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Mar. 09, 2008
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Speakers play up outlook for GOP

County convention draws record crowd

By MOLLY BALL
REVIEW-JOURNAL
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Attendees at the Clark County Republican Convention on Saturday recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
Photos by John Locher



Gov. Jim Gibbons speaks Saturday to the Clark County Republican Convention, which drew more than 3,000 attendees. In an interview with the Review-Journal, the governor said in response to critics -- who have partially blamed him for Clark County's health crisis because he eliminated 10 health inspector positions -- "this is not something that is caused by the recent budget crisis. That's just a bunch of hooey."

Clark County Republicans held their convention Saturday, drawing a record crowd for a day of pep talks about the party's prospects in November and disputes about what the party should stand for.

"We've got a problem," Clark County GOP Chairman Bernie Zadrowski told the crowd of more than 3,000 at The Orleans on Saturday morning. "Everybody is saying 2008 is going to be the Democrats' year. Are we going to let that happen? No!"

Nevada Democrats have carved out an ever-growing advantage over Republicans in statewide voter registration statistics in recent months. As of the end of February, Democrats had a registration edge of more than 40,000 voters over Republicans in a state that has traditionally been split down the middle.

But speakers at Saturday's convention pointed to the efforts of their counterparts across the aisle as evidence that all is far from lost for Republicans.

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    • More than 10,000 people tried to attend the Clark County Democratic Convention on Feb. 23. But that event had to be stopped and the voting postponed when the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both believed they couldn't get a fair shake because so many people were turned away.

    The divisions exposed there will hinder the Democrats, state Sen. Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, told the GOP crowd.

    "Democrats tend to run a little bit more on emotion than on intellect, and that means they have a very hard time forgiving the other side of a primary," he said, to cheers.

    Once Clinton or Obama wins the nomination, half the Democratic electorate will be "too angry to show up in November," Beers predicted. "But that's not all it will take. It will also take all the Mitt Romney and Ron Paul delegates to support John McCain for president." A few stray boos could be heard in the crowd of the main ballroom.

    Romney got 51 percent of the vote in the Jan. 19 Republican caucuses, with Paul in second and McCain in third at 13 percent.

    Gov. Jim Gibbons, the day's keynote speaker, also emphasized unity, saying, "I'm very pleased now to tell you that I'm 100 percent in support of our Republican nominee, John McCain, for president in 2008."

    In an interview, Gibbons acknowledged that in his precinct caucus on Jan. 19, McCain hadn't gotten his vote.

    "No, I did not vote for him," Gibbons said. "But he is the most qualified individual that I can support based on his military background, his leadership ability, his understanding of the United States and most importantly, he's a Westerner."

    Gibbons has a marked disagreement with McCain on the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, of which McCain was the strongest proponent out of all the major presidential candidates.

    "I disagree with him 100 percent on supporting Yucca Mountain. I will never support Yucca Mountain," Gibbons said. "But there have been a number of other officials in the White House the last 20 years who have never stopped it or impeded it. It is up to Nevada to stop it, and we are doing it."

    Gibbons said he knows McCain well and last saw him during the meeting last month of the National Governors Association in Washington, D.C. "We had a long, sit-down talk at that point in time talking about issues important to not just governors but individual states," Gibbons said.

    Yucca was not among those issues, he said. "I didn't bring up Yucca Mountain to him nor have I heard anybody bringing it up to anybody else," he said.

    Prompted by an aide, Gibbons said he certainly would discuss the matter with McCain eventually.

    "The issue is getting John McCain elected and then working with him to stop Yucca Mountain," he said.

    A public health crisis in Clark County, where numerous health clinics have been found to be using unsanitary methods, has been partly blamed on Gibbons' elimination of 10 health inspector positions from last year's budget.

    Gibbons said he was "so very disappointed and so very ashamed" of critics "taking politics over the life and health and welfare of a lot of people that were harmed. This is not something that is caused by the recent budget crisis. That's just a bunch of hooey." He said investigators have found that inspections have been lacking for many years preceding his tenure.

    Gibbons also recently has faced rumors about his personal life; he has publicly acknowledged that his marriage is in trouble. He declined to comment on those matters when asked, saying, "It's just a private matter. No decision has been made yet. ... We're still in the process."

    Saturday's crowd was seated in three ballrooms, one holding the main stage and two others showing live video of the proceedings to the overflow.

    The attendees represented about 60 percent of the precinct delegates elected in January, a remarkable proportion. Most years it is less than 10 percent.

    Besides the speeches, the convention featured the earnest if tedious debate over bylaws and platform planks that is a staple of party conventions. In the end, the platform was passed and officers were elected to the county party executive committee.

    Gibbons wasn't the only politician Saturday to admit that McCain was his Mr. Right Now, not his Mr. Right Then.

    "We need to get behind our candidate," Rep. Dean Heller told the convention. "I'll be the first to say John McCain was not my first choice but he is my first choice today."

    Heller challenged the crowd to prove that "conventional wisdom today in Washington, D.C., is wrong. Conventional wisdom in Washington, D.C., says we lose the presidency."

    Heller got the biggest cheers of the day, a standing ovation, when he called for enforcing existing immigration law.

    Sen. John Ensign noted that of 35 U.S. Senate seats up for election this year, 23 are Republican-held, the most ever for one party. Ensign, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has the task of helping those senators keep their seats.

    "The Democrats are fired up, they're ready to go, the odds are against us," Ensign said. "That's exactly where I like to be."

    He decried Democrats as "a party that says the war is lost, that those sacrifices made by our men and women over there, we can't win that." He didn't refer by name to his delegation partner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who drew controversy last year for using the word "lost."

    Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., sent a video message but wasn't present at Saturday's convention. According to his staff, Porter spent the weekend at fundraisers in Florida.

    Standing in for McCain was Mark Shurtleff, the attorney general of Utah. He noted that Utah also went overwhelmingly for Romney, but reminded them that Romney, in his speech leaving the race, called for the party to come together to defeat the Democrats in the interest of national security.

    Shurtleff repeatedly ridiculed the opposition for their personal characteristics. "Barack or Hillary -- my apologies to the Baracks or Hillarys in the audience, but even their names sound liberal," he said.

    Referring to a Clinton ad that asks who is best suited to rise to a late-night crisis, Shurtleff said, "When Hillary gets the call at 3 a.m., the call is, 'Do you know where your husband is?'" And he pointedly referred to "Obama's fathers -- one was African, one was Indonesian."

    Clark County was allowed to send up to 1,970 delegates to next month's state convention in Reno. Historically, the county's delegation has never been filled because there were never enough people willing to pay their way to be state delegates.

    A record number of state delegates volunteered, 895, according to Zadrowski. Since that is less than the number allowed, they were all made delegates without an election.

    The next biggest Clark County Republican Convention, in 2004, drew about 500 participants.

    State Republican Chairwoman Sue Lowden told the gathering she has invited McCain to the April 26 state convention. But she got big cheers when she said she had also invited Paul.

    "I welcome you to join our Republican Party, to stay a part of this engaging conversation which is why we're here," she said to the Paul supporters.

    Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball @reviewjournal.com or (702) 387-2919.



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    spinnikerca wrote on March 13, 2008 08:23 PM: I wonder why she welcomed the Ron Paul supporters to the Republican party, but not the Mitt Romney supporters or McCain supporters?

    Are they supposed to be somehow less Republican?


    HaciendaMike wrote on March 10, 2008 08:28 AM: Ron: by your comment then, you also appear to subscribe to the inane belief that names themselves have a liberal or conservative sound. How shallow must you be to judge people by such a capricious and shallow standard.

    To answer your other point, I was snarking at the imbecility of Shurtleff's (and apparantly your) position. I don't judge people solely on their political affiliations, although in truth, I have found progressives to be on the whole, more intelligent, better educated, more compassionate, less hateful and better grounded in reality than the bronze age superstitionists who have taken over the Republican mob.


    ron wrote on March 09, 2008 08:54 PM: Hacienda Mike: Barrack and Hillary are also liberal by their acts and deeds, (not only the sound of their names). I feel sorry for you if you choose your friends based on their political orientation.
    Peter Rutledge: Calling Democrats 'dumb' is not hateful. Besides, theri positions really are dumb. Being angry with their bad political policies is not as bad as happily accepting them while our ship sinks.
    aksmith: Lighten up. Making fun of the democrap party is not really insulting considering the nature of a convention. Besides, the demoncats probably don't even realize that they, as democRATS, are being made fun of.


    Jordan Ross wrote on March 09, 2008 06:29 PM: This was not your father's Republican Convention. In keeping with Nevada's tradition of individualism, many Libertarian Republicans at the GOP convention Saturday challenged some of the more socially conservative positions on the party platform. And I certainly don't mean just the Ron Paul delegation. There was a surprising ideological diversity among the more than 3000 delegates in attendance. Traditional Republicans were there in force, no doubt. But Progressive Republicans and Libertarian Republicans of different stripes made their voices heard as well. Many of these delegates will meet again on March 18th to continue the discussion on the party platform. A party platform, that will not rock back and forth between competing factions, but one that will offer up the concerns of Republicans across the spectrum. Despite the understandable complaints of some, the interest level in revitalizing the Clark County Republican Party is higher than it's been in years. Jim Gibbons has started a Republican Renaissance. Being the catalyst to bring Sue Lowden to the leadership of the state party was the first step. And she in turn brought Bernie Zadrowski to aggressively take charge of the county party which he has done with the determination of a George Patton. Republicans should take heart and Democrats should take heed, the Clark County Republican Party will no longer exist just on paper.


    Michael wrote on March 09, 2008 03:40 PM: I don’t know which is worse, the bad reporting, or the bad facts. Yes, the Governor’s budget cut 10 health inspectors. However, who discovered the problem? The remaining health inspectors. How long has this problem been going on? Since at least 2004, well before the Governor’s term, which started in 2007. How can a responsible person even “partially” blame a problem that has been going on for 3-years before the governor’s term started. Remember, these health inspectors found the problem within a year of the Governor’s term starting. Perhaps the 10 health inspectors who were eliminated were not doing their job or this problem could have been discovered years earlier. Remember, the Endoscopy Center has not had a full inspection since December 2001.

    To me, 100% of the blame is on the staff of the clinics. They should all be charged with attempted murder and reporter Molly Ball should apologize to the Governor for even attempting to give him any blame.


    aksmith wrote on March 09, 2008 02:41 PM: I was there and found those remarks very insulting. I get tired of my party calling the other party the Democrat Party instead of Democratic. How would we like being called the Republic party all the time? It's just stupid. And the name calling is pathetic. If you can't win on the issues, then you won't win by doing stupid things like that.

    And when you spend and inflate like a drunken sailor, you shouldn't ever win anything. If Democrats are going to tax and spend and Republicans are going to inflate and spend, then I don't see that as a real choice.

    The turnout was great. And it certainly was not for McCain. I saw people sitting on their hands a lot when the speakers were trying to push McCain. But Democrats should not be so smug. The reason McCain is such a lousy candidate is because he's basically a Democrat ideologically.

    I find that Clinton, Obama and McCain are three of the worst choices I have ever had for president. And that includes Bush and his two opponents and Bush I vs Dukakis. These three are so economically inept that we may never get out of this inflationary death spiral.

    The convention went very well, considering what happened at the Democratic Convention and considering that the caucuses were so much bigger than they had anticipated. But we have zilch for a candidate and so do you. Whoever wins, we all lose. As usual.


    Fausto wrote on March 09, 2008 09:40 AM: "Can't we do better? We deserve better in our elected officials."

    Sorry, Erin Kenny and Dario Herrera are in jail.


    Peter Rutlidge wrote on March 09, 2008 09:03 AM: 1. Beers continues his divisive way of politics! Again, he call Democrats dumb. He has done it on his blog and he does here. Why is government at the elected level so full of hatred? Beers is a prime example of everything that is wrong with elected officials. Again the Republican value seems rooted in anger, hate ans being at war with someone; "us versus them"; with us or against us.

    2. Utah's AG Surtleff is no better. How sophmoric is it to use high school teasing of names to ridicule candidates for the office of President of the United States of America?! I wonder why he came to LV? His State is suing us over water in White Pine County and contesting our proposed new coal plants.

    3. Heller; 13 months on the job and he has sponsored or co-sponsored $23,000,000 in pork earmarks. Ensign; $435,000,000 in earmarks! And THESE guys are financial conservatives?

    Can't we do better? We deserve better in our elected officials.


    HaciendaMike wrote on March 09, 2008 08:12 AM: Referring to Senator Ensign's comment:

    Considering both the Democratic edge in registration in the state and the 3+ to 1 attendance gap representing roughly 150% of the Democratic precinct delegates, Senator Ensign is going to be "exactly where he likes to be" for the rest of his career until he gets voted out of office in a Nevada which gets more blue , next time he's up for recall.

    * * *

    Regarding Mark (of Cain?) Shurtleff's comment about liberal sounding names, is there some kind of official list so I can know what names to favor or avoid if I ever have a kid?

    Mark ought to do us all a favor and post the list on the GOP/McCain website. It'll be such a timesaver to know which friends to make based on the political tenor of their names, and not spend the effort on trying to figure them out by their actual statements and deeds.

    Hmmm, let's see, is Adolf liberal or conservative sounding? What about Jesus? How 'bout Sherman?


    Nicholas D wrote on March 09, 2008 03:56 AM: Our Convention went Great...I want to congratulate our chairman Zadrowski; he did a excellent job keeping order and I enjoyed every minute of it. The best speech had to have been Congressmen Heller, I was inspired as a Republican. My only complant was that I didn't get the number of the cute lady who sat next to me (with the knee high boots) I liked your values and what you stood for as a Republican :)

    --Nick D