(The Anon Guy) – A friend just called and said he was on one of those townhall, or teleforum, calls that seem to be all the rage for politicians around reelection time. In this case, it was Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons doing the honor. And like most things Gibbons, it apparently was slightly askew.
For one thing, it didn’t follow the usual rules of the game. If you wanted to ask the governor a question it had to be screened first by the moderator and, apparently, a staffer. Now I’ve been on a few of these calls with Congressman Dean Heller and if you want to ask him something you simply press a button and go into queue, not have your question screened. Quite frankly, it seemed a tad cowardly.
So needless to say, my friend wasn’t holding out much hope for his question regarding recent poll numbers showing Gibbons losing to Democrat Rory Reid, while Brian Sandoval trounces Reid and even Mike Montandon pulls out a win for the GOP. In essence, would Gibbons drop out of race if poll numbers continue to show him losing and dragging down the Republican ticket.
But then the funny part came.
Once he told the moderator his question, he heard the guy ask someone else, he’s assuming a staffer, if it was “okay to ask” if the governor “might quit the race.” He’s not 100% sure, but he swears he heard a female voice say “no.” The moderator came back and told him there were “hundreds” of questions ahead of him so he might not get through to the governor. The problem with that answer, though, was my friend says the time between the first request to “push #3” (which he did) to when the moderator picked up was rather short. Not nearly enough time to be at the back of “hundreds” of questions.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, apparently there were a series of polls asking what you thought of the governor and the recent special session. My friend figured anyone not hitting the button for “great job” probably went directly to the end of the line.
That would seem to bear out, as he said each of the questions chosen seemed to lead with a variation of “First, just let me say you’re doing a great job Governor.” Given Gibbons approval ratings, it would seem to be statistically impossible to find four consecutive “random” voters with that opinion, even if they were all Republicans.
Still, even if his question was in the top ten he figures he might not have made it through. Apparently Gibbons was extremely lengthy in his answers, to the point where the moderator made a joke. Overall, he figures maybe five or six questions were actually taken in the hour-long call.
He did say, though, that Gibbons’ answer to that conservative townhall chestnut, “Let’s kick the Mexicans out to balance the budget,” was thoughtful and not what he expected on such a red meat topic. After saying it was mostly a national issue, Gibbons said that he wasn’t going to turn people away from emergency rooms or punish some “six-year-old” schoolchild who had no control over being brought into the country. Probably an answer that didn’t warm the heart of that caller.
One finally thing that seemed a little weird was the moderator asked if anyone wanted to volunteer for the governor’s campaign. I’ve always assumed these were classified (rightly or wrongly) as “official business” by an incumbent and not a campaign call as this would appear to be.
So I wonder who picked up the tab?
(The Anon Guy publishes the Dullard Mush blog)
