The Message

Remember this? Let's take another trip to the Nevada progressive archives. First, let's stop at October 2010. Remember then State Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio's (R-Reno) huge announcement?

Let's now jump to January 2011 to note Senator Raggio's shocking exit from the Legislature.



When Senator Bill Raggio passed away in February 2012, we noted the legacy he left behind... And the legacy so many in his party wanted to ditch behind.

Seriously, this is what has me worried. Yes, Bill Raggio was conservative. Yes, Bill Raggio did use his budget votes as leverage to pass right-wing legislation. And yes, Bill Raggio liked to spend our tax dollars up north when they were really needed in Clark County.

However at the end of the day, Bill Raggio was always someone who was interested in making Nevada's government work. And not too long ago, there were other Republicans, like Kenny Guinn, who believed the same and demonstrated the ability to reach across aisles to keep Nevada functioning.

But last session, we were left wondering if a significant chunk of Legislature Republicans even wanted any kind of functioning government. And again, with Raggio gone, we had to wait for that Nevada Supreme Court ruling just to extend the tax deal that Raggio brokered in 2009. And with Raggio gone, what used to be a Nevada tradition of legislators constantly crossing aisles and party lines to get stuff done gave into California style "mortal combat governance".

Early this year, we were confronted by this again when another Nevada political legend, Former Lt. Governor Sue Wagner (R), decided to leave the Republican Party.



And she was soon followed by Neena Laxalt. Today, Neena Laxalt is following that up with a Las Vegas Sun op-ed that she signed onto, along with six other Laxalt family members.

During our journey, we have found a quote by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that best captures the essence of a core value that has guided us throughout our lives — the value of speaking up for what is right. He wrote, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

In the spirit of King’s words, then, we can no longer be silent as we seek to maintain the integrity of our home state of Nevada.

Therefore, we collectively speak up to support Ross Miller as the most qualified candidate to be our state’s attorney general. [...]

Know that our message does not originate from a Republican, Democratic or even family affiliation. It has to do with the most basic question all voters must ask themselves when they step into the voting booth, “Who really is the best qualified candidate for attorney general for the state of Nevada?”

Wow. So it's happening again. And this time, it's Laxalt family members rebuking the very party they once led. And not only that, but they're even having to rebuke one of their own as both he and the party have lost their way.

Four years ago, the party lost the late Bill Raggio as he and others endorsed US Senator Harry Reid (D) for reelection. Earlier this year, the party lost Sue Wagner and Neena Laxalt. Today, several members of the Laxalt family can't even endorse their own family member who's running for Attorney General. And to our shock, the Nevada Republican Party still isn't getting the message. What else will it take for the message to resonate with them?

Fringe Is the New Mainstream

Once upon a time, this was merely an oddball case out in a rural corner of Southern Nevada. Not all that long ago, hardly anyone outside the Virgin Valley knew who Cliven Bundy was. He was just the local outlaw rancher who was running his cattle onto federal property (and far beyond designated grazing territory) without paying his fees.

Once upon a time, this was merely a local embarrassment. But now, the Nevada Republican Party has taken up Cliven Bundy's (illegal) cause. And the Koch-topus has taken up this cause and broadcasted it on G-O-TEA media networks nationwide. And the entire world is looking at our state and wondering what the hell we're smoking.

Welcome to Nevada. In our state's Republican Party, fringe is the new mainstream. In this party, Sue Wagner is ostracized to the point of severing ties altogether while Cliven Bundy is celebrated to the point of being declared some sort of outlaw "folk hero".



However, it's no longer just the Nevada Republican Party. It's nationwide. #BundyRanch has been trending nationwide for nearly three weeks. And it's become the latest & greatest cause celebre for G-O-TEA politicians nationwide.

Just a decade ago, the Bush Administration would have used the "domestic terrorist" label to describe the Bundy Gang. But now that Senator Harry Reid (D) is employing the same definition of "domestic terrorism" that Former President George W. Bush used while he was in The White House, G-O-TEA media personalities are feigning "OUTRAGE!!!" while they spread more (already debunked) conspiracy theories about his alleged role in #BundyRanch.

Welcome to the Republican Party of 2014. There, fringe is the new mainstream. Since Sean Hannity has officially declared his undying love & admiration for Cliven Bundy and his merry gang of (fellow) outlaws, G-O-TEA politicians must follow his lead. And more importantly, since the Koch Empire is all in for #BundyRanch, G-O-TEA politicians from across the nation have been endorsing the Bundy Gang's calls for anarchy at gunpoint.

Once upon a time, the Republican Party was known as the "law & order party". Now, it's become the "outlaw & chaos party". Fringe is the new mainstream. And the crazier one sounds, the better chance one has of winning a G-O-TEA primary.

Simple

Just this morning, we had to point out the ugly reality of G-O-TEA politicians continuing to beat that poor dead horse. We just didn't expect them to celebrate it... And lie about it so brazenly.

Yet it happened. No really, it happened last week at the "Campaign for Life Summit" as anti-choice activists and G-O-TEA strategists discussed proper "messaging". And yes, they actually advocated using "compassionate" sounding lies to mask the War on Women they so eagerly want to continue.

So they actually took Pat Hickey's advice. What on earth are they thinking? Apparently, it's the same thing Texas Republicans are thinking when they claim women are "too busy" to care about equal pay for equal work.





So they want us to believe that women are "too busy" to care about paycheck fairness? And they want us to think that this would not be a problem if women were to just "negotiate more like men"? And they still wonder why Sue Wagner left the Republican Party?

Here's why: "Republican rebranding" won't make it go away. "Softer" rhetoric won't make it go away. And no, lying about it definitely won't make it go away.

If Republican "leaders" truly don't want their party to be bogged down any more by their War on Women, then they need to stop fighting it! It's just that simple.

G-O-TEA politicians can't just lie about their own record and expect their political problems to disappear. They decided to start the War on Women. It just sucks for them that most Americans don't care for it.

And no, slick new ads won't do the trick. Neither will sleeker technology. And neither will "soft" lies. It's not that simple.

The solution to their problem, however, is quite simple. It's their choice not to take it.

Wig Under That Wig

Pay attention, hunties. There's a reason why our favorite philosopher has said, "Do not remove your wig... Unless there is another wig underneath your wig!"

Now watch... And learn.



Since we all know reading is fundamental, we must ask this question: When did the "Disney Nickelodeon Meltdown Club" suddenly morph into the Nevada Republican Party? We can't help but wonder. And come on, there's no way we could have missed the hot mess on Twitter that managed to ensnare Ray Hagar and Jon Ralston!

So what happened? Once again, Chuck Muth is f**king it up. Apparently when he's not slandering people he doesn't even know, race baiting to new extremes, or simply lying through his teeth about The Education Initiative, he's "The Campaign Doctor".



And this week, "The Campaign Doctor" has been busy promoting his candidates on various shady corners of the internet. But when he started throwing shade in all the wrong directions, he turned out to be the one left in the dark. (Yet even in the dark, we could still see that bad paint job on that mug.)

And once again, we're left to wonder why the Nevada Republican Party allowed Chuck Muth & his cohorts to conquer the party and remake it in their own image in the first place. Once upon a time, it was the party of Kenny Guinn, Bill Raggio, and Sue Wagner. It was the party of #winning. And even though it was a conservative party, it was also a party that stood for some sort of sound governance.

But now, the Nevada Republican Party has devolved into nothing more than a crazy clown car circus. And gawddammit, grrrl, they can't even lip sync for their lives!

We saw again this week who their true leader is, so we're not surprised that there's still no @NVGOP rebuke of the sh*tshow Chuck Muth starred in online. If anything, they're reveling in it. But in putting on such a show, they forgot a critical rule of engagement: If one truly wants to impress the judges, one best not remove the wig... Unless there's another wig under that wig.

Drop the Kool-Aid

They can't say we didn't warn them. We did. In fact, we did multiple times. We distinctly remember this somber warning from May 2012.

[... W]inning elections doesn't happen by just demanding "purity" and throwing a temper tantrum when that doesn't happen. Believe it or not, temper tantrums don't win elections. This is something we often have to grapple with on the left, but now we're seeing this unfold on the right at a level that I've never seen before. [...]

Ron Paul's supporters care deeply for their libertarian beliefs, and they're set to accept nothing less than full fealty to those beliefs. But in pursuing complete ideological purity, they're also set to lose a whole lot of elections because they simply don't care about that stuff. This is why Nevada Republicans are in such dire straits. And it should serve as an important lesson to all the rest of us trying to balance ideological wishes with political reality.

Hey, we tried. It just sucks for them that they refused to listen to us. Instead, the Nevada Republican Party keeps doubling down on crazy.

We've said it before, but we must say it again today. Sharron Angle likely has more control over the Nevada Republican Party than anyone who's actually supposed to be a "leader" in Carson City or DC. As much as Brian Sandoval would like to deny it and John Boehner would like to hide it, that's the awful and crazy truth that we saw unfold over the course of this year. 

Never mind that Sharron Angle currently holds no elected office and has no official position with the Nevada Republican Party. She and her "TEA Party, Inc." BFFs have provided the ideology that's now the heart and soul of today's Republican Party. And as a result, many Republicans are still defending their crazy actions.

This is why we weren't surprised by the debut of the new Nevada Republican Party pre-primary endorsement questionnaire. This is also why we weren't surprised by the decision of Neena Laxalt and Sue Wagner to leave the Nevada Republican Party. And this is why we're not surprised by the newest episode of "Republicans Eating Their Own".

As the state and national Republican Party continue to fracture into "a million little pieces", Republican "leaders" keep trying to find hot new ways to put all those pieces back together. They've tried new technology. They've tried new "principles". They've tried "rebranding". They've tried "reinvention". And it probably won't be long before they try an "intervention from Jesus".

Have they ever thought about trying to quit their addiction to Sharron Angle's Kool-Aid? No matter how hard they try, no amount of meaningless cosmetic changes can cure the illness that's been caused by the poison they've been drinking for far too long. If they want to survive, let alone heal, they need to drop the Kool-Aid.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words.

Last week, we looked at the increasingly evident failure of the Republican Party's "rebranding campaign". Even as party "leaders" have attempted to "soften their image" and "change the optics" of the Republican brand, the 21st Century Know Nothings have been pulling G-O-TEA politicians in the opposite direction. And so far, it looks like the 21st Century Know Nothings have the upper hand.

Case in point: Sharron Angle. She refuses to go away. Instead, she's become the de facto leader of Nevada Republicans. And now that she's hawking a brand new voter ID voter suppression initiative, Nevada Republicans will have an even harder time trying to convince minority voters that they "care about all Nevadans" and actually care about earning their votes. Why bother with that when Sharron Angle can just prevent them from voting in the first place?

And that brings us back to Sue Wagner. Her departure from the Republican Party should serve as a wake-up call. Once upon a time, she was considered to be the rising star most likely to become Nevada's first female Governor. But now, she's just another example of Republicans' rebranding FAIL.

On Tuesday, Republican "leaders" were hoping that Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers' (R-Washington) "official Republican response" (as opposed to all the other ones) would help quell all the talk of their party's "rebranding" failure. Instead, it's been overshadowed by this Republican response.



Rep. Michael Grimm's shocking, violent confrontation of a reporter has not just turned the media's attention to Grimm's own troubled past, but also to the Republican Party's troubled present. This week was supposed to be all about the "new face of the party". Yet ironically enough, the "new faces" shown this week look an awful lot like the old ones we've come to recognize.

This week, the usual crew of "Republican leaders" are claiming their party is not trying to shove some crazed Culture War down Americans' throats, the critical mass of their own party continue to prove the opposite. After all, actions speak louder than words.

Troubled State of Their Disunion

Once upon a time, the State of Nevada elected its very first female Lieutenant Governor. Her name was Sue Wagner. And she had previously made history HERstory by working across the aisle on a number of issues affecting women & children during her service in the Nevada Legislature.

Unfortunately, Sue Wagner's political career was cut short just as it was starting to take off. Why? She was a victim of a horrifying plane crash near Fallon on Labor Day in 1990. Though she survived that crash and was elected Lt. Governor later that fall, her subsequent health problems prevented her from running for elected office again.

But now, Sue Wagner is making headlines and rocking Nevada's political scene yet again. How so? This time, it's for different reasons. And this time, it's due to the (failing) health of the Republican Party.

Just as President Obama was giving his State of the Union speech last night, the Reno Gazette Journal's Ray Hagar dropped this bomb from Sue Wagner.

Wagner, 73, registered as a nonpartisan voter a few days ago and said she’ll miss is voting in the primary election.

Wagner said she has grown tired of the GOP’s shift to the far right.

“I did it as a symbol, I guess, that I do not like the Republican Party and what they stand for today,” Wagner said. “I’ve been a Republican all my life. My dad was active (in the GOP) in the state of Maine where I was born. It was more of a moderate, liberal Republican Party.”

“It’s grown so conservative and tea-party orientated and I just can’t buy into that,” Wagner said. “I’ve left the Republican Party and it’s left me, at the same time.”

And speaking of the State of the Union, Republicans tried to spin away their own War on Women with a response from Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Washington). And how did that go? Let's just say that in the future, we'll probably be talking more about last night's other Republican responses.

And then, there's this "pre-buttal response" to the Republican responses from Former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman (R). She didn't even try mincing words when she described the troubled state of her party.

It's hard for me to phrase this politely. Sometimes Republicans think that just putting a woman up front means somehow that women are going to feel good about the party. It is not about the messenger. It's about the message. And until we figure that one out, while it's nice that we have a woman as a spokesperson, if the message itself doesn't get changed a bit, it's not going to work. But I think it is an attempt to say we've got prominent, articulate women, and she will certainly fill that role. And that's great. But that's not going to be enough to win over women at the polls. [...]

We should stop doing things like putting up another anti-abortion thing, and constantly trying to fight against the ability under the new healthcare law to provide birth control for women. If we really care about less government, let's get them out of the bedroom. Let's not say things like, “A woman's libido needs to have government there to help control it.” That kind of thing just reaffirms a sort of condescending attitude toward women.

Ouch.

Oh, and here's another big ouch. In 1990, Sue Wagner led the fight for Question 7, which sealed in place Nevada's abortion laws. And in 1995, national Republicans tapped then-Governor Christine Todd Whitman to deliver the Republican response to then-President Bill Clinton's State of the Union address. Would today's Republican Party allow such prominent roles for outspoken, pro-choice, non-"TEA" drinking women as Christine Todd Whitman, Sue Wagner, Dema Guinn, and Dawn Gibbons?

Both Wagner and Whitman remind us of the real problem facing today's Republican Party. And no, it can't be solved by simply tapping some woman to deliver one of the Republican #SOTU responses. (Nowadays, Republicans have several of them.) Rather, it's a severe policy problem in need of a serious policy answer.

Most Americans may very well soon forget what Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers said last night. However, it will be much harder for Americans to forget what Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee said last week about "Uncle Sugar", "libido", and contraception.



And why is that? Just look at what Republicans in Congress continue wasting their time on. And no matter how often they take to the media to deny their War on Women, they continue waging war on women by advancing extreme anti-choice policies. And they only make their own matters worse by provoking fights over issues like the definition of rape and working mothers.

Once upon a time, women like Sue Wagner had a place to call home in the Republican Party. Now, they don't. And if Republicans continue to ignore the troubled state of their disunion, they're doomed to make it even worse.