HICKEY MUST GO, BUT NOT
FOR THE OBVIOUS REASON
Assembly
Minority Leader Pat Hickey
(Reno-RINO) recently opened his mouth, removed his socks, stuck one foot
inside, wriggled around his toes, rinsed and repeated. But that’s not the reason he should resign
his leadership position.
In a
recent radio interview Hickey said the 2014 election cycle holds out promise
for Republicans because “a lot of minorities…will not turn out.” He then attempted “damage control” in a
follow-up television interview in which he further embarrassed himself and the
Republican Party with a smart aleck comment about having “a yellow wife and kids with olive-colored skin.”
Good
grief.
“As
a black Republican, I find Pat Hickey’s comment disappointing and sadly out of touch,”
said Niger Innis, president of the
Congress of Racial Equality in North Las Vegas.
“Thanks for nothing, Assemblyman.”
Thanks
for nothing, indeed.
Understandably,
this has Democrats all across the country frothing at the mouth, claiming
Hickey’s comments were racist and an effort to “suppress” the minority
vote. Which is absurd. Hickey’s comments were neither. They were just stupid.
And
they won’t, as Hickey predicted, go away in one or two news cycles. They’ll return like a bad case of herpes next
fall when Republicans all over the state will have his “minorities” comment
wrapped around their necks.
Alas,
this “Macaca Moment” is only the latest and least of his failings.
In
the 2012 election cycle, Hickey failed to pick up any net seats for his caucus
despite at least three solid opportunities - including one in his own Reno back
yard where a highly-touted “minority” candidate ran in the only district with a
Republican majority that is currently represented by a Democrat.
He
then went into the 2013 legislative session with absolutely no agenda
whatsoever, and refused to contest the seating of a Democrat assemblyman who
had been ruled by a judge to be ineligible for failing to live in the district
where he ran.
Hickey
has discouraged candidates from signing the Taxpayer Protection Pledge while
leading his caucus in voting for a second extension of the $620 million worth
of “temporary” taxes, as well for the Kirner Tax – named after its champion, GOP
Assemblyman Randy Kirner - in Washoe
County and the misleadingly named More Cops tax in Clark County. He handed these tax hikes to the Democrats on
a silver platter while not even getting table scraps in return.
And
not only did the minority “leader” barely utter a peep when Democrats again
killed the “campus carry” bill without even a committee vote, he also oversaw
the embarrassment of Republicans in his house killing the “parent trigger”
bill; the only worthwhile education reform bill with a chance this last
session.
And
there’s plenty more – including his disastrous handling of the Steven Brooks mess - but space here is
limited.
If
Republicans keep Pat Hickey in his leadership position, they truly are stuck on
stupid.
Oh,
and if they take the advice of Nevada’s #2 liberal blogger, Jon Ralston, and replace Hickey with Assemblyman
Paul Anderson, they’re stuck on
stupid squared!
In
NPRI’s conservative scorecard for the 2013 legislative session, only one
Republican, Assemblyman Lynn “Bug Man”
Stewart (49.91%) scored worse than Hickey (51.26%).
Anderson’s
score? 51.51%. The guy is a Gumby clone of Hickey.
Republicans
in the Assembly will never become the majority party in the Assembly if they
continue to vote like Democrat-lite and continue to fight like a litter of
puppies. Will they ever learn?
MEET ROBERT UITHOVEN
I’ve
known Robert Uithoven – who’s
running for Nevada GOP chairman this weekend at the party’s fall meeting in Las
Vegas - professionally since around 2005, and he and I have worked together on
a number of different issues, especially when I was living in Carson City.
Indeed,
back in 2009 Robert royally pissed off then-Minority Leader Bill Raggio (R-Reno) when he single-handedly
almost derailed the “temporary” tax hikes Raggio and other moderate Republicans
were trying to pass over then-Gov. Jim
Gibbons’ opposition.
“Desperate
anti-tax forces, represented by Republican consultant Robert Uithoven, used
rumors of potential conflicts of interest as a way to peel off ‘yes’ votes (for
the tax hike),” Raggio biographer Michael
Archer wrote in “A Man of His Word.”
They
weren’t “potential conflicts.” They were
real. And indeed, Raggio was forced to
abstain from voting for the tax hikes until then-Senate Majority Leader Steven
Horsford issued his infamous “Absolution Resolution” which allowed all senators
to vote on the tax hike whether they were conflicted or not.
Oh,
and I got a real kick out of re-reading Sen. Raggio’s words about them in his
book yesterday. Pay particular attention
to Sen. Raggio’s own words about the sunsets…
“I said, ‘Robert…why don’t you give us some credit for what we’re trying to do to make sure that we provide essential services? Any tax increases will be temporary and we will insist on sunsets. Why not give us some credit for trying to reform the tax and the retirement systems?’“He was very apologetic. I really did not understand his posture, though he is very much influenced by [anti-tax political blogger] Chuck Muth.”
Woo-hoo!
Of
course, it’s not true. Robert is and
always has been his own man. But I
appreciate the compliment from Sen. Raggio.
Nevertheless,
this quote from the late senate leader should remind everyone, especially
Gov. Brian Sandoval, that it was
absolutely the intent of the Legislature that those tax hikes go away! Under NO CIRCUMSTANCE should Sandoval again
include them in his 2015 budget if he wins re-election.
But
back to Uithoven. He contacted me on
Tuesday with a request:
“Chuck - You know me well, but your readers may not. I'm happy to have you ask me any questions and I'll answer them to you over the phone - you can record and transcribe if you'd like - so your readers can know more about me and who I am ... and who I am not.”
Robert
knows that I’ve been a supporter of incumbent Chairman Michael McDonald, but his request was reasonable, and in the
interest of fairness I agreed. So on
Wednesday morning we spent 73 minutes together on the phone talking about all
manner of issues, concerns, controversies and strategies related to the GOP
chairman’s race.
I
shared that interview with Silver State
Confidential subscribers last night, but thought this interview was
important enough to make available to everyone before this important
election. It was recorded live and has
no editing. Ditto the
transcription. And I’ll not comment on
any of it…and just let you, the listener/reader make up your own minds.
You
can read/listen to this exclusive interview by CLICKING
HERE
And
while you’re there, if you haven’t signed up for a free, 30-day trial
subscription to Silver State Confidential
– and don’t want to miss out on great “inside” information and stories for the
2014 election cycle without the liberal spin – just click on the bright yellow “Sign Up Now” button at
the bottom of the Uithoven interview page.
FIRST FRIDAY HAPPY HOUR
Our
VIP guest-of-honor at next week’s First Friday Happy Hour will be our 2013 Courage Under Fire award recipient,
Amanda Collins.
If
this courageous young woman’s name is unfamiliar to you, click
here and read just one of the many stories about her being assaulted
and raped in UNR’s campus garage…and how she’s tried valiantly to change Nevada
law so that her nightmare isn’t visited upon other unarmed college students in
the future.
Next
Friday, October 4 from 5:00-7:00 pm at the Blue Martini in Town Square at the
south end of the Strip in Las Vegas.
Oh,
and by the way…
As
many of you might remember, we featured a young Las Vegas race-car driver a
couple of years ago at First Friday, Dylan
Kwasniewski, who was 16 at the time.
Well, he’s 18 now, has moved to North Carolina to further his NASCAR racing
career and is featured in a reality TV show. Ron Kantowski had an
updated story on Dylan a couple days ago in the Las Vegas Sun.
If
you missed it, click
here
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“Now
that he’s up against Jeopardy, the number of people watching (Jon) Ralston’s
television show has shrunk from how many people you can fit in a McDonald’s
restaurant to how many people you can fit in a McDonalds bathroom.” – Name
withheld
No comments:
Post a Comment