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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t like early voting.\u00a0 Early voting is a decided advantage for incumbents and \u201cestablishment\u201d candidates with lots of special interest dough in their pockets and purses.<\/p>\n
But since half of you are likely to vote early and have asked, here are some early observations for conservative voters in some GOP primary races\u2026<\/p>\n
U.S. Senate:\u00a0 Sorry, but\u00a0Dean Heller<\/strong>\u00a0was a Never Trumper who helped kill efforts to kill ObamaCare and continues to support the Mueller \u201cRussia collusion\u201d witch hunt.\u00a0 That should be rewarded? Not with my vote.<\/p>\n Both\u00a0Sarah Gazala<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Tom Heck<\/strong>\u00a0have signed the Tax Pledge in this race.<\/p>\n CD-2:\u00a0Mark Amodei<\/strong>.\u00a0 He\u2019s signed the Tax Pledge and was\u00a0Donald Trump\u2019s<\/strong>state chairman in Nevada.\u00a0 He also has a wicked sense of humor.<\/p>\n CD-3:\u00a0 While\u00a0Danny Tarkanian<\/strong>\u00a0[Disclaimer: one of my clients],\u00a0Scott Hammond<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Michelle Mortensen<\/strong>\u00a0have all signed the Tax Pledge and all voice support for President Trump\u2026<\/p>\n Hammond voted for the largest tax hike in Nevada history as a state senator in 2015 and failed to successfully fight for funding for the Education Savings Accounts (ESA) school choice program.<\/p>\n And while Mortensen, who\u2019s only been in politics for six months, has regularly criticized \u201ctypical politicians\u201d in her campaign, she\u2019s unfortunately already adopted the \u201ctypical politician\u201d swamp tactic of lying about her conservative opponents.<\/p>\n So unnecessary and so disappointing.<\/p>\n Tarkanian, on the other hand, is battle-born and battle-tested.\u00a0 He\u2019s endorsed by President Trump and absolutely has the best chance to win back the CD-3 seat in November.<\/p>\n CD-4:\u00a0 Both\u00a0Cresent Hardy<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Dave Gibbs<\/strong>\u00a0have signed the Tax Pledge.<\/p>\n Hardy, unfortunately, was a Never Trumper.\u00a0 But he probably has the best shot at pulling off another miracle and snatching this seat from the Democrats.\u00a0 He did it once before in the 2014 \u201cred wave\u201d election.<\/p>\n Gibbs is a former GOP party chairman \u2013 and there\u2019s a place in heaven for people like him who have lived through that hell.\u00a0 If you can\u2019t bring yourself to vote for Hardy, Gibbs is the most viable conservative alternative.<\/p>\n For statewide constitutional offices, here are the candidates who have signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge:\u00a0 Governor,\u00a0Adam Laxalt<\/strong>.\u00a0 Lt. Governor,\u00a0Brent Jones<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Scott LaFata<\/strong>.\u00a0 Attorney General,\u00a0Craig Mueller<\/strong>.\u00a0 Controller,\u00a0Ron Knecht<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Although they have not signed the Pledge for the offices they\u2019re currently seeking, Secretary of State\u00a0Barbara Cegavske<\/strong>\u00a0and state Treasurer candidate\u00a0Bob Beers<\/strong>\u00a0were both Pledge signers when they served in the Legislature.<\/p>\n For State Senate District 8 I like \u201coutsider\u201d\u00a0Dan Rodimer<\/strong>, and \u201coutsider\u201d\u00a0Byron Brooks<\/strong>\u00a0in Senate District 20.\u00a0 But neither has the strength of their convictions to join Laxalt and other conservatives in signing the Tax Pledge.\u00a0 As such I fear both would quickly be co-opted by the special interest\/establishment swamp creatures on the \u201cdark side\u201d in Carson City.<\/p>\n On the other hand, I have no such fear about State Senate District 16 candidate\u00a0Gary Schmidt<\/strong>, a boat-rocking Pledge signer up in Reno.\u00a0 He\u2019s running against Sen.\u00a0Ben \u201cBlue Dog\u201d Kieckhefer<\/strong>, one of the biggest tax-hiking, government-growing, wishy-washy RINOs (Republican in Name Only) in the Legislature.<\/p>\n In the Assembly, there are several conservative Tax Pledge signers running in competitive GOP primary races:\u00a0Jim Small\u00a0<\/strong>(AD-2), Assemblyman\u00a0Richard McArthur<\/strong>\u00a0(AD-4),\u00a0Mack Miller<\/strong>\u00a0(AD-5),\u00a0Linda Cannon<\/strong>\u00a0(AD-9),\u00a0Steve Sanson<\/strong>(AD-13),\u00a0Cherlyn Arrington<\/strong>\u00a0(AD-21),\u00a0Aimee Jones<\/strong>\u00a0(AD-35) and\u00a0Dennis Hof<\/strong>(AD-36) [Disclaimer: one of my clients].<\/p>\n And although not a Pledge signer, Assemblyman\u00a0John Ellison<\/strong>\u00a0(AD-33) has a proven record of opposing and voting against tax hikes and deserves conservative support.<\/p>\n Other \u201coutsider\u201d Assembly candidates I like but who have disappointingly not signed the Tax Pledge and, therefore, need to be eyed with a healthy dose of skepticism:\u00a0Garo Atamian<\/strong>\u00a0(AD-21),\u00a0Matt McCarthy<\/strong>\u00a0(AD-23) and\u00a0Janice Wesen<\/strong>\u00a0(AD-34).<\/p>\n No,\u00a0Richard Bunce<\/strong>\u00a0(AD-22) is not an oversight.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve supported Richard in the past; however, he now refuses to sign the Tax Pledge and has demonstrated early signs of being lured over to the \u201cdark side\u201d with the rest of the GOP establishment and Carson City swamp creatures.<\/p>\n \u201cRichard Bunce is a perennial candidate,\u201d\u00a0George Harris<\/strong>, publisher of Liberty Watch Magazine, warned this week.\u00a0 \u201cHe started his career as a\u00a0Ron Paul<\/strong>\u00a0disciple, but quickly became a mushy middle moderate standing for nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n Hate when that happens.<\/p>\n Supreme Court Seat C:\u00a0 A vote for\u00a0Elissa Kadish<\/strong>\u00a0is like a vote for\u00a0Ruth Bader Ginsberg<\/strong>.\u00a0 If you like liberal, activist judges, she\u2019s your gal.<\/p>\n But she\u2019s also the favorite and has a huge money advantage.\u00a0 If she gets more than 50% of the vote in this multi-candidate primary she\u2019ll move the Nevada Supreme Court hard to the left.<\/p>\n The candidate most likely to give her a run for her money in the general election (if there is one) is\u00a0Jerry Tao<\/strong>, who has compared his judicial philosophy to the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice\u00a0Antonin Scalia<\/strong>.\u00a0 Hard for any conservative to argue with that!<\/p>\n If any circumstances change between now and the \u201creal\u201d Election Day, I\u2019ll let you know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I don\u2019t like early voting.\u00a0 Early voting is a decided advantage for incumbents and \u201cestablishment\u201d candidates with lots of special interest dough in their pockets and purses. But since half of you are likely to vote early and have asked, here are some early observations for conservative voters in some GOP primary races\u2026 U.S. Senate:\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39765,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[748],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39764"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39764"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39766,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39764\/revisions\/39766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}