Chachas donated to Obama

GOP opponents of the Republican Chachas’ U.S. Senate bid had started a whisper campaign, suggesting the New York investment banker and Ely native wasn’t a party loyalist and his contribution to the Democrat Obama’s successful White House campaign shows his true stripes.

Not quite, countered the Chachas campaign.

Chachas acknowledges donating to Obama’s coffers. But he insists he did it at the request of a friend and notes that at the same time he was helping Mitt Romney raise five figures for his GOP presidential primary campaign, and in 2007 personally gave the former Massachusetts governor $2,300 .

“John was helping Mitt Romney raise money. In fact, he raised close to $70,000 for Romney’s presidential campaign,” Chachas campaign consultant Ryan Erwin said Friday in an e-mail response to questions about the Obama donation. “When John was approached by a friend and asked to contribute to Barack Obama early in the campaign he believed that Obama would be easier for Romney to defeat than Hillary Clinton. A lot of people believed that. Turns out a lot of people were mistaken.

“Regardless, John Chachas has a long history of helping Republicans by both contributing and helping good conservative candidates raise money,” Erwin added.

FEC records bear this out, showing Chachas donated to several Republican political action committees and campaigns in the late 1990s, including $1,000 to George W. Bush in 1999.

Other GOP Senate candidates have Democratic donation skeletons in their closets, too.

Former state Sen. Sue Lowden, the GOP front-runner, donated several times to Sen. Harry Reid’s campaigns in the 1980s, although she’s currently trying to end his political career.

FEC records show at least $5,000 in contributions from Lowden to Reid in 1984, 1986 and 1989.

Lowden said she supported the Democrat Reid until he drifted too far left for her taste. “Early on in the ’80s when he was independent, we did feel that he was representing Nevada,” Lowden said last fall after she jumped into the Senate race, referring to herself and her husband, Paul.

Lowden also contributed $2,000 each to the Democratic campaigns of former Rep. Jim Bilbray and former Sen. Richard Bryan, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, FEC records show.

Her political contributions turned decidedly Republican in 1992 when she contributed $1,000 to President George H.W. Bush’s losing re-election campaign, and she’s been helping the top ticket GOP contenders since.

Another Republican Senate candidate, Danny Tarkanian, for his part, once donated $950 to Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley’s 1998 congressional campaign.

Tarkanian says he supported Berkley out of family loyalty. When Berkley was vice chairwoman of the Nevada University System Board of Regents from 1990 to 1998, she supported Tarkanian’s father — former University of Nevada, Las Vegas basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian — in 1992 during his battle with UNLV leaders who were trying to force him out.

“She was one of the two stalwart Board of Regents defending my father and trying to keep him in his job,” Tarkanian, a former UNLV basketball star, said recently on Alan Stock’s KXNT-AM, 840 talk radio show.

A footnote: Both Lowden and Tarkanian acknowledge to having donated to the campaigns of Lois Tarkanian, a Democratic activist who now sits on the Las Vegas City Council.

montandon wages web attack

Former federal Judge Brian Sandoval has the most money and incumbent Gov. Jim Gibbons has the bully pulpit.

Former North Las Vegas Mayor Mike Montandon is seeking to lead in creativity in campaigning for the Republican primary for governor.

Montandon’s latest move in that regard was a Web site he launched April 1 that used a spoof of the game show “Jeopardy” to poke fun at Sandoval, the leader in public opinion polls.

The site, www.whoisbrian­sandoval.com, mimics the “Jeopardy” gimmick of posing statements as answers and calling on players to respond with the appropriate question.

Some of the statements on Montandon’s “Jeopardy” spoof include, “a pro-choice Catholic”, Sen. “Harry Reid”, D-Nev., “supported him” and “against traditional marriage,” all answerable with the question “Who is Brian Sandoval?”

It’s part of a campaign tactic by Montandon to present himself as more conservative than Sandoval and more likely to win the general election than Gibbons, who has been plagued by political and personal problems.

Mary-Sarah Kinner, Sandoval’s campaign spokeswoman, said Sandoval would have no response to Montandon’s site.

Vincent Harris, a political consultant from Austin, Texas, who created the spoof site for Montandon, said it’s an effort to offset Sandoval’s monetary advantage and Gibbons’ advantage as the incumbent.

Harris said he built the site in one day from his desk using Flash software.

“The Internet allows insurgent grass-roots candidates like Mike Montandon to compete against Brian Sandoval, who the establishment may support and may have big, deep pockets,” Harris said.

The latest survey by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research showed Sandoval the favorite among 37 percent of Republicans statewide, Gibbons the pick of 30 percent and Montandon the favorite of just 9 percent.

Harris said that if Montandon is to be successful, the fruits of his online labor will eventually show up in traditional polling.

amodei on gop chairman list

Can a free-speaking senator who once supported a tax increase lead Nevada Republicans in the age of RINO hunting? Mark Amodei is about to find out.

Amodei, R-Carson City, is among the folks the Nevada Republican Party is considering as a replacement for former chairman Chris Comfort.

The question is whether Amodei, known for taking stances that don’t always fit neatly with conservative dogma, such as support for a 2003 tax increase, could be accepted by party members on the hunt for RINOs — which stands for “Republican In Name Only.”

Amodei says he would put improving the party’s organizing ability ahead of partisan purity tests.

“The Democrats in Nevada have never been better organized than they are now,” said Amodei, who is serving his final term as a state senator. “That’s reality before you get to policy. If that doesn’t get your attention in terms of what the challenge is … I don’t know what to tell people.”

On the tax issue, Amodei stands behind his decision in 2003 to join Sen. Terry Care, D-Las Vegas, on a proposal that would have used new taxes to raise an estimated $900 million in revenue over two years. But Amodei adds that today, with Nevada mired in the greatest economic recession it has ever faced, he would happily lead the charge against imposing more taxes on businesses in the state.

“The private sector pays for the public sector. And if you have a sick private sector, you have a sick tax base to pay for the public sector,” he said.

Contact reporter Benjamin Spillman at bspillman@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861. Contact Laura Myers at lmyers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919.