Liberty Watch once again pinpoints those
who will play and be played in the year ahead
BY LIBERTY WATCH STAFF

Francis Allen Nevada Assemblywoman This is Assemblywoman Francis Allen’s second time on Liberty Watch’s Not List. Last year, she earned a spot because many viewed her as a missed opportunity. In her first session, the then 28-year-old gained a reputation as “The Party Girl” and amongst her colleagues she managed to garner a reputation for not being trustworthy. As one of her colleagues put it, “her relationship with Democrat Speaker Barbara Buckley is just scary.” Republican leaders hoped that she would mature with time, but again have been disappointed. Now 30, Miss Allen has yet to accomplish anything. In the last few weeks of the 2007 legislative session, Allen had managed to pass only a single bill — Assembly Bill 13, which increased the age of mandatory life-preserver use on boats from 12 to 13 years of age. Well done, Miss Allen. Faced with nothing to show but this inconsequential bill for her entire four-month effort, she was very anxious to get her name on another bill. When Sen. Mike Schneider, a Democrat, asked her to sponsor a last-minute homeowners’ association omnibus, she jumped at the chance. Despite Allen’s vigorous lobbying for Gov. Jim Gibbons to sign the homeowners’ bill into law, he vetoed it. It seems in Allen’s restlessness to please her Democratic friends, she didn’t take the time to read this bill she attached her name to. It would have raised dues on all Sun City Summerlin residents, half of whom are represented by Allen. These residents, mostly on fixed incomes, had voted amongst themselves to charge new homeowners a one-time transfer fee instead of raising dues. Allen’s bill would have undone this practice, and banned it in the future. All Allen has to show for her second stint in Carson City is a silly life-preserver bill. Perhaps in 2008, the voters of Assembly District 4 can elect a serious, mature representative who isn’t drowning in failed opportunity.

Jim Rogers University System Chancellor In the perfect world, a private-sector businessman like Jim Rogers would make for the ideal chancellor. But when you’re someone who makes charitable donations to higher education and then rescinds the offer after being criticized by a regent whose name no one can recall, when you make a name for yourself by playing power games with university presidents and state legislators, when you insert yourself into a political debate on taxation after the governor asks you to trim your budget by 8 percent, you prove yourself to be nothing more than another ideologue who wishes to raise taxes so that government workers, not college students, benefit from state expansion. And then, when you don’t get the money you need to build another lavish student rec center that no one actually needs or wants, you’ll be sure to jack student tuition and blame it on the greedy gaming companies. It’s pretty much universally agreed upon that Rogers is a terrible chancellor, and that it’s time for him to go. Being the hard-headed yet ultra-sensitive person that he is, he will likely have to be literally pried from his position. That’s neither good for higher education in Nevada, nor for Southern Nevada in general. Take a hint and hit the road, Rogers.

Steve Sebelius Las Vegas CityLife editor It’s depressing to see a former student of the great Libertarian thinker and UNLV professor Murray Rothbard sink to such tragic depths. Here is a marginally talented writer who jumped (or was he pushed?) from the op-ed pages of the Las Vegas Review-Journal for a pitiful opportunity to edit a free weekly paper — which is like going from starting quarterback to third-string tailback. Las Vegas CityLife’s main benefit to the community is in providing bedding for the homeless, but poor Sebelius toils under the false assumption that he and his liberal cohorts are arbiters of political ethics. In his snore-worthy cover stories, he demonstrates how taxes allow you to get up in the morning and go to work. In the virtual pages of his widely ignored blog, he finds strange satisfaction in busting fellow liberal Sen. Harry Reid for taking free boxing tickets before (get this) voting on boxing legislation. Sebelius takes schizophrenic pleasure, too, in hurling potshots at his boss Sherm Frederick one moment, and defending him from criticism the next. Well, here’s a conflict of interest you won’t read about in CityLife or Sebelius’ slog: Sebelius — a second-rate body double for State Sen. Bob Beers — is married to a PR lady over at Faiss Foley Warren. Still, Liberty Watch is very confident that Sebelius’ coverage of Cox Communications, the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the Howard Hughes Corporation, etc., will be fair and balanced. (Yeah, right.)

Hugh Jackson Las Vegas Gleaner founder Of all the tax-happy liberals in Southern Nevada who swear on their Nation subscriptions that Las Vegans would benefit by giving more of their money to the government, it is Hugh Jackson’s voice that is the shrillest. From the lowly perch of his blog, Las Vegas Gleaner (and when he's not calling for raising gaming taxes), he calls for the hiking of taxes on all businesses instead of punishing the gaming industry. (Hmm, where have heard that idea before? Oh, that’s right — the gaming industry! Ballsy stuff, Mr. Gleaner.) Despite vast evidence to the contrary, Jackson believes that government expansion is the way to go — if only we could elect enough Democrats. Forget the mass genocide of the Iraq War (which would never have happened with warmongers Gore/Lieberman, for sure), or the Gestapo tactics of the TSA, or the blind, deaf and dumbness of FEMA. Big government is here to save us with public-school educations and ever-increasing bureaucracy. Jackson, please examine The Nation’s Dec. 10 issue and its lead op-ed courtesy of Chris Hedges. The author’s opening line reads: “I will not pay my income tax if we go to war with Iran.” Time to stop gleaning the drowsy prose of Jon Ralston for blog topics and get with the program.

Harry Reid U.S. Senate Majority Leader Nevada’s senior senator continues to tout 100,000 caucus participants as “very doable,” while the Nevada Democratic Party has stated that between 28,000 and 40,000 (or 7 to 10 percent of those eligible) “would be a successful caucus.” Someone’s going to look delusional and out of touch on Jan. 19 and the smart money is on Reid. After all, the 2004 Nevada Democratic Caucus drew 9,000 participants. Further, recent polling suggests that Nevadans have had it with Reid’s rhetoric as his approval rating continues to steadily decline since he assumed the role of Senate Majority Leader. As of Oct. 15, the highly respected Mason-Dixon Poll shows Reid with a 32-percent favorable rating versus 51 percent unfavorable. These numbers put Reid below President Bush. Definitely not hot.

Robert Beers Nevada Assemblyman Republicans were right to be suspicious of this imposter since he first came out of nowhere to run for the Assembly last year. Not only did Robert Beers mislead voters by exploiting the good name and vast experience of respected Senator and 2006 candidate for Governor, Bob Beers, he also fooled voters into believing that he was a Republican. Recently, the truth has come out about Robert Beers, and it’s not pretty. In his latest incarnation as an outspoken UNION ORGANIZER, Beers has alienated many of his peers in the GOP, of which he has said, “There are an awful lot of problems with the Republican Party. … It is an ill-fitting suit, but it’s the best one I could find.” It’s not hard to imagine this man of such conviction running as a Democrat. But alas, the GOP enjoys an approximately 1,400-vote edge in AD 21, so expect Beers to keep posing as a GOP’er for now. During his freshman session, Beers authored failed legislation that would have directly affected the way in which casino dealers pool their tips. Not only would this ill-conceived bill have interfered with the internal operations of private sector business, it would have had considerable detrimental effects on small businesses in particular, as was embarrassingly pointed out by Assembly Democrats. Further, Beers is appearing on union websites with the likes of Harry Reid and Rep. Shelley Berkley. Reid, Berkley and labor unions are clearly no friends of the GOP. Neither is Robert Beers.

Marcus Conklin Nevada Assemblyman There is no question that Nevada is in the midst of a home foreclosure crisis. There is also no question that spending $400,000 of taxpayer money to set up a hotline designed to deal with the foreclosure problem is absolutely moronic and beyond fiscally imprudent. Assemblyman Marcus Conklin was happy to take credit for this misuse of public funds prior to the governor’s call for 5- to 8-percent budget cuts in most state agencies. There are presently no surplus funds anywhere, Mr. Conklin. At least the state’s Mortgage Lending Division shouldn’t have to think too hard about where their cuts should come from. How does one spend $400,000 to establish an 800-number anyway?

Valerie Weber Nevada Assemblywoman Fresh off her brilliant 2006 election cycle during which she recruited her brother to run against an incumbent GOP Assembly colleague (with not a word spoken from the then-GOP Caucus Leadership), Valerie continues to take idiocy to new heights. She now has the very sad misconception that she will be a viable candidate for the Clark County Commission. Ah, not so. She may have been re-elected to her Assembly seat, in which Democrats now hold a 500 voter edge in registration. However, her candidacy for the big leagues of the county commission is an exercise in complete futility.

Brian Greenspun Las Vegas Sun editor Even liberals acknowledge that Brian Greenspun’s column is pointless, but he continues to editorialize in spite of having inserted his left-wing Sun deep into the conservative folds of the more popular R-J. Word on the street is that Greenspun is pouring all kinds of money into his operation, particularly the online side, hiring good writers and editors. As far as Liberty Watch can tell, nothing has really improved, but we keep hoping. And waiting. In the meantime, we’re treated to such sparkling logic as this, from one of Greenspun’s recent pontifications: “To put this state’s financial house in order, the governor would have to call a special session of the Legislature, educate the people of Nevada about the need for all of us to invest in our state’s future and risk the fact that he would have to back off of his ridiculous ‘no tax’ pledge in order to create an economic path to success and fulfillment for almost all Nevadans.” See, in order for even the lowliest fast-food worker to succeed, we must raise taxes (code for punish the rich) on all businesses. And if businesses respond by offering fewer jobs, hey, it’s not the more-taxes crowd that’s to blame. No, it’s those greedy corporations who supply most of the jobs in town. Brian, please, put a sock in it. Or better yet, use one of those inserts you call a newspaper.

John Hambrick Nevada Assembly candidate With nothing to show for his two-year tenure as Clark County Republican Party Chairman, Hambrick is now a declared candidate for the “safe” District 2 seat being vacated by Dr. Garn Mabey. The CCRP has no fundraising program, and as a result, no funds. Candidate recruitment efforts do not exist as is evidenced by the number of Democrats who ran unopposed in 2006. At the same time, long lines of GOP candidates continue to form willing to cannibalize each other in primaries with no words of dissuasion from the chairman. Hambrick has demonstrated phenomenal success in spinning this series of failures into positives that he touts for his own gain. He pointed to a strong list of endorsements when he ran for re-election as Chairman, and is doing so again in his race for Assembly. He's had two years to line up endorsements for himself since none of that time was spent on strengthening the party or actually working to elect Republicans at the county level. Last, Hambrick recruited a highly touted executive director from Washington D.C. — and fired him. He replaced this person with a controversial insider without a search or vote of the CCRP Executive Committee — and fired her. The CCRP, as of this writing, has no Chairman, Executive Director or Finance Director. This is John Hambrick’s legacy.

Bill Raggio Nevada Senator When is the omnipresent voice of reason in Carson City not hot? Raggio’s unmatched institutional knowledge and the respect that he commands in the capitol will be on full display as Nevada continues to adjust to the current economic slowdown and resulting budget shortfall. Gov. Jim Gibbons would be wise to consult Raggio early and often in the coming months.

Sean Fellows Nevada Assembly candidate This first time candidate for elective office and distinguished U.S. Air Force veteran/reservist has created a lot of buzz early in the 2008 election cycle. The cliché surrounding Fellows that is routinely heard is: “He’s doing everything right.” This is highly uncommon praise for a GOP Assembly candidate in recent years. Fellows is opposing Democrat Susan Gerhardt in Henderson’s AD 29 following her second unbelievable term in Carson City. Democrats presently enjoy an approximately 400 edge in the district — a number certainly within range of a well-funded, well-run campaign with a young, energetic and intelligent candidate.

Jonathan Ozark Nevada Assembly candidate After running a very spirited campaign in 2006 in an Assembly district that favored the Democrat incumbent, Jonathan Ozark is back and running in a GOP-leaning district. The rub is that he’s running against a GOP incumbent — sort of. Ozark, a Henderson businessman, has been heavily recruited by genuine Republicans to oust opportunist, union organizer/sympathizer and general goofball Assemblyman Robert Beers. AD 21 in Green Valley leans Republican by approximately 1,400 voters. Barring a watershed year for Democrats even greater than 2006, this district will stay Republican, and deserves the true Republican representation it has not received from Robert Beers. In their endorsement of Ozark in 2006, the Las Vegas Review-Journal said, “…the GOP should cultivate this rising star.” The party appears poised to do just that by sending in Jonathan Ozark to rescue AD 21.

Ruben Kihuen Nevada Assemblyman This freshman legislator was thrust into the national limelight as the entire stable of Democratic Presidential hopefuls furiously jockeyed for his endorsement. Kihuen is young and energetic, but most importantly, Hispanic. His endorsement has been viewed as the best way to tap into the ever-growing Hispanic population in Nevada, and in particular, voter-rich Clark County. Having apparently felt that he had milked his new found prominence for all it was worth, Kihuen recently caved and endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton. With Clinton enjoying huge leads in national polls, Kihuen’s star could continue to rise. If Sen. Barack Obama is able to upset Clinton in Iowa, as some recent polls have suggested is a possibility, Kihuen may once again be a mere mortal overnight.

Sue Lowden State GOP chairwoman For strengthening the state party in ’07 and ensuring Nevada remains a red state in ’08.

Ron Paul U.S. Presidential candidate For elevating debate and raising issue with our foreign policy. His presence is much needed in the current neo-conservative nightmare of a field.