The rancorous campaign for Catherine Cortez-Masto’s U.S. Senate seat has been rather undistinguished until now. Mme. Senator may have at last done one thing for the history books, a true political innovation.
OXYMORON ALERT: She’s now airing a POLITE hatchet job against her Republican opponent, Adam Laxalt.
She thus raises the burning question: Can you be too laid back to be in politics if you’re too unlaxxed to attack Kid Lax?
Her new spot is the second best ad of this year’s campaigns, second only to one hitting Laxalt’s big money from BigOil by portraying him as operating a campaign contribution filling station.
The latest commercial undresses him nicely with lotsa scandal.
Inexplicably, Mme. Senator pulls one punch, so low-key that even NBC News missed it. The ad says Mr. Laxalt is the “son of a lobbyist. The grandson of a senator. Raised at one of DC’s most elite private schools…Flunking out of college, but that’s not a problem. Laxalt was immediately allowed into another elite university.”
That’s political kissy face? Jawohl.
Adam Laxalt is actually the son of the late (lobbyist?) Sen. Peter Domenici, R-New Mexico, and Michelle Laxalt, the daughter of late Nevada Governor and U.S. Senator Paul Laxalt. No biggie, save for the fact that Sen. Domenici was married to the mother of his eight children at the time of his relationship with young Ms. Laxalt.
Scandalous? Not by the standards of today’s holier-than-thou GOP. Alas, in the age of media follytix, everything is fair game and everything counts. Joe Biden has trouble getting into his suit coat in a gusty wind? Front page guffaws.
Maybe Sen. Cortez-Masto’s media gurus think revealing her opponent’s pedigree would actually help his candidacy. I don’t really care about that or his lineage. The only real news in all of the above is why the sin of omission about Domenici’s peccadillos?
State Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, frequently quoted his own mom: “You can’t run from the truth,” she wisely advised.
And “politics ain’t bean bag” as the late House Speaker Tip O’Neill once put it.
Latest polling shows Sen. Cortez-Masto and Mr. Laxalt in a dead-even race.
Politics does not reward the shy.
I AIN’T SHY and have even been known to occasionally give credit where it’s due. The Reno Gazette-Journal just made the best decision anybody at their parent conglomerate has handed down in many, many moons. The out-of-towners appointed veteran journalist Peggy Santoro as executive editor. She has certainly paid her dues at the RGJ over three decades.
What I like the most is that her longevity brings with it personal institutional memory as a longtime denizen of the High Desert Outback of the American Dream. That’s increasingly important as we have long been a way station for green reporters to build some cred to jump to bigger markets. Can’t blame them for helping themselves but we need all the help we can get here in the provinces.
As the late Tribune Hall of Famer Dennis Myers once told me, “if we tried to correct every media error we see, we’d have time for nothing else.”
Seasoned Nevadian journalists like Santoro and KOLO TV-8’s Ed Pearce and Terri Russell are rare treasures, endangered species.
So maxx congrats, boss lady. Now I can get back to bashing the Kazoo-Journal upside the head when needed.
SPEAKING OF DUES PAID. Deputy Reno Police Chief Oliver Miller is in the running for the top job being vacated by Chief Jason Soto’s announced retirement. As I noted last April 20, I’ve worked with him on community issues for years. He began his career with Sparks PD in 2000 and has paid his dues and earned his shot at the top job. Contact your favorite Reno councilcritter.
RENTVOLUTION.ORG. Culinary Local 226 has eschewed suing North Las Vegas for blowing the union’s rent control initiative petition off the fall ballot. Any court victory would come too late with ballots already at the printers. The 50,000-plus organization will instead double down with its formidable election machine. Organized labor is deadly when we organize.
Does it work? Tenacious grass roots organizing by Barbara Bennett persuaded a reluctant Reno City Council to pass the only rent control law in Nevada history in 1978, which they quickly and cravenly repealed.
It nonetheless resulted in the election of Mrs. Bennett as Reno’s greatest mayor in 1979. (Barbwire 7-17-2019)
GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS DEPT. Sparks RTCRide driver Michael Lansborough has recovered from open heart surgery and has not only returned to work but also won election to the Teamsters Local 533 executive board. Thanks to everyone, including Barbwire readers, for chipping in when his family needed it.
Alas, his fellow driver Mike Guerra is in very poor health and likewise incurring heavy medical bills. As with Lansborough, a GoFundMe page has been launched by Amanda Nelson and her union colleagues. Link with this column at Barbwire.US/
You may also send checks or money orders payable to Mike Guerra’s mother, Olivia Baker, addressed to her attention at Teamsters Local 533, 1190 Selmi Drive No. 100, Reno 89512. Thanks.
GETTING DOWN AND DIRTY. Cellist Rebecca Roudman, leader of a rock band called Dirty Cello, e’d me in hopes of publicity for their jam at Piper’s Opera House in Virginia City this Saturday evening.
They glory in their pandemic survival instincts. “There’s a viral video of us performing with a parrot at the Oakland Zoo,” she wrote. “We played at an apple orchard where someone called the sheriff, and we even played multiple concerts at nudist resorts where we kept our clothes on but the audience wore nothing but masks.”
A rock band with a lead cellist? Shades of the late great Harry Chapin! Tickets at DirtyCello.com/ Tell them you heard about it from Barbano on the Barbwire. Wonder if they are available for fully clothed picket line duty.
Stay safe and pray for Ukraine and 53 other currently war-torn lands.
Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno.
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 53-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us
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