{"id":47213,"date":"2024-04-06T16:18:57","date_gmt":"2024-04-06T23:18:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/?p=47213"},"modified":"2024-04-06T21:21:37","modified_gmt":"2024-04-07T04:21:37","slug":"coffee-with-marty-my-face-to-face-with-the-halo-master","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/coffee-with-marty-my-face-to-face-with-the-halo-master\/","title":{"rendered":"Coffee with Marty: My Face-to-Face with the Halo Master"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

(Chuck Muth) \u2013<\/em>\u00a0As a now Medicare-aged geezer, when I hear someone say they\u2019re a \u201cgamer\u201d I hearken back to my youth and think Scrabble, Backgammon, Pinochle and Poker. Those are the games I regularly played in-person with friends – and sometimes in competitions.<\/p>\n

But that was back in the dark ages of the 1970\u2019s\u2026before Al Gore invented the Internet. Today\u2019s gamers ain\u2019t your grandfather\u2019s gamers.\u00a0 Like my son, they play online and compete against others all over the world.<\/p>\n

As a geezer, while I\u2019ve heard of Call of Duty I had never heard of Halo, \u201cone of the most successful game franchises of all time\u201d …<\/p>\n

…until a couple weeks ago when\u00a0Marty O\u2019Donnell<\/strong>\u00a0entered the Republican primary race for Nevada\u2019s 3rd<\/sup>\u00a0Congressional District as a first-time candidate.<\/p>\n

Make no mistake.\u00a0 CD3 is one of the most \u201cflippable\u201d seats this year in a House of Representatives\u00a0where Republicans have a razor-thin majority.<\/p>\n

Still, it\u2019s a Democrat-majority seat requiring – as William F. Buckley famously put it \u2013 the most conservative GOP candidate who can\u00a0WIN<\/u>.<\/p>\n

Not knowing Halo, let alone Mr. O\u2019Donnell, when he reached out and asked to have coffee I jumped at the chance.\u00a0 Two big questions:\u00a0 Is he a conservative and can he win?<\/p>\n

We met at a Starbucks yesterday afternoon and talked for three-and-a-half hours!\u00a0 Turned out to be a perfect way to top off my birthday.<\/p>\n

Naturally, I won\u2019t disclose specifics of what we discussed confidentially.\u00a0 But the man is immediately likeable and tremendously successful.<\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t what I was expecting at all.\u00a0 I thought I\u2019d be meeting some tech nerd from Silicon Valley wearing a pocket protector and eye-glasses taped together with duct tape.\u00a0 Instead, he was about as \u201cnormal\u201d and down-to-earth as you can get.<\/p>\n

Wonderful family man. Been married for over 30 years and has two daughters \u2013 one of whom runs a charity helping foster kids.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s a piano player and composer.\u00a0 Early in his career, he wrote songs and jingles for products such as Mr. Clean and Flintstones Vitamins.<\/p>\n

He was in a rock band in junior high school, as well as, I found out, a Led Zeppelin \u201ccover\u201d (tribute) band.\u00a0 That was music to my ears.\u00a0 In fact, I had Led Zepplin roaring at full volume on Spotify on my way over to the meeting.<\/p>\n

Yes, as a rock-and-roller in his youth Marty had long hair and a ponytail.\u00a0 But he was no liberal hippie.<\/p>\n

He supported Goldwater in the \u201964 presidential election, subscribed to National Review, listened to Rush Limbaugh, and was a big fan of conservative icon William F. Buckley – and years later got to interview him.<\/p>\n

He also worked as a conservative correspondent covering the 1996 Democrat presidential convention in Chicago where he once lived.\u00a0 And he\u2019s certainly got some stories to tell about that!<\/p>\n

Marty later moved on to writing award-winning music and soundtracks for video games like Halo \u2013 which I guess has something to do with blasting away at space aliens.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 My \u201cgaming\u201d expertise consists of knowing the 7-letter \u201csatire\u201d words that get you a 50-point bonus in Scrabble and all the 2-letter connecting words.<\/p>\n

Sheesh.\u00a0 Now *I* sound like a geek!<\/p>\n

Anyway, after living in the liberal meccas of Chicago and Seattle, Marty and his wife moved to Las Vegas a few years ago \u2013 where his children and grandchildren were already living.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love Las Vegas,\u201d he said in\u00a0an interview<\/a>\u00a0with VentureBeat.com last month. \u201cI\u2019m very happy with the weather here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Me, too.\u00a0 Though during our meeting hail briefly pelted the window we were sitting next to (he writes knowingly ending a sentence with a preposition).\u00a0 Not the kind of weather either of us signed up for. <\/p>\n

Politically, he\u2019s known as a solid conservative.\u00a0 Indeed, Marty\u2019s former co-workers at one of the gaming companies he worked for \u201cdescribed him as the most right-leaning employee at the company.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPolitics has always been a kind of hobby,\u201d the semi-retired gamer said in the same interview. \u201cThis (running for Congress) is not something I ever expected to do. I wanted to spend more time with family. And now I probably need to spend less time with my family. At least that\u2019s what my family is telling me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Good sense of humor, too!<\/p>\n

Like many others \u2013 including Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham \u2013 Marty was initially skeptical of Donald Trump when Trump announced he was running in 2015.\u00a0 But he voted for him in 2016 and 2020 and fully intends to vote for him again this year.<\/p>\n

So why is he running?\u00a0 Marty explained in the interview\u2026<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cI\u2019m a Boomer and I\u2019m a conservative. But I have not been a big fan of politicians. So I have a hard time even saying that I\u2019m Republican.\u00a0 But I don\u2019t really like what the Democrat representative has been doing here. And so that\u2019s why I\u2019m running against them.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

On the hot button issue of illegal immigration\u2026<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cOne thing the federal government should certainly be responsible for is the security of our borders. Instead, we see millions of people coming in without any accounting for who they are, what they intend to do, or what they\u2019re bringing with them. And they\u2019re being given access to all sorts of handouts at our expense.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

He\u2019s very pro-Israel in the Jewish state\u2019s ongoing war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and has been publicly open about boycotting certain \u201cwoke\u201d corporations, especially Gillette.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s something particularly interesting I learned in our chat: He knows AI (artificial intelligence).<\/p>\n

While he\u2019s loathe to involve government in the private sector, there are definitely intellectual property concerns and rights that need to be protected.\u00a0 And unlike just about every other member of Congress, he actually knows something about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like there are many people in politics who have no clue what AI is,\u201d he said in his interview. \u201cIt would be nice to have at least one person in there who has a clue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bottom line: I\u2019d have no reservations whatsoever if Marty O\u2019Donnell went to Washington, DC to represent us.\u00a0 Can he win?\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 But as I teach in training seminars, it\u2019s not necessarily the best candidate who wins, but the best campaign.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be watching that closely between now and the June 11 primary.<\/p>\n

To learn more about Marty,\u00a0click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

P.S.\u00a0 A dear friend back east sent me a video postcard from a famous musician yesterday.\u00a0 It was\u00a0FANTASTIC<\/u>.\u00a0 Really made my day.\u00a0 To see it,\u00a0click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thanks again, Paul!<\/p>\n

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

\u201cOur government spends money on the wrong things and spends way too much.\u201d \u2013\u00a0Marty O\u2019Donnell<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s easy to look at the economy and realize that something has gone horribly wrong. Working people, the middle class, and small businesses have been losing ground over the past 20 years. The goose that lays the golden eggs for our country has been kicked around and squeezed to the point where laying more golden eggs is almost impossible.\u201d \u2013\u00a0Marty O\u2019Donnell<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t take a village to raise a child, it takes a family, and it takes families to make a village.\u201d \u2013\u00a0Marty O\u2019Donnell<\/em><\/strong>
\n<\/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\u00a0As a now Medicare-aged geezer, when I hear someone say they\u2019re a \u201cgamer\u201d I hearken back to my youth and think Scrabble, Backgammon, Pinochle and Poker. Those are the games I regularly played in-person with friends – and sometimes in competitions. But that was back in the dark ages of the 1970\u2019s\u2026before Al […]<\/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\/47213"}],"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=47213"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47215,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47213\/revisions\/47215"}],"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=47213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}