(Chuck Muth) – At a meeting of the Mt. Rose Republican Women on Thursday, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Danny Tarkanian was asked what he was going to do to ensure that his GOP primary race doesn’t become a scorched earth campaign where whoever comes out on top is so wounded that they can’t win in the general election against Harry Reid. Here’s how Danny answered:
“I will promise/guarantee we will not go after any opponent personally on any issues at all. You won’t hear us make a negative attack on any of my opponents personally, but you have to be able to distinguish the positions you have from your opponent.
“Now recently this guy Chuck LoudMuth or whatever his name is, he’s running around saying I’m attacking Sue Lowden because I made the distinction of where I stand on these issues and she stands on these issues. These are political positions. How can you expect to run a campaign if you can’t distinguish yourself from a different position from the person that’s running against you? You have to.
“I am only talking about what is my political philosophy compared to my opponent’s. I will continue to do so, will continue to distinguish ourselves and I will never, ever go after one of my opponents personally and I would hope that they would do the same.”
“LoudMuth.” Get it? How….cute.
But if you were sitting in the audience and didn’t know any better, you’d think Danny Tarkanian has no idea who I am; that we’d never met. But not surprisingly, this is completely disingenuous.
I first met Danny and his wife Amy at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC, in 2004 when I was still living back there. He was thinking about running for U.S. Senate back then and requested a meeting with me to discuss it and seek my advice. Frankly, it was the same advice I’d have given him this year: Don’t do it. Get elected to something at a lower level first before reaching for the brass ring.
Then later, after I moved back to Nevada in 2005, I saw and spoke with Danny on a regular basis at one political event after another. I endorsed him in his primary race for Secretary of State in 2006 and let him put a yard sign in my yard. Heck, I even babysat his kids while he and Amy attended a Lincoln Day dinner a couple years ago!
You mean to tell me Danny would leave his most precious possessions with “this guy Chuck LoudMuth or whatever his name is”?
Once again we see that Danny Tarkanian will say whatever he thinks his audience wants to hear….whether it’s true of not.
Now, as for Danny’s contention that I’m criticizing him for making distinctions between where he stands on the issues and where Sue Lowden stands on the issues….well – surprise! – that’s not true either.
Providing the voters with a contrast between yourself and your opponent is, indeed, a valuable and necessary component of a political campaign. I have no problem with a hard-hitting issue-based campaign. In fact, I teach just that in my campaign training seminars.
No, my problem isn’t that Danny is drawing distinctions between himself and Sue Lowden; my problem is that he’s making things up and twisting Sue Lowden’s words and positions in his efforts to draw distinctions and is misleading voters in the process.
For example, had Danny said that Sue Lowden was “wishy-washy” on the issue of the TARP bailout because she said she couldn’t say how she would have voted on that bill at the time….fine. Fair game. But to claim that means she supported the TARP bailout…well, that’s just a flat-out lie.
As someone who played sports, Danny should know the difference between playing hard and playing dirty. You don’t hit below the belt, after the whistle, from behind, or out of bounds. Those are called fouls, and perpetrators are rightfully penalized for them
And as someone who won a lawsuit last August against a political opponent who was found to have lied about Danny in a previous campaign, you’d think Danny would have a greater sensitivity about doing the same thing to someone else.
You’d think.
But you’d be wrong.
And if this is how Danny is going to conduct himself on the campaign trail, just image how he’d act in office if he ever got elected. To anything.
I received a “push poll” call from the Tarkanian camp the other day – two of them, actually, as they hit my home and cell phones.
I have to say, I am a bit disturbed by such tactics and am far less likely to vote for Tarkanian now that this has happened. Anyone who reads here at NN&V’s knows that I have all sorts of issues with Lowden, but thus far she hasn’t gone in to what I consider unfair tactics.
Our goal is to get Reid out of office and advance conservatism to power in the State and nation. I like the fact that we have so many candidates vying for the GOP nomination and I enjoy a vigorous debate about what course we should take – but we will be shooting ourselves in the foot if we use Democrat tactics.
[...] As Republicans gear up for the battles of 2010, we must remember that the enemy is on the left. [...]
There’s a simple solution to the problem. Vote for Sharron Angle! Angle has an 8 year, 100% conservative record in Carson City and, unlike Tarkanian, has never donated money to liberal congresswoman Shelley Berkeley and is solid on the 2nd Amendment. Matching Angle up against Lowden will show that while Lowden was busy cheating the assembled delegates out of their votes at the 2008 Republican State Convention, Angle was busy in the foyer getting delegates to sign a petition to limit property taxes on residences. Additionally, Angle has never been on the losing end of a multi-million dollar summary judgment for cheating investors as Lowden has. And finally, and most importantly, Angle has never mispronounced Chuck Muth’s name.
Here’s what I said when Tarkanian penned a piece on the 2nd amendment a few weeks back. It is highly pertinent to this discussion. Especially now that I know that Danny “relatively new to politics”Tarkanian had previously spoken to Chuck Muth about running for the US Senate. Tell me if I didn’t have him pegged!
“Sounds like double talk to me, but then again, I’m relatively new to politics.”
This was the quote from Tarkanian in Nevada News and Views!
HAHAHAHA! This guy Tarkanian is a hoot. Talk about trying to remake himself! Problem is, nobody is buying his bull*&it! “Relatively new to politics? Tarkanian??? Who does he think he’s fooling? Here’s an excerpt from the Review Journal a few weeks back about our “relatively new to politics” poser:
“After graduating from UNLV, Tarkanian went to law school in San Diego and operated businesses in Las Vegas, including a bar and real estate ventures. He also considered running for the Board of Regents and Las Vegas City Council before returning to basketball at Fresno State to be an assistant coach under his father from 1995 until 2002. (He would later run unsuccessfully for state Senate in 2004 and secretary of state in 2006.)”
He is trying so hard to portray himself as an anti-establishment tea-party activist type that he has now resorted to lying about himself. Relatively new to politics?? I think he means “relatively new to anyone taking him seriously in politics.” Thus, the habit of telling people what they want to hear, which changes depending on who he is trying to get votes from. This character will say anything and do anything to get elected. If it were a choice between him and Amodei, there is simply no choice, it’s Amodei. I also noticed that he didn’t mention anything in this editorial piece about his campaign running an anti-2nd amendment auto dial call when he ran for secretary of state. Once again, say anything, do anything to get elected. What whoppers is he going to come up with next? Did someone say Amodei?
Hangtown1, consider this a warning.
You’ve accused Sue Lowden of “cheating” without providing substantiation. Quite a serious charge. You’ve also used my platform here at Nevada News & Views to “ink” some other rather incendiary invective.
Please be advised that while you may have a right to free speech, you do NOT have a right to exercise your right on my blog. Future posts which I deem to be over the line will be removed, especially if you continue to post them using a fake Internet name rather than providing your true identity.
Please be a little more judicious and responsible in your comments.
While I might take issue with Hangtown’s verbiage, everyone knows that something went wrong at that convention and votes were not counted. Sue Lowden was in charge, so where does that buck stop?
Regardless of what Sue did or didn’t do in that fiasco or what Danny meant or didn’t mean to say, a smart conservative voter will check the voting record and the personal politics of every candidate on the issues that matter most to them.
With voting records in mind and in my opinion, Sharon Angle comes out top of the rest by a mile. If you go by what the candidates have said on the issues, Bill Parson holds the top spot. Danny and Sue are to busy beating each other up, directly or indirectly, to speak seriously on the issues.
Forest Gump has better name recognition than anyone in this field. He definitely has more money and he could beat Harry Reid too, just like these four could. But he isn’t running.
When will you people, if ever, get over that convention?
First, no doubt it was a royal fustercluck.
No doubt Sue Lowden, as chairman of the party, bears some responsibility for it.
But she was NOT the convention chairman.
And Ron Paul’s out-of-state campaign director, Jeff “Chemtrail” Greenfield, bears most of the blame for double-crossing the party at the last minute over an agreement he had made with it (unbeknownst to Paul supporters in Nevada and without authorization we found out after the fact) and throwing the convention into chaos.
Sure, how it was handled after Greenfield sucker punched the party leaders could have been handled better, but to lay ALL of the blame for this mess at Lowden’s feet – who *thought* she was dealing with an honorable and authorized representative of the Paul campaign – simply isn’t appropriate.
There was PLENTY of blame to go around. On BOTH sides.
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Good Morning. Questions, Bruce Woodbury and Jon Porter. Are either of these men going to run for Senate? I am just a average voter who wants the Reid machine gone from Nevada. Nevada needs honesty & integrity in government.
I was very disappointed to read Titus senate campaign was helped by Reid, but not her Governor campaign. Please enlighten me. Thank you
I was at the Mt. Rose Republican Women’s dinner last week. Before we were served, Danny T. was working the room, going from table to table telling folks he just wanted to say “hi” but would be talking to them later in the evening. When he came to our table, I said I wanted to talk to him now about all the mud slinging and all the misrepresentations from him. He quickly went on the defensive telling me he had a right to distinguish himself from Sue Lowden and also asserted he “never engaged in any personal attacks”. I was dismayed by both his response and the seeming lack of maturity in his respone…his afftect toward me (a 50-ish, educated and articulate woman) was that of a child who had gotten his hand caught in the cookie jar. Later in the evening, after Danny T. did his well memorized speech, a man in the audience asked the same question of him (the “sorched earth” question) and he repeated the same response he had for me. In addition, many of us in the room were stunned when he responded to another questioner with regard to why he made a campaign contribution of almost $1,000 to Shelly Berkley…he proudly told the audience he did so because she was one of 2 regents who tried to help his dad keep his job at UNLV. Believe me…we all got it…Danny T. will say whatever he needs to say to appease whatever group he’s in front of….but worse than that, in his response to the Berkley question, he told the whole world he has the capacity to put his “conservative” principles aside when it comes to his inner circle…does the term “he can be bought” surprise anyone out there?????
Apparently Danny has stepped on his ……uh shot himself in the foot.
Queen Sue hasn’t done herself any good so far but a lot of people seem to think she is the chosen one. I think she is an arrogant elitist and I don’t think her alleged accomplishments are all that impressive.
As pointed out above, Bill Parson has said all the right things but:
Sharron Angle has been in the trenches and has a proven conservative record.
Seems like the logical choice to me.
Bill would be my second choice but a real voting record trumps. Sharon Angle
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