Today is the last day of the Year of the Snake. So naturally, let’s talk about politics.
In the 1972 movie “The Cowboys,” Bruce Dern’s character lies to John Wayne’s character about being an experienced cowboy to get work on a cattle drive.
When Wayne presses him with technical questions, Dern stumbles and admits he’s “fresh out of jail” and was just trying to hide it.
Wayne refuses to hire him, then drops the hammer: “I don’t hold jail against you. But I hate a liar.”
Which brings us to campaigns, candidates, and consultants.
A brouhaha erupted this weekend over an article published by the 360News Las Vegas blog with a headline accusing Republican congressional candidate Cody Whipple of allegedly saying, “Cops Not Smart People.”
It links to a YouTube audio that purportedly has “Whipple stating that former police officers and military veterans lack the intellectual background necessary for elected office.”
In the recorded conversation, Whipple is said to have “directly criticized Governor Joe Lombardo and Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald” – both of whom are former law enforcement officers.
360News is run by a GOP activist weasel named Rob Lauer, who’s the political living embodiment of Bruce Dern’s character in The Cowboys. So that immediately set off my “Spidey senses.”
Still, the public allegations were serious. So I contacted Mr. Whipple to ask about the blog post.
Whipple advised that it was a recording of multiple conversations spliced together to make it sound like he was talking about cops and veterans when that portion of the conversation was actually about something else.
“They clipped three to four different conversations together to create the single audio piece,” Whipple wrote to me in a text. “This coordinated attack is common with Woodrow.”
Color me shocked (not).
“Woodrow” is Woody Johnston – a political consultant working for Whipple’s GOP primary opponent, Dave Flippo. And Woody’s lack of professional ethics in campaigns is well-established.
Whipple went on to note that he’s “spent 26 years working for and with law enforcement and military bases all over the Western region.”
He further advised that his campaign would be “sending cease-and-desist and preservation letters to Woodrow, Blundo, Flippo and Joe Michaels.”
Blundo is chairman of the Nye County Republican Party and Michaels is another political consultant of dubious integrity and ethics.
The reference to Blundo likely relates to a resolution proposed last December which calls into question Whipple’s voter registration and residency.
The resolution alleges that Whipple changed his registration residence from Las Vegas to Hiko – he owns residences in both – shortly before jumping into the CD4 race.
What the resolution fails to note is that it doesn’t matter.
Unlike state races for the legislature, a federal candidate does NOT have to live in a particular congressional district to run in that congressional district.
Indeed, Democrat Rep. Dina Titus ran for Nevada’s 3rd congressional district in 2008 while not living there. So the resolution criticizing Whipple is pretty much a nothing-burger.
Now, to be fair, Johnston & Company don’t have a monopoly over false allegations.
As I noted in a column back in December, the Clark County commission campaign of Heidi Kasama is falsely photo-shopping images of her GOP opponent, Albert Mack, wearing a Hillary Clinton “I’m With Her” t-shirt.
He’s never worn any such thing. It’s a flat-out lie.
Football and boxing are about as violent and hard-hitting as it comes. But even there they have rules against cheap shots and hitting below the belt.
But in politics, it seems anything goes. And that’s not going to change even after we wrap up the Year of the Snake later tonight.
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