(Chuck Muth) – If you thought Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle’s post-primary campaign hasn’t exactly been firing on all cylinders….well, you’d be right. But when it comes to running a crummy campaign, let’s face it, Democrat gubernatorial candidate Rory He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Last-Named takes the Gold.
And the Silver. And the Bronze.
Consider the fact that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid – the most powerful man in Congress who can summon the demons of organized labor with the snap of his fingers – has outspent Angle by a factor of, I think, approximately a gazillion to one. Yet despite the tsunami of negative advertising that dough bought, she and Harry continue to be in a virtual tie.
Now let’s take a look at Rory what’s-his-name.
Thanks to his famous and all-powerful dad with the name his sone can’t bring himself to utter, Rory has outraised his Republican opponent, Brian Sandoval by a factor of – well, a little less than his Pop, but still by a couple million. Yet according to the most recent poll, he now trails by an almost unfathomable 22 points – 53 to 31 percent.
Proof-positive that just throwing money at a problem won’t fix it. You payin’ attention, liberals?
Anyway, in efforts to knock some varnish off his GOP opponent early on, Rory first tried to tie soon-to-be former Gov. Jim Gibbons around Sandoval’s neck. But then he released his “EDGE” education proposal which was pretty much Gibbons’ education plan, highlighted by empowerment schools and merit pay for excellent teachers.
What do they say about imitation and flattery?
More recently, Rory released his budget proposal which calls for spending cuts and no new taxes – pretty much exactly what Gibbons’ budget plan has been for the last three years.
Making matters worse, just about every objective figure in Nevada has panned Rory’s proposal as being, well, disingenuous and based on pie-in-the-sky assumptions.
So the spam hit the fan for the man with the plan.
But even on the simplest, minor issues, Rory’s campaign continues to swing and miss.
Consider the Las Vegas Sun story last week in which it was reported that Rory “did not vote in five of the last six municipal elections in his hometown of Henderson.” I mean, come on. Rory has either been in office or had been considering running for office that entire time. After all, he comes from a purely political family, for goodness sake.
And yet he skipped out on voting in five out of six elections?
And if that wasn’t bad enough, the Rory campaign’s spin was even worse.
“Rory has a consistent record,” Rory’s foul-mouthpiece Mike Trask declared. “He regrets missing a couple of municipal elections.”
Yeah. The consistent record is one of blowing off his voting responsibility in local elections.
And a “couple” is two; Rory missed FIVE. That’s not spin; that’s Orwellian propaganda. As spin doctors go, Mike Trask would make a good French maid.
But wait, it gets worse.
The Sun’s Anjeanette Damon notes that “Sandoval hasn’t missed voting in a single election since 1992.” That’s what we in the biz call a significant “contrast.”
In response, Rory’s Traskovite “countered that Sandoval had missed 72 floor votes during his two terms in the Nevada Assembly.”
Now here’s….the rest of the story.
“A review of the records indicates that Sandoval abstained from 12 votes in 1997, but was present in the chambers,” Damon reports. “In 1995, he was excused from two days of session to attend the birth of his first son. He missed 64 votes during those two days.”
So Team Rory wants voters to vote for a guy who blew off five out of six municipal elections without an excuse – in this day and age of early voting and absentee balloting – because his opponent missed two days of work to be with his wife for the birth of their first son?
Good luck selling that bucket of ice to the Eskimos.
Sure, the Angle campaign’s rough general election start has garnered all the media attention, but when it comes to bumbling and fumbling, Rory’s campaign takes the cake.
