Patrick McNaught, Republican candidate for the Nevada State Senate District 12 seat, opted not to participate in a dog-and-pony “interview” meeting held on September 22nd by Nevada Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio and the GOP members of his caucus for the purpose of endorsing certain candidates in certain races next year.
As was expected, the Raggio Republicans didn’t endorse many principled conservative candidates, opting instead to give their seal of approval to candidates who had not signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge taking tax hikes off the table for the 2011 session of the Legislature.
In fact, the only Pledge signers who got the caucus nod were incumbent Sen. Barbara Cegavske who is running unopposed at this point as far as a GOP primary is concerned, and incumbent Assemblyman James Settelmeyer whose opponent had also already signed the Pledge.
Knowing that Raggio and his caucus had already made their minds up to endorse serial tax-hiking Assemblyman Joe Hardy for the SD 12 seat without ever even meeting him, McNaught decided to skip the interview meeting and sent a letter to caucus members instead.
“Dear Senators,” the letter began. “Thank you for the opportunity to participate in your early endorsement meeting in Reno, NV. While I appreciate the invitation, I am declining to participate – and I want to give you my reasoning.
“It is my belief that early endorsements – almost a full 9 months prior to the Primary Election and 6 months prior to official candidate filing – sends a bad message to our voters, activists and aspiring candidates for public office. I’ve attached yesterday’s article from the Las Vegas Sun as an example of how political indoctrinations and/or anointments are damaging. Let the Democrats play this game of king-making. We should reject it. As a former officer of the Clark County Republican Party, I fully understand and appreciate the strong opposition many of our voters have with this kind of anointment process.
“Further, many of the senators attending tomorrow’s meeting have already endorsed my announced opponent. I have made attempts to call several of your caucus members in order to discuss my candidacy and my request to have a fair and open Primary – to let the Republican voters in our district decide who best to send to the General Election. Only one senator had the courtesy to return my call.
“Finally, I have been told that the purpose of this anointment process by the Senate caucus was established to avoid primaries. Well, it seems to not be working. There will be a Republican primary in Washoe, District 4. There will be a Republican primary in the Capital District of Carson City. There will be a Republican primary in Washoe, District 2. There seems to be a Republican primary shaping up in Clark, District 9. And, there will be a Republican primary in Clark, District 12.
“Brave men and women fight and die to protect our democratic system of elections. Let’s give voters a choice. Let us not be a Party that systematically shuts down aspiring candidates. Let’s be a Party that embraces new candidates. Let’s be a Party that embraces choices – in both Primary elections and General elections. Let the Democrats be the Party of anointments and censorship of ideas and choices in campaigns.
“With that, I respectfully request that you avoid anointments and allow each District to have a free and fair election, and then come in as a caucus later and choose whether to embrace the Primary Election winner. It’s the right thing to do.”
Raggio’s Republicans, of course, blew McNaught’s plea off and anointed Joe Hardy at their meeting just as expected. But it wasn’t all fun and games for the liberal Republican. He was still forced to bend over and grab his ankles as Sen. Raggio whacked him several times on the derriere with a large, wooden paddle.
“Thank you, Sir Bill, may I have another?”
