A very encouraging sign from the Sandoval campaign is that they – unlike his predecessor, Jim Gibbons – is making use of their campaign email list to keep supporters updated on transition developments. If they continue using their list effectively during the upcoming legislative session, Sandoval will be able to go around the mainstream media and tell his side of the issue directly to his supporters who will then spread the word through their own network of friends and supporters.
Had Gibbons not lost his campaign email list of reportedly 50,000-plus supporters, perhaps his administration wouldn’t have been so screwed up from Day One and throughout the entire subsequent four years.
Clearly the tea party movement was more fractured here in Nevada than in other states. That was clear during the GOP primary for the U.S. Senate race in which various tea party groups endorsed and supported a variety of candidates. Sharron Angle, in reality, wasn’t so much the Nevada tea party candidate as she was the out-of-state Tea Party Express candidate.
Money talks.
So what should Nevada tea party groups focus on now? First, holding state legislators’ fiscal feet to the fire when they convene to do dastardly deeds in February. Secondly, wait to see how the legislative districts are divvied up after reapportionment and then focus on taking out bad Republicans in GOP primaries at the state level just as national tea party groups did this year at the congressional level. And then go after vulnerable Democrats in the general.
It’d be great if each tea party group would just adopt one state assembly race and concentrate 100% their efforts to recruiting a viable tea party candidate and winning that seat. The natural urge will be to jump into the presidential and U.S. Senate races. But if they REALLY want to flex their muscles and make a difference, it’d be in helping elect a CONSERVATIVE Republican majority in the lower house of the Nevada Legislature.
With the campaign behind them, tongues from inside the Sharron Angle campaign are starting to loosen. And it’s not a pretty picture they’re painting.
As widely suspected, the clash between Angle’s kitchen cabinet and the political pros sent in to try and rescue her campaign was pretty much a Hatfields-and-McCoys situation. Indeed, I’ve heard the professionals took to referring derisively to the Angle volunteer contingent as “The Island of Misfits.”
Earning particular scorn and ridicule is campaign manager Terry Campbell, who was generally considered a walking boob totally out of his league. He was described to me by one individual as totally clueless when it came to the campaign’s finances, days behind on messaging opportunities and completely ignorant about media buys. And those were his best qualities.
Indeed, the only member of the Nevada Angle operation scoring kudos from staffers is communications manager Jerry Stacey.
Something tells me a plenty of additional unflattering inside stories are gonna be written about the disastrous Angle campaign in the days and weeks to come.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported on Thursday that Clark County Commissioner Lawrence Weekly, who was adopted as a child, hopes more people would consider becoming foster or adoptive parents. “If you have room in your heart and in your house, give a kid a chance at life.”
Excellent sentiment. However, Gia and I both have plenty of room in both our hearts and home and looked into the possibility of becoming foster or adoptive parents a couple years ago. But the ridiculously complicated red tape and expense just wasn’t worth the aggravation.
As is so often the case, the government is the problem, not the solution. Plenty of people would love to help children. It’s the nightmare of insane government bureaucracy that discourages them. Commissioner Weekly should focus his efforts in fixing that problem first. Getting potential parents to sign up then would be the easy part.
