POLITICAL EYE: Gingrich courts voters through their pets
"I'm Stinky and I'm with Newt!"
In his quest to become president, GOP candidate Newt Gingrich is reaching out to voters and their four-legged friends through a website aimed to tug on the heartstrings of animal lovers.
(Stinky is a tiny fluffy dog who lives in Mifflintown, Pa.)
PetswithNewt.com lets Gingrich supporters post photos of their beloved pets and make campaign donations while revealing a softer side of the former speaker of the House. The website, which splinters off from Gingrich's official campaign site, also lists his favorite zoos from San Diego to Cincinnati.
Pictures of Gingrich holding alligators, sloths and penguins tell the story of a young teenager who wanted to be a zoo director or vertebrate paleontologist while growing up.
Voters nationwide have uploaded photos of their dogs with their tongues hanging out or sleepy cats resting up.
Gina Greisen, of Nevada Voters for Animals, said the website is an effective tool to reach out to people who might not care about politics but love their little dogs.
"It's the new kissing babies," Greisen said. "It's brilliant and we encourage it. We ask voters to go out and be a voice for animals. I'm convinced that voters who don't have any other interest in issues, or they're torn between candidates, they'll vote in the interest of their pets. ... Many people don't care about politics, they have no interest in anything else. But you talk about their little dog, and you've just won them over."
The Olson family from Palm Desert, Calif., posted a photo of their timid pup Gidget who believes Gingrich "has the right solutions to protect me and my family and help put America back on track."
David Damore, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said while campaigns reach out to specific constituents, he's never seen anything "quite like this."
"I've never seen pet owners as a key demographic in an election," Damore said. "This gets a little buzz and gets people to have fun with the campaign."
-- Kristi Jourdan
ROSS SHOWS STRENGTH IN RECALL
An attempt by opponents to kneecap the political career of Las Vegas Ward 6 Councilman Steve Ross might have had the opposite effect of making him stronger.
Last week Ross, 49, serving his second term on the council, easily fended off recall challenger Byron Goynes, 51, in a special election getting 70 percent of the vote to Goynes' 30.
Ross raised $106,440 for the 20-day special election campaign and used it to carpet bomb Ward 6 with mailers, signs, billboards and phone calls aimed at staying in office.
It worked.
On the day of the special election, many voters responded to questions about how they voted by repeating the message Ross was sending, that the recall was a personal vendetta by Ross foe Joe Scala, a car dealer who failed to get the councilman's support for a waiver that would have allowed him to sell vintage cars from an auto mall that's limited to new car sales.
"I think it is ludicrous using taxpayer money (for a special election) just because (Ross) won't be bought off," said voter Ruth Bates, 70, echoing the message Ross sent.
Recall supporters, whose "Toss Ross" campaign was supported with more than $120,000 in donations from Scala, tried but failed to send an opposite message, mainly that Ross was beholden to special interests and approved or rejected projects based on whether or not project backers made political contributions.
Lisa Mayo-DeRiso, who spent months working on the recall, acknowledged the opposition message clearly didn't reach enough voters to tilt the race.
"Obviously we were not able to break through," Mayo-DeRiso said. "The strategy for Steve Ross was to deflect everything the recall committee was concerned about. He deflected it away from that to Joe Scala, that strategy may have worked."
She expressed hope that perhaps the campaign would serve as a wake-up call to Ross to be more responsive to voters in the northwest Las Vegas ward.
If anything, though, it was a message to potential Ross opponents, and would-be donors, that when 2013 re-election campaigning starts the councilman will be a formidable opponent.
"I think Ross proved to a lot of insiders he is strong with a lot of voters," political consultant Ronni Council said. "For 2013 he is very strong."
-- Benjamin Spillman
MISDIRECTED DMV BLAME ALLEGED
Assemblyman Tom Grady, R-Yerington, lamented Thursday about constituents blaming him and other legislators for delays they experience standing in Department of Motor Vehicles lines.
Grady told DMV Director Bruce Breslow that DMV window clerks have been telling people, "Call your legislators. It's their fault," when they suffer through long waits.
He reminded Breslow that last fall the Legislature's Interim Finance Committee approved the hiring of 20 of the 30 additional window clerks the DMV had requested. A decision on hiring the remaining 10 will come in the spring.
Breslow said clerks should not be blaming legislators, but added "sometimes they get fed up" with rude customers and their workload. He added during a meeting of the Legislature's Audit Subcommittee that window clerks make $28,000 to $35,000 a year.
"That's not a lot of money to go through the abuse they take," he added.
Nonetheless, Breslow said all DMV employees starting in March will wear buttons that state: "Yes, I can help you with that."
Whether a button changes anyone's attitude remains to be seen.
To spare them from grief, people should check the DMV's website: dmvnv.com before driving to an office to transact business. The website shows the waiting time at all major DMV offices.
About the time Grady made his complaint, the waits ranged from 27 minutes in Carson City to 90 minutes at the Sahara Avenue office in Las Vegas.
-- Ed Vogel
Contact reporter Kristi Jourdan at kjourdan @reviewjournal.com or 702-455-4519. Contact Benjamin Spillman at bspillman @reviewjournal.com or 702-229-6435. Contact Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3900.
