Early voting begins this week in Clark County.
Since we don't have what seemed like a couple of thousand
judgeships up for grabs like we did during the last election, voters will be
able to get in and out and still have time for lunch.
I'm nobody special, but I thought a few people might be
interested in my take on the upcoming elections. (Okay, a VERY few.) But I'm giving them anyway. Below are my recommendations.
Justice of the Peace
Locally, the biggest race is for Mesquite's Justice of the
Peace, a race between Karen Beausoleil and Ryan Toone. It's likely that this will be a close call.
Beausoleil, a former Ms. Senior Mesquite, has strong support
among a lot of the women's groups.
She'll also garner a big boost from the anti-LDS contingent.
Toone is currently the deputy city attorney.
Before I offer my opinion, I just want to say that Mesquite
is losing one of the best judges I've ever witnessed. Judge Ron Dodd is smart, gifted with an enormous pool of common
sense, and has a humanity that is usually beaten out of most judges by the time
they reach the bench. He has served for
years as both the Justice of the Peace, a county position, and the city's
Municipal Judge.
I sincerely believe he has the wisdom of Solomon, and for
the same reason: neither Solomon nor Dodd were previously lawyers.
In the upcoming election, only one of the two candidates is
actually a practicing attorney.
As much as it pains me to annoint a Brother of the Bar,
Toone is truly the best candidate.
All you have to do is listen to Beausoleil's inane babbling
about the disadvantages of having one person serve as both JP and Municipal
Judge to realize that "reality" wasn't one of the subjects she
studied in school. If she doesn't have
enough common sense to figure out the savings to taxpayers derived from letting
one person do both jobs, as well as the innate efficiencies, she doesn't have
the sense needed to sort out situations involving peoples' lives. My only regret in voting for Toone is that
we're losing the most logical replacement who will be needed once the City
Council wakes up and figures out just how bad our current City Attorney is.
Vote Ryan Toone for Justice of the Peace.
Virgin Valley Water District
This is a tough call between incumbent Ted Miller and
current Mesquite Public Works Director Bill Tanner.
Tanner is a soft-spoken can-do kind of guy, a true hero
during the last two "hundred year floods" the city experienced over
the last five years. In a city
administration filled at the upper level with bad eggs, he is truly one of the
good guys.
If he was no longer with the city and running as a private
citizen, he would be a prize on the VVWD board.
Unfortunately, he DOES work for the city, which means he
will vote whatever way his higher-ups at City Hall tell him. Right now, the worst member of the VVWD
board happens to be the one appointed by the city, Karl Gustaveson. To give City hall a second vote, controlling
40% of the VVWD board, would be catastrophic for the rate payers and the
valley.
On the other side is Miller, a straight-talking guy who can
sometimes rub people the wrong way because he calls 'em like he sees 'em.
He is also the second-longest serving member of what has
been a seriously dysfunctional board over the years.
But what most folks don't know is that Miller is a
courageous man who has defended the people of this community. He has been the driving force for change at
the Virgin Valley Water District, beginning as a true outsider and refusing to
roll over and be quiet in the face of corruption that has seen a General
Manager and Staff Hydrologist indicted in the last four years. He would not be silenced when it came to the
VVWD's previous out of control spending, and never lets up when the district
seems intent on making bad decisions.
He is hands down the best and most courageous member of the VVWD
board. He doesn't just deserve to be
re-elected; the people of this valley NEED him to remain on that board to
protect their interests and keep the "good old boys" at bay.
Vote for Ted Miller.
Clark County School District B Trustee
In the last election, I endorsed against Chris Garvey. Since then, she has shown herself to be an
extremely capable board member. More
importantly, I've seen her actually fight for schools in the Virgin Valley
during her first term. She's earned our
vote.
Vote for Chris Garvey.
County Commission District B
I've always liked Tom Collins and his country-boy
persona. But after he admitted to being
hired by one of the two combatants in last year's public transportation battle
between two contractors, he shown he's nothing more than a corrupt big-city
politician who knows how to use his elected position to pad his own
pocket. He also managed to offend more
than a few people when he banged the Democratic gong during several non-partisan
events in Mesquite a couple of years ago.
And then there's his "disturbing the peace" conviction over
firing a gun into the air in an alcohol-fueled "celebration" earlier
this year.
I hate being put in the position of endorsing Ruth Johnson,
a former School Board trustee who made lots of broken promises about things
like lights at the high school ballfield during her time in office. However, when left with no real options,
I'll take a liar over a crooked convict.
Vote for Ruth Johnson.
State Assembly District 19
Another tough contest.
As a Mesquite voter, you really want to elect someone from
Mesquite to represent you in Carson City.
If only it was someone other than Cresent Hardy.
While he wasn't charged, Hardy's name was prominent in the
indictment of former VVWD general manager Mike Winters, who was indicted over a
deal involving Hardy's land.
Also, in his previous turn in the state legislature two
years ago, it didn't seem like Hardy lifted a finger to help Mesquite. Instead, based on his Mesquite
Citizen Journal video inteview with Barbara Ellestad, his big soapbox is
killing unions and eliminating "prevailing wage" laws in the state
that negatively impact Nevada construction companies like the one he owns.
However, his opponent Felipe Rodriguez just doesn't impress.
Hardy is a local native, and his family has deep roots in
this community. Rodriguez was born in
Cuba, and has lived in Las Vegas (not Mesquite) for only 14 years. While he may be an honest man, he works for
a time-share developer, an industry about a half-click above used car salesmen
in the honesty department.
Rodriguez was also less than impressive in his recent Mesquite
Citizen Journal video interview. He
didn't suggest any real concrete plans, and offered only vague political
stances in his answers. He'll be a
non-factor in Carson City.
I don't want to endorse a Vegas resident over a local guy,
but the people of Mesquite have worked too hard over the last two years trying
to run good old boys like Hardy out of the political system.
Vote for Felipe Rodriguez.
U.S. Congress District 4
Danny Tarkanian can't seem to get elected as Hall
Monitor. If he loses this race, about
the only political position remaining in his desperate quest to win an
election, any election, might be Las Vegas dog catcher.
It would be rather embarrassing for the citizens of Nevada
to send a guy to Washington on a "balance the budget" platform when
he owes the FDIC $17 million over a failed land deal in California that ended
up taking down a bank; someone who will likely declare personal bankruptcy if
the court ruling sticks.
His opponent, Steven Horsford, has his own ethical issues
after accepting campaign contributions and a free trip to the Bahamas from an
internet poker company (he eventually gave back the contribution and trip
money), and a campaign letter he sent out a couple of years ago offering
private dinners with himself and a collection of other top NV legislators to
contributors willing to pony up 25 grand, an obvious pay-for-access scam that
you usually see only from scumbags like Newt Gingrich.
So neither guy has a good record on character, which means
it comes down to issues.
I don't like Tarkanian's love affair with Paul Ryan's
Medicare voucher plan, or his typical "let's help the rich get
richer" ideas for fixing the economy.
But I applaud his hard stance on pulling all of our troops
out of Afghanistan now, and his insistence on scrapping the current tax system
and putting in something that might actually work.
Horsford has some good and specific ideas on getting people
back to work, and is actually a lot more pro-business than many of his
Democratic counterparts.
Vote for Steven Horsford.
U.S. Senate
The only time I would ever pick either candidate would be
out of a police lineup.
Shelley Berkley is a bit of a nut. Basically, she's the Democratic version of Sharron Angle, the
GOP's looniest tune.
On the other side is the GOP's slickest snake oil salesman,
Dean Heller. He is definitely the rich
man's best friend.
I hated the way Heller was hand-picked to fill the Senate
post after then-Senator John Ensign got caught with his pants down.
But mostly, I've despised his attack ads. While Berkley has taken her time in the mud
as well, Heller has been more egregious, especially going after Berkley's
husband. Even the mob refrains from
going after someone's spouse.
I don't like either candidate, but Berkley seems to be the
lesser of two evils.
Vote for Shelley Berkley.
President
This is the hardest vote of all.
I voted for Barack Obama last time.
I have always loved Mitt Romney, a hero who saved the 2002
Winter Olympics. He was actually one of
the better governors in Massachusetts history, a feat made even more
extraordinary when you consider he did it as a Republican in an overwhelmingly
Democratic state.
But Mitt is the quintessential rich man, and nearly every
one of his economic policies will succeed only in making the wealthy even
wealthier while making the middle-class American even more of an endangered
species.
I don't like a lot of Obama's ideas, but that's okay. As he showed in his first term, he's not
really going to do any of it anyway.
We're still in Afghanistan. Guantanamo Bay is still open for
business. I'm still driving over
dilapidated bridges and worn out roads.
Gas prices are nearing $4 a gallon.
Even his health care reform wasn't what he promised after caving on the
public option clause, which was the only part that almost made sense.
Worst of all, Obama blocked the Keystone Pipeline over
environmental issues. There is no
clearer indication of what's wrong with this president or his party than
letting struggling Americans suffer even more under confiscatory fuel prices
just because some "sensitive lands" MIGHT be disturbed. He chose ideology over reality.
On the positive side, at least Romney made a good choice for
vice president while sustaining the GOP tradition of nominating lunatics for
the second chair. Paul Ryan isn't much
of a human being, and is a terrifying legislator given to some of the most
heartless of schemes. But by making him
just another innocuous vice president and getting him out of Congress, he'll be
a lot less dangerous to the nation so long as Romney remains healthy (and since
Mitt won't be participating in Ryan's Medicare plan or the health care system
the rest of us are forced to live with, that's pretty likely).
I'm sure I'll regret it 12 months after making the choice,
but neither the Party of the Rich nor the Party of the Poor has left us with
any decent option. What this country
really needs is a Party of the Middle Class.
Unfortunately until the Libertarians quit recruiting candidates from the
nearest funny farm, that won't happen, so I'm left with a reluctant
endorsement.
I voted for Obama in 2008 because I thought we needed a
breath of fresh air and a new approach.
What we got was the same old same old.
We gave him a chance.
He blew it. Now it's time to
give someone else a shot at it.
Vote Mitt Romney for president.