Monday, July 28, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

POLITICAL NOTEBOOK: Teens who worked for Moncrief awaiting promised bonuses

Campaign strategist confirms incentive offer

From left to right, Chris Walent, Cory Center and Diana Mall went door to door for Janet Moncrief's successful campaign for the Las Vegas City Council. The teens say they were promised bonuses if Moncrief won, but have yet to be paid. Photo by John Gurzinski.

Several high school students who went door to door for Councilwoman Janet Moncrief's campaign say they're still waiting for the bonuses they were promised if she won.

Diana Mall, Cory Center, both 17, and Chris Walent, 16, all said they spent numerous weekends from April through the beginning of June battling heat and supporters of then-incumbent Michael McDonald.

Recruited by Moncrief campaign strategist Tony Dane, the teenagers were paid hourly, given water and sometimes lunch. Bonuses were awarded for bringing a friend, working a Saturday and a Sunday and placing the most yard signs with Ward 1 voters.

In addition, Dane told the teens they'd all get a bonus, based on the hours they worked and the amount of money in campaign coffers, if Moncrief pulled off the upset.

"Most jobs that you work at you get paid minimum wage," Mall said last week. "You don't usually get that much, so when you hear you're getting incentives -- and it's not just in fives, tens and twenties, it's in fifties and hundreds -- the more money you hear you're going to get the more it makes you want to work harder."

Almost two months after Moncrief handily defeated McDonald, the teens have yet to see their bonuses.

Dane confirmed last week he promised the bonuses, but declined further comment. "That's being worked out," he said.

Meanwhile, Moncrief, who met the youths on several occasions during their lunch breaks, says she never promised anything.

"If Tony Dane promised it, he promised it, because I sure didn't," she said Friday. "I didn't make any promises to these children."

Moncrief indicated she has yet to pay Dane for his work on her campaign. "Maybe Tony plans on paying them once I pay Tony," she said.

The teens said they believed in their candidate when they were out walking. But that's changed.

"She kind of reminds me of the movie stars who start out little and then steps on everybody and thinks they're too good to be with the people who helped them," Mall said.

Historic announcement

Bragging rights is being able to tell your children you were in a meeting in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday when President Bush walked in and announced that Saddam Hussein's sons had been killed in Iraq.

"That's a piece of history," said Larry Ruvo, Nevada's finance chairman for Bush-Cheney '04.

Ruvo was one of the state finance chairs strategizing ways to continue the fund-raising push to re-elect the president and vice president.

"The president came in and shared they'd got Saddam's kids," Ruvo recalled Wednesday.

He said it's likely Bush will visit both Lake Tahoe and Las Vegas, probably in the fall.

On Monday, the liquor distributor had hosted a fund-raiser at his Spanish Trail home for Vice President Dick Cheney.

Just a day later, he was listening to Cheney address state finance officials. Ruvo said Cheney's most memorable line was, "For a long time we were a defensive nation and now we are an offensive nation."

Ruvo said Cheney was firm, telling finance chairs that terrorists in the past thought they could strike with impunity "but no longer."

Fund-raiser comparison

There are significant differences between political fund-raisers in Las Vegas and Omaha, Neb., as Vice President Dick Cheney learned Monday.

In Las Vegas, Cheney and his supporters were offered lobster salad with green apples, pheasant croquette, shrimp, and salmon tartare, delicacies prepared by four of the city's top chefs.

In Omaha, it was meatballs and melon chunks.

In Las Vegas, the $300,000 raised for Bush-Cheney '04 was decent.

In Omaha, the $400,000 raised was record-breaking.

In Las Vegas, the fund-raiser was closed to the news media. As a result, coverage focused on the 100 or so people who showed up to protest the visit.

In Omaha, the event was open to the press. The Omaha World-Herald carried a picture the following day of a smiling Dick and Lynne Cheney. No protests were reported.

But then again, nuclear waste isn't headed to North Platte.

Re-election hopes

Four Clark County commissioners are up for re-election next year, and all say they will run, including the longest-serving commissioner, Republican Bruce Woodbury.

First elected in 1982, Woodbury said the 2004 race would be his last. Under term limits, he said he could run one more time after that, but he doesn't think it's likely.

After his first term as a commissioner, Republican Chip Maxfield is also telling people he'll try to re-up for a second term.

Democrat Mary Kincaid-Chauncey said she is running for a third term despite being a target of an ongoing FBI probe into political corruption and bribery. And Democrat Yvonne Atkinson Gates wants a fourth term.

Las Vegas attorney John Hunt, who ran unsuccessfully for attorney general in 2002, said he's considering a Democratic primary challenge to Gates.