{"id":47176,"date":"2024-03-27T15:50:47","date_gmt":"2024-03-27T22:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/?p=47176"},"modified":"2024-04-02T03:36:52","modified_gmt":"2024-04-02T10:36:52","slug":"heres-a-behind-the-scenes-story-you-wont-read-anywhere-else","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/heres-a-behind-the-scenes-story-you-wont-read-anywhere-else\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s a Behind-the-Scenes Story You Won\u2019t Read Anywhere Else"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

(Chuck Muth) \u2013\u00a0<\/em>The Republican Party (GOP) bills itself as favoring limited government, low taxation, free markets, and individual liberty.<\/p>\n

The Independent American Party (IAP) bills itself as favoring limited government, low taxation, free markets, and individual liberty.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the difference?<\/p>\n

Some, only half-jokingly, reply: The IAP\u00a0means<\/em>\u00a0it.<\/p>\n

The same can be said for the Libertarian Party (LP).<\/p>\n

As such, a significant number of conservative voters vote for an IAP or LP candidate when the GOP alternative is seen as squishy on conservative principles.\u00a0 I\u2019ve done so myself on a number of occasions.<\/p>\n

While neither the IAP nor the LP have enjoyed much electoral success, their candidates can pull enough votes away from the GOP candidate to throw a competitive race into the Democrats\u2019 corner.<\/p>\n

And if you don\u2019t believe that, I have a bridge in Baltimore to sell ya.<\/p>\n

In fact, the reason Republicans are currently one seat into super-minority status in the Nevada State Assembly is because an LP candidate in Assembly District 35 in 2022 pulled 920 votes (3.66%) in a race the Democrat won by 382 votes.<\/p>\n

Other such examples can be found in just about every election cycle.\u00a0 Which brings me to this year\u2019s race for Nevada\u2019s 3rd<\/sup>\u00a0Congressional District in Clark County.<\/p>\n

The incumbent is Democrat Rep. Susie Lee.\u00a0 Seven Republicans filed to run for this seat along with one IAP candidate: Jon Kamerath.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re not familiar with Jon, here\u2019s where he stands per his website\u2026<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cJon stands for limited Constitutional government based on the principles of the Founding Fathers. Jon stands for the middle class who have suffered unduly under the thumb of an uncaring progressive government. Jon stands for the traditional values that made America great!<\/em><\/p>\n

Yeah, he\u2019s definitely one of us \u2013 meaning conservatives, not necessarily Republicans.<\/p>\n

And unlike most Republicans, I don\u2019t complain about IAP and LP candidates filing for office.\u00a0 They\u2019re not a \u201cproblem<\/em>,\u201d they\u2019re a reality. Deal with it.<\/p>\n

As such, I keep an open line of communication with their party leaders and encourage GOP candidates to do the same, including reaching out directly to IAP and LP voters.<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019m particularly empathetic to the anger of the IAP folks, who have tried to work cooperatively with Republicans in the past by keeping their candidates out of competitive races only to be stabbed in the back.<\/p>\n

The most glaring example was in 2014.<\/p>\n

The IAP worked with then-Senate Minority Leader Michael Roberson to keep an IAP candidate out of his race only to see Roberson betray them and vote for the largest tax hike in Nevada history during the 2015 legislative session.<\/p>\n

With history like that, I sure don\u2019t blame the IAP for not trusting Republicans.\u00a0 Actually, I agree with them. But back to Mr. Kamerath.<\/p>\n

Last week, he was coming under pressure from some Republicans to withdraw his candidacy by yesterday\u2019s deadline.<\/p>\n

The request was understandable considering Republicans have only a razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives \u2013 and could actually lose their majority\u00a0BEFORE<\/u>\u00a0November\u2019s general election thanks to GOP resignations and special elections.<\/p>\n

Plus, Republicans lost this seat last time out in 2022 by just 3.96%.<\/p>\n

Anyway, because I\u2019ve had a good working relationship with the IAP and many of their principled activists for many years, Jon called to ask my thoughts on what he should do.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t reveal specifics of our private conversation, but I did confirm that, yes, the CD3 race was potentially pivotal in deciding whether the Democrats or the Republicans have the majority in Congress next year.<\/p>\n

And I can tell you that Jon really agonized over this decision.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t want to let his supporters down. And he sure didn\u2019t want to be part of another GOP betrayal like Roberson\u2019s in 2014.<\/p>\n

We exchanged a few more texts over the following days.\u00a0 And in the end, Jon made the difficult decision to withdraw his candidacy yesterday.<\/p>\n

So whoever the GOP nominates in June will have a straight one-on-one contest with Ms. Lee.\u00a0 If they lose, they won\u2019t have Mr. Kamrath and the IAP to blame.<\/p>\n

Jon put Nevada\u2019s interests and America\u2019s interests over his own interests.\u00a0 And without this column, almost no one would know about his selfless act.<\/p>\n

Too bad so many Republican candidates \u2013 running for seats in primaries they have no business running for, especially that three-named Californian running against Sen. Carrie Buck in Senate District 5 \u2013 don\u2019t follow his example.<\/p>\n

In any event, for his selfless act benefitting Nevada conservatives, I\u2019ve decided to honor Jon with this year\u2019s \u201cUnsung Hero Award\u201d at our May 1st<\/sup>\u00a0\u201cConservative Awards Dinner\u201d in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s definitely a hero in my book!<\/p>\n

FAMOUS LAST WORDS<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Corporations don’t pay taxes. They COLLECT them, by passing them on to the people who buy their goods and services in the form of ever-higher prices.” –\u00a0Jameson Campaigne explaining the Bidenflation Tax<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr. Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, publisher of Nevada News & Views, and founder of CampaignDoctor.com.\u00a0 You can sign up for his conservative, Nevada-focused e-newsletter at MuthsTruths.com.\u00a0 His views are his own.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Chuck Muth) \u2013\u00a0The Republican Party (GOP) bills itself as favoring limited government, low taxation, free markets, and individual liberty. The Independent American Party (IAP) bills itself as favoring limited government, low taxation, free markets, and individual liberty. What\u2019s the difference? Some, only half-jokingly, reply: The IAP\u00a0means\u00a0it. The same can be said for the Libertarian Party […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42053,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[748],"tags":[3466],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47176"}],"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=47176"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47178,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47176\/revisions\/47178"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}