Looking back: It’s the Slash Politics Week in Review!

It’s a very busy day today, so you readers get an early bonus … the SlashPolitics Week in Review! This week, somebody is a sore loser, somebody else is moving to Las Vegas and yet another person really likes Eastern Avenue. On with the mock!

The gracelessness of Niger Innis. There comes a moment in some political careers where reality and aspiration collide, when the dreams of holding office and the hopes of a spirited campaign crash against the shoals of reality. Some people handle that better than others. And by “others,” I mean Congressional District 4 candidate Niger Innis.

The tea partying Innis lost the Republican primary to the establishment pick, Assemblyman Cresent Hardy, R-Mesquite, by a margin of 42.6 percent to 33 percent, or more than 2,300 actual votes. (That’s even after Hardy admitted to the ultimate Nevada GOP sin — he was recruited to run by a consultant!) But instead of making a concession call, Innis threw a tantrum, telling the Review-Journal’s Laura Myers, “If these numbers hold up, the biggest winner tonight is [incumbent Democratic Rep.] Steven Horsford.”

Nice. I mean, it’s true, Horsford is a winner (he took 84.3 percent in his primary), and he’s a favorite for re-election in November. Still, that’s kind of a bitchy thing to say. But hey, it’s an emotional time, the end of a bitter, hard-fought campaign that Innis clearly believed he had a shot to win. So, we can forgive him a little anger.

But on Thursday, after having had a couple days to think about it, Innis and his campaign were still stewing. Why? Because a third candidate in the race, one Mike Monroe, scored fully 22 percent of the vote, or 5,392 actual votes, more than twice Hardy’s margin of victory.

Something must be horribly wrong!Or so Innis said in a news release, in which he demanded an “audit” of the vote by the secretary of state. Said Innis in the release:

“At this point in time, Cresent Hardy has won the Republican nomination to face Steven Horsford in the November General Election, and we need to move forward,” Innis said. “However, what is irrefutable is that the vote total for Mr. Monroe is, without a doubt, questionable.”

“With all due respect to Mr. Monroe, the 22 percent of the vote he received is simply inconceivable based upon his lack of campaign activities, which quite frankly, were none,” Innis continued. “Let me be clear. I am not claiming I lost the race due to votes for me being counted as votes for Mr. Monroe. Some of his votes could very well have been cast for Mr. Hardy.”

“Was it computer error? Was it a glitch in the system? We don’t know,” Innis continued. “But I believe until we investigate, until Secretary of State Miller investigates, we won’t know the reason for Mr. Monroe getting 22 per cent of the vote. And believe me, there is a reason out there somewhere. We just have to work together to find it.”

There actually is another reason: Monroe, who has run before, got more people to push the button next to his name than Innis had pushing the button for him. But that just doesn’t fly with Innis’ campaign manager, Steve Forsythe. If this were a protest vote, Forsythe said, then a fourth candidate, Carlo “Mazunga” Poliak (actual ballot name!), would have earned more than a measly 2 percent.

“Niger has graciously accepted the results of the primary election,” Forsythe said. “However, we as a team, will do everything in our power to try to come to some conclusion as to how Mr. Monroe received 5,392 votes.”

Of all the words that begin with the letter G, the only one Innis has not been is gracious. Grouchy? Yes. Grumpty? Absolutely. Gross? Without question. But he’s hardly alone. When Sharron Angle lost the 2006 Republican primary for the 2nd Congressional District to Dean Heller, she demanded an entirely new election be held. And she’s still trying to insinuate her 2010 loss to Harry Reid was due to voter fraud.

What’s with the tea party peeps? They just can’t seem to acknowledge that a loss at the polls is due to the fact that more people liked the other candidate. Instead of developing elaborate fantasies about stolen voters, computer glitches or the like, they should be spending time moving through the stages of grief. That signpost up ahead? Acceptance, Niger! Acceptance.

Speaking of Harry Reid, the lifelong resident of Searchlight is selling his place, and some mining claims, and moving up the road to Las Vegas. Reid has been proud of the modest, solar-and-wind-energy powered home he built on land he owned in the tiny berg of Searchlight over the years. His residency there has been a metaphor for his hardscrabble roots. (BTW, if “hardscrabble” was your word in the Lifetime Harry Reid drinking game, you are probably an alcoholic.)

Anyway, Reid scored an offer from Nevada Milling and Mining LLC for $1.75 million, according to the R-J’s Steve Tetreault.

So now, Reid’s looking for a home! Ever helpful, and a longtime resident of the Las Vegas Valley, here’s my handy list of suggestions for the majority leader.

• Center of the action: Mandarin Oriental. While in Washington, Reid lives in a one-bedroom condo in the Ritz Carlton, which must be super nice. Well, so is the Mandarin Oriental, within the City Center complex in the middle of the Strip. If you’ve got the cash — and Reid now has $1.75 million of it, on top of his other holdings — this might be a good option.
• Downtown: They have high-rises. They have a developing urban nightlife. Things are run by one organization filled by single-minded devotees headed by a quiet figure who has nonetheless fashioned a cult of personality. Nah. Too much like the Senate.
• Summerlin: Master-planned conformity. If you don’t mind a place where all the houses look the same, and winding streets that occasionally end up getting you totally lost, or tons of traffic, or malls that try to pretend they’re actual urban spaces, then Summerlin is for you. They have a nice Fourth of July parade, which Reid could probably be grand marshal of someday.
• Henderson: Now we’re talking. Many of Reid’s children live in Henderson, where son Josh Reid is city attorney (and could probably get his dad out of speeding tickets, not that Reid would get any, since he’s got U.S. Capitol Police drivers when he’s in town). But if you want my advice, senator, it’s this: Henderson is the way to go. There’s less traffic, we’re closer to the airport, the amenities are more plentiful, you clearly have the juice to get that backyard outdoor kitchen and wet bar approved, and we’ve got almost everything Summerlin has without the boring pretentiousness! So, welcome home!

Speaking of Henderson amenities, can somebody please get us an Islands? I ate there this week, and those are some good burgers! To whom do I speak in Henderson City Hall about that? Oh, never mind. After this next item, I’m probably as popular down there as an adult toy…

Henderson is cracking down on adult toys. Now that every other problem in the city of Henderson has apparently been solved, there’s free time for quality of life stuff. Like sending CSI: After Dark down to the Galleria Mall to check out Spencer Gifts.

You remember Spencer Gifts, right? They were big in the 1980s, with novelty items ranging from the banal to the risque. And it’s the risque that has, ahem, aroused the interest of city business license inspectors, after somebody filed a complaint about the adult content of the store. City ordinance says if most of your merchandise is adult-oriented, you may be an adult store.

Apparently, a complaint was filed three years ago, but the store cooperated with its displays and everything was cool. But with the city turning away an application by The Love Store, more attention is being paid to adult items sold at Spencer’s. I’m wondering if I could file a Superseding Complaint, asking if we all can’t just behave like adults when it comes to adult stores. C’mon, Henderson! Look professional! We’re trying to get Harry Reid to move here! You want him going to Summerlin, where “adult toy” means a convertible Bentley? I didn’t think so.

Daughters of The Major Arterials. So, election night was fairly chill, but there was still a lot going on, so I missed the victory speech given by Democratic Congressional District 3 nominee Erin Bilbray. (She won 84 percent of the vote, BTW.) But when I read excerpts of the remarks, I had to admit I was a little confused. See if you can see why:

“I am a daughter of Eastern Avenue. Eastern Avenue runs directly through the heart of our district, and it’s where I was raised. It’s where I went to elementary school and where I went to junior high. I rode horses and captured lizards in the deserts directly off of Eastern Avenue. I played and picnicked at Sunset Park. My post wedding breakfast eighteen years ago was at my older sisters home, one block off of Eastern Avenue.”

All rightey, then. So I’m hearing you really care about Eastern Avenue, right? You know, I can really relate to this. I, too, have had a long and special relationship with Eastern Avenue. There was that time I ate at the In-N-Out on Eastern Avenue. There was the time I got some bagels at Einstein’s in the strip mall within sight of Eastern Avenue. And who could forget the time I rushed over to FedEx to send that urgent package to Washington, D.C. at a long-closed outlet on … you guessed it, Eastern Avenue.

So, what’s the point here, again? Bilbray continued:

“I know this district like the back of my hand. Its heart is my heart. Its soul is my soul. Its families are my family. When I see my neighbors struggle they are my struggles. It truly is impossible not to feel this way when your community is interlocked with your entire forty-five years of life.

“Eastern Avenue values are different than what you see going on in Washington DC. Eastern Avenue values are common sense values. We know when there is a problem we figure out a way of fixing it, that’s what I have done my entire life. …

“Unfortunately, you can’t say [incumbent Republican Rep.] Joe (Heck) relates to our Eastern Avenue values.”

OK, you’ve lost me. “Eastern Avenue values”? The only Eastern Avenue value I know is, when that light turns yellow at Sunset, go like hell because otherwise you’ll be waiting there a long time. But I have a hunch that’s not what Bilbray was talking about, was it?

Look, I get the desire to say you’re a middle class gal who can relate to the regular peeps (I mean, lots of people have dads who were in Congress, right?) and at the same time slam your opponent for being out of touch with those same peeps. But sometimes, a speechwriter comes up with an idea that just doesn’t work, an idea that should have died on a laptop and not surged from a printer. This, for the record, was one of those times.

But seriously, Eastern Avenue between the I-215 Beltway and Anthem is one of the few streets that the Regional Transportation Commission hasn’t totally screwed up. So that’s a good thing, at least.

None reigns supreme! I realize that I may have inspired some people in the Democratic Party to vote for “None of These Candidates” on Tuesday, people who might otherwise have skipped the race or picked one of the human candidates running. But I can’t take full credit. No, I must share that with the Democratic Party.

See, if the party had recruited a quality candidate, if it had trained a bench of people willing to stand forward and defend democratic principles, even if the face of a wildly popular governor such as Brian Sandoval, then there’d have been no need to pick “None.” But since the only real people who did run have as much chance of getting elected as I do of winning the Nobel Prize in physics, “None” was really the only option left.

I’m sure Robert “Bob” Goodman — the highest human vote-getter — is a really nice guy. I’m sure his heart is in the right place. I’m sure he’s got an idea or two about how to make Nevada better. But I’m also sure there’s no way he was the best the Democratic Party of the state of Nevada could do.

Hence, “None.”

See you next week!