch-enemies of police and firefighters, his using his clout to land his wife a part-time job at the LVCVA when they’ve been going through cutbacks of their own has loaded his many enemies working against him today…with neutron bombs! 

Mayor Buck is the daughter of the former police chief; did anyone really ever believe that she would—or ever could—vote on anything against public safety in NLV?  Instead of being strategic and holding straw votes, some abstaining at times, and not voting together as a bloc at times to force Buck’s hand, all four council reps left the mayor acting and looking like the person most concerned about public safety while she was urging more concessions and compromises until the very end. 

That’s not how any of them wanted her to end up looking. 

Stupid, stupid, stupid! 

Richard Cherchio actually voting to support spending $500,000 the city doesn’t have with some 30+ million more in cuts to come, on a fanciful proposal (more on that coming soon!) championed by a racist, sexist, con-man and super-bigot—and after cutting so many jobs and services was incredibly thoughtless, if not cruel and bitter medicine—they could have at least waited until after the election was over to see where the chips fell—and it was very tin-eared and very disrespectful to those who’d lost their jobs in the cutbacks. 

I’m absolutley stunned that he would do something that outrageous and that thoughtless by publicly extending  his middle-finger and then slapping the faces of those who had just lost their jobs!

It’s one of the biggest political blunders I have seen in 31+ years!  The stunner is that he didn’t need to make the vote and could have voted ‘no’ or abstained–it would have passed without him–and he’s left the indelible impression with almost everyone that he did it just to spite the mayor!

Unbelievable!

Richard Cherchio’s greatest success as the city council appointee has been in painting a gigantic target on his own back and pointing a gun at his own foot! 

Should he lose, he’ll have no one to blame but himself!

All of these points made, Cherchio’s opponent, Dr Wade Wagner, a political neophyte and local dentist, hasn’t been the most exciting candidate I’ve ever seen—I still haven’t met him but his people ensure I get his stuff—and he was recruited by the NLV branch of the local Mormon Mafia with the enthusiastic blessings and money of the NLV police and firefighters and though mailers generally do win such small offices, Shari Buck was elected time and again with only a handful of them counting far more on the Mormon Mommy Mafia Network to deliver her message to her voters.

And former mayor Mike Montandon can’t do enough for his new NLV Ward 4 friend Dr Wagner and he’s pulling in every chit he’s got to assist him.   I’m guessing that Shari Buck isn’t a Cherchio supporter either; my, my what a difference a day makes, huh?

Though they don’t generally hoot ‘n holler in their campaigns; LDS have a very effective network of contacts and communiqués done largely by their stakeholders.

If outdoor signs are any indicator, they are providing Wagner with some money too. 

I’m disappointed Dr Wagner’s consultant seems to be phoning it in after successfully electing up-and-comer Senator Michael Roberson, but he is a former Democrat who knows nothing about North Las Vegas apparently, so maybe that was to be expected. 

I’ve yet to receive any press-oriented announcements or public team/supporter cheerleading from the Wagner campaign; though Cherchio’s have been slow in coming and few, at least he has them. 

This race will suffer appallingly low turnout—in 2007, barely 2,400 voters turned out—so it’s a numbers game of who can get turnout done in EarlyVoting and I think that edge is Richard Cherchio’s by virtue of his name recognition though that only garnered 588 votes last time out. 

I don’t know who the two unknown candidates in the race hurts more either, but someone may regret not attempting to get them to drop out; I just don’t know whether it will be Cherchio or Wagner who suffer for it on a warm April evening. 

I support my friend Richard Cherchio and will support him in the general too—Dr Wade Wagner hasn’t made a compelling argument for his election and Cherchio’s firing; it’s rare that I’d vote to fire newbies like Richard—and just because he’s acted like a big dunderhead in office at times doesn’t mean he should be fired…at least not yet. 

I hope that Richard Cherchio adjusts and becomes far more ward-centric and begins to finally build a base because he’s turned out to be an often different person than the man I helped get to where he is today. 

He seems an entirely different guy to me and to so many others sometimes, but voters should give him a second chance for redemption in 2011. 

Hey, I’m ‘Catlick’; we’re all about redemption—it’s the whole ballgame for us! 

It just wasn’t supposed to be this chancy an outcome in 2011 when the first inning of the ballgame began in 2007 though!

I wouldn’t have guessed the current scenario in a million years!

Michael Zahara
3/15/2011
www.WatchdogWag.com.