A case of irony or poetic justice?

The Nevada Democratic Party and its affiliated unions did a great job turning out voters for the Nov. 4 general election and placing in the hands of many of those voters endorsement sheets "recommending" how they might vote -- all the way down the ballot to the supposedly "non-partisan" elections for judgeships, School Board, etc.

The Democratic Party also had huge success with its sleazy million-dollar direct-mail campaign against Nevada state Sens. Joe Heck and Bob Beers, who they targeted based on growing Democratic registrations in Senate districts 5 and 6 -- the overall goal being to seat enough Democrats in the state Senate to push through new tax hikes and big pay and benefit increases for state bureaucrats.

Those efforts succeeded. Sens. Beers and Heck have been replaced by state Sens. Allison Copening and Shirley Breeden, who will now presumably vote for the huge tax hikes and state employee wage and benefit hikes for which Democrats yearn.

Such campaigns cost millions. Where did that money come from?

A visit to the Web site of the Nevada secretary of state allows one to bring up the campaign donation reports filed by the Nevada Democratic Party in June and especially on Oct. 28.

Ten grand came from the so-called Nevada State Education Association -- the teachers union.

Three hundred dollars came from the Lakes Lutheran Church. Turns out that was just a refund for a caucus gym rental that never happened, since the church fathers didn't want to appear partisan; no scandal there.

A whopping quarter of a million dollars came from the "Searchlight Leadership Fund," which I suspect has something to do with U.S. Sen. Harry Reid.

Nevada Power contributed $30,000 toward the Beers-Heck sleazeball mailer campaign. Glad my power bills are paying for something so directly related to generating and transmitting electricity.

And $50,000 in Democratic campaign contributions came from five TV stations -- KCWY in Wyoming, KRNV in Reno, KTVH in Helena, KVBC in Las Vegas, and KYMA Yuma -- all of which are owned or controlled by Nevada university system Chancellor (and TV millionaire) Jim Rogers.

Mr. Rogers spent his money, and he got results.

Imagine his chagrin, then, when word surfaced last week that Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons -- a Republican -- had noted that Bob Beers, a CPA by trade, is now available for other duties, and was considering appointing him to the state Board of Regents to fill the seat vacated when Regent Steve Sisolak was elected to the Clark County Commission.

Mr. Rogers works for the state Board of Regents, you understand. They are his bosses. They could presumably, um ... fire him.

It was also rumored the governor is considering appointing Bret Whipple -- a local attorney who just lost his Board of Regents re-election bid to political neophyte Robert Blakely -- to fill another seat on the board, being vacated by Thalia Dondero, who has fallen victim to voter-imposed term limits.

Mr. Rogers is not fond of Mr. Whipple -- who has sometimes criticized the chancellor -- either.

Mr. Blakely, who expressed considerable surprise at his own election over Mr. Whipple after he racked up total campaign expenditures of $120, said Monday he would support Mr. Whipple's appointment to the vacant seat.

Since Mr. Whipple was just rejected by the voters, his appointment would be "a really bad idea," Mr. Rogers said Monday. "It tells the voting public they can go to hell."

As for Mr. Beers, Mr. Rogers told a Review-Journal reporter, "I think Bob Beers is a menace."

I presumed he was referring to Mr. Beers' modest fiscal conservatism. (Beers rarely calls for closing government projects, seeking merely to slow their growth.) I called Mr. Rogers on Wednesday to ask.

"Do you work for a salary?" he asked me, right off.

When I'm at the Review-Journal, yes I do.

"I've been an entrepreneur for 40 years," Mr. Rogers explained. "I've never been employed by anybody," said the man who most Nevada taxpayers probably believed was in their "employ" to do their bidding as their university chancellor.

"I know how to cut costs and save money, I know how to borrow money and I know how to make money. So when someone starts talking to me about fiscal conservatism it's got to be related to the final product you want," the chancellor said. "I've never found anything yet, Vin, that I thought was successful unless you invested money in it. There has to be a balance between expenses and revenue.

"The problem I have with Bob Beers is not that he looks at the expense line; it's that he's not qualified to look at the investment line because he's never done that. ... I don't know that Bob Beers has been financially successful in his entire life. Someone who has never run an operation, I don't think he's qualified. Hell, we can cut the expenses to zero if we just shut the whole thing down."

Goodness. I'm not privy to Mr. Beers' tax returns or family budget, but his career in the financial services industry seems to have allowed him to drive a car newer than mine and keep up the payments on a nice two-story home in Summerlin, where he and his wife have kept busy raising two children for some years now.

Meantime, how many of the current Board of Regents would meet Mr. Rogers' standard -- how many are self-made millionaire entrepreneurs who accept no paychecks but have experience running "big operations"?

Chairman Michael Wixom is a lawyer. He does help run his law firm. Maybe he's OK.

Vice Chairman Howard Rosenberg is an art professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, which (since Mr. Rogers oversees the president of UNR) makes Mr. Rosenberg the boss of his boss's boss. Presumably no experience running a million-dollar business operation, there.

Regent Mark Alden is another CPA. Regent Stavros Anthony is a police captain. Ron Knecht is an economist. Retiring Regent Thalia Dondero is a former Clark County commissioner who serves on the board of the Gilcrease Nature Sanctuary.

Does Mr. Rogers think any of his bosses are qualified for their posts? How about newly elected Regent Robert Blakely?

Since being laid off at Yucca Mountain, this graduate in mining engineering from Montana Tech has had a number of jobs, and is now a salesman. A nice guy, but not a millionaire entrepreneur who's run any big "operations," from all appearances.

Mr. Rogers does have his own nominees for the two vacant posts, one a local ophthalomologist. The fact that this state employee is recommending who two of his bosses should be captures pretty well the current "tail wagging the dog" set-up at the Board of Regents.

As for that "balance between expenses and revenue," that would pretty well describe a private university. But the university system that Mr. Rogers runs for us is a tax-subsidized state system. It hemorrhages cash -- requiring those aforementioned tax subsidies -- every year. There is no "balance between expenses and revenue." Ever.

Which is why -- when we enter a recession and state tax revenues fall -- taxpayers expect the state university system to pare back.

Chancellor Rogers spent $50,000 to help evict Bob Beers from his state Senate seat.

"Yes I did," he responds.

Is that why he's upset, I asked -- because he spent $50,000 to get rid of this guy, and now Mr. Beers could be appointed as Mr. Rogers' new boss?

"Well that's very logical, isn't it?" the chancellor replied. "Does that shock you? ... This guy has never had a creative thought, has never been successful in anything. He's just in there voting against everything."

Things don't seem to be working out precisely as Mr. Rogers planned, in this case.

Would that be a case of irony, or poetic justice? I often get the two confused ... having gone to a government high school, and all.

Vin Suprynowicz (vsuprynowicz@reviewjournal. com) is the assistant editor of the Review-Journal's editorial page and author of "The Black Arrow." See http://www.lvrj.com/blogs/vin/ and http://www.vinsuprynowicz.com/