"He's immature."
"She's a political opportunist."
"People see another Dario."
"The only way she can possibly win is to tear me down."
"He relies on innuendo and half-truths and outright lies."
TV ad: "Why has the Review- Journal called David Goldwater odd, inappropriate, and immature? Maybe it was his arrest for DUI for an incident on the Strip, or his restraining order from a bar brawl where Goldwater spat upon and punched in the face the victim. Could it be his rude and mocking comments in the Legislature towards a breastfeeding bill, or the Attorney General's investigation of Goldwater on charges of sexual harassment reported by female legislators? David Goldwater: not on on our County Commission."
Another TV ad: "[Lynette Boggs McDonald took thousands] of dollars from developers and topless bars before and after she voted for their projects. She refuses to disclose her tax returns. Is it because she is hiding thousands more in contributions to pay off personal lawsuits? That's highly illegal."
Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald wears a crisp blue suit, sits in front of a bright yellow wall in the November Inc. campaign office, smiles, and says calmly, "I don't feel anger. That's not an emotion that I'm feeling."
Reporters blink. She goes on. "... I have grown up. I'm a mother and a wife, and these things have prepared me to not have childish ways," she says. "... He has frequented adult gentleman's clubs. I've never set foot in a gentleman's club ... He knew these ads were misleading ... I call on David Goldwater to issue an apology."
That seems unlikely.
It's been called the nastiest local campaign, but surely there's a five-minute debate in that assertion somewhere, considering the whole sordid field.
At 34, Democrat Goldwater has 10 years of experience as an assemblyman and opted to leave to run against Republican Boggs McDonald for the District F seat on the County Commission. He's a hometown guy, a debate champ who graduated from Bishop Gorman and UNLV. His legislative highlights, he says, include sponsoring a bill to tighten regulation on the mortgage industry and backing bills to provide financial assistance to low-income AIDS patients and seniors who can't afford their utility bills.
"All I've ever wanted to do in public service is to do good, to improve life and make the world a better place," he says with a straight, almost morose face.
Boggs McDonald, 41, was an assistant city manager for Las Vegas between 1994 and 1997, was appointed to a City Council seat in 1999 and was re-elected in 2001. When Commissioner Mark James resigned last year, Gov. Kenny Guinn appointed Boggs-McDonald, who had switched parties from Democrat to Republican in 1999, to fill the vacancy.
She was born in Washington, D.C, was an Army brat, Miss Oregon and an Associated Press reporter—a graduate of Notre Dame University and UNLV. Her political accomplishments lie primarily in planning, she says—while on the City Council, she negotiated a deal with Howard Hughes Corp. to swap federal land for Hughes' 1,071 acres near Red Rock, providing a buffer zone to the park and prime development for Hughes. "It's the best planned area in all of North America," she said, referring to Summerlin. "I'm very proud of that."
Aside from making the world a better place and planning the best neighborhood in all of America, campaign exchanges between these two candidates also have included the following topics: former Republican lawmaker Sandra Tiffany's legs, drunken driving, credit-card debts, house liens, spit, home foreclosures, former employers, former roommates, bar fights, personal income taxes, the enjoyment of strip clubs—and the evergreen favorite, "growth."
Goldwater is far behind Boggs in fund-raising—he'd raked in a mere $224,000 to Boggs McDonald's $877,000 by the reporting period ending in August. The district leans slightly Democratic, though, and early voter turnout shows the Dems ahead, for what it's worth, although pundits favor Boggs McDonald.
Whoever wins the election will serve until January 1, 2007.
We wake up, trip over Bush fliers that have been slipped under our doors and check the morning headlines to see which local candidate have filed a lawsuit against his opponent or ex-wife for defamation, which faces new ethics charges, which just showed up from another state to run for an open seat, is having domestic problems, is shacked up with strip club owners, is in the pocket of developers, or has insulted a large swath of the human race with one inane remark.
Somebody's messing with voter registrations—who knows whether we'll even be allowed to vote? No matter, we can always file our own personal lawsuit against the elections department. Probably, we should vote early to accommodate that. Maybe—maybe—we'll end up winning damages for emotional voter distress. No on Question 3—lawsuit caps.
Officials' quotes assure us that Nevada's new electronic machines are models for the nation, so if a freshly trained retiree does indeed let us into the mall's voting booth—next to Victoria's Secret, across from Mrs. Field's cookies, both of which make me feel randy enough to vote Green, and that screams legal challenge—our early ballots iare bound to count momentarily. Disregard the hundreds of articles calling into question the integrity of other electronic voting machines. Or the ones about an unprecedented number of partisan attorneys vulturing over local polls hoping for glitches.
So the election looks solid. We head out into the free winds of democracy and are immediately stuck in traffic on the I-15—a situation that surely has something to do with the city's growth, which we all recognize is a local campaign issue but can't be sure exactly how it translates into a vote. Overhead, a billboard says, "It's almost my God-given right ... to act like an idiot if I want to." Perhaps there's some kind of contest going on for a new national motto?
The quote, handily, is attributed to Goldwater. Aggressive political move from his opponent, or ironic social commentary from the seasoned legislator himself? Assuming it's the Boggs McDonald campaign that paid for the billboard, and that the context of such a comment is absolutely irrelevant to anything, should we simply accept that Goldwater has proclaimed himself an idiot but decided to run for office anyway? Or that he has decided to run for office as a direct result of that realization? Either way, it gets me thinking. Why would somebody who's not an idiot want to go through a campaign? Is the lure of lording over the county budget so great, and the appeal of big-fish, middle-sized-pond fame so grand, and the level of shame so low, that it's worth it?
David Goldwater's office at Marco Consulting, a financial advising business, is extremely quiet and empty but for the receptionist. He's welcoming and polite and chooses not to sit behind his generic wooden desk but in one of two chairs set out for visitors. A man of the people. He's wearing a cream-colored button-up shirt with a mandarin collar that looks priest-like.
Right off, I inquire about the idiot quote, my fascination with which is starting to make more suspect who's actually the idiot. Goldwater gently puts it to rest. Apparently, and shockingly, the quote was taken out of context, which I scribble down furiously, noting that the given context was the clear blue sky, and the real context was a legislative debate in the late 1990s in which he was opposing mandating bicycle helmets for children. He thinks he said something like, "Anyone who doesn't wear a bicycle helmet is an idiot, but it's my right as a Nevadan to act like an idiot if I want to."
"In my tiny brain," he says to me, "all I could see was the SWAT team chasing down tiny children in the streets—what were we going to do, take them to jail?"
We talk about other campaign issues, things like personal memories of drunken driving.
In January 2003, he had just left the Hard Rock when he changed lanes on the Strip and hit another car. There were no injuries, but the police came and Goldwater was initially charged with DUI before the charges were reduced to reckless driving.
"I thought I had stopped drinking long enough before getting behind the wheel," he says. "It's something I regret and am embarrassed about."
I ask if, when the cops came, he saw his whole political career collapsing in front of him.
"No. I live in this town. It's one of those things. I didn't try to hide anything, I did the best I could ... No one's perfect."
We move on to the charges of sexual harassment. Goldwater, the one-time legislative roommate of fallen star politician Dario Herrera, allegedly showed a revealing picture of Republican lawmaker Sandra Tiffany's bare legs to other lawmakers, and later did something unsettling to another female lawmaker during the legislative softball game, and later still he reportedly cut and pasted a photo of another female lawmaker's face onto something pornographic. When I ask about the details of that last one, he says, "I don't remember." In any event, the state attorney general investigated and ruled that sexual harassment didn't occur because sexual harassment legally can't occur between colleagues in the Legislature.
Goldwater denies harassing any of the three Republicans and says, "I would never sexually harass anyone, ever."
The assault charge came from an incident a decade ago in which Goldwater says he got in a fist and spit fight defending a friend, and regrets that, too.
So don't you hate all of this mudslinging? I ask.
"This is the story I tell [about political life]," he says. "Sixty percent of the time, it's not so great. Thirty percent of the time, it's pretty good. Five to ten percent of the time, you're able to accomplish something that no monetary remuneration can ever make you feel. We're prostitutes for that small slice of the pie."
As evidence of the good, he says, he is most proud of state legislation he pushed that provided AIDS treatment funding that bridged a gap between Medicaid recipients and those who didn't qualify for Medicaid but couldn't afford health care.
"It occurred to me that two years later, these are people that might have been dead—150 to 200 people—if not for that legislation. That's the kind of thing [about which] you say. 'Wow, that's a good deal.'
"You go through a lot of crap, but it's worth it. Political life is just like life in any job, you take it appropriately seriously at the appropriate time, you laugh at other times."
With her bright-eyed campaign manager four feet away, Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald sits in the campaign office and swings away at reporters' questions like she's at a batting cage.
"I have never received any type of compensation from any developer. ... He knows these ads are misleading. ... Shame on him."
She's gathered media here to respond to Goldwater's accusations that she's on the take—a touchy subject after a slew of commissioners have been marred in G-Sting—and his insistence that she release her tax returns. She's threatening legal action if he doesn't remove his "slanderous" ads from the air, and she releases select tax forms: her 2002 and 2003 W-2 and 1099 forms showing income from the city of Las Vegas and Station Casinos (she resigned her position on Station Casinos board as she became a Clark County Commissioner) and her own medical consulting company LBM Consulting LLC. But not her complete federal income tax returns.
"If all candidates disclose their taxes, OK. But he's not asking for Oscar Goodman's or Kenny Guinn's taxes, he's only asking for mine," she said earlier.
Next, she counterpunches by distributing copies of a lien on Goldwater's house, raising issues of his financial integrity, and indicating that he lied when he earlier denied that there ever was a lien on his house—he said it was his parents' house.
She bats down questions about her husband's credit-card debt and whether she's used campaign donations to pay off their debt; she says she's never been sued for anything; she denies allegations that her house was foreclosed on, which may have indicated her debt was escalating and creating a heightened temptation to dip into the till. Regarding these allegations, she told me earlier, "My family fronted funds before I did any fund-raising. My husband I agreed we would not exceed $300 a month. When I finally did raise some money, I reimbursed money to my family."
I had also asked her about a Goldwater suggestion that commissioners be prevented from raising money until election year, to at least stop the appearance of quid pro quo voting—vote, get a donation, vote, get a donation—to which she said, "I am open to any reform as long as everyone is held to the same standard. That has always been my feeling all of my life, from a kindergartner who was involved in desegregation until now. Lynette wants to be held to the same standard as everyone else. So if all candidates do it, I will. If no one else raises funds for the first three years, OK."
Except for the jarring habit of referring to herself in the third person—"Lynette has always wanted to be treated equally"— her rapid-fire campaign talk is polished. Within minutes at the press conference, she has said Goldwater's ads are "slanderous and defamatory allegations" that show her opponent's "reckless, blatant and malicious disregard for the truth," noted once again that her opponent has "frequented adult gentleman's clubs," worked in an endearing mention of miniature golfing with her 9-year-old son, and is looking around the quiet room with a steady, hungry eye that says, That's all you've you got? Huh? That's it?
Indeed, Goldwater has charged that Boggs McDonald is so polished because she's a "political opportunist" who will jump at the next chance to run for higher office, noting her willingness to shift from being a Democrat to a Republican and a failed bid for Congress in 2002. She responds, "I would've been at the City Council right now had it not been for Mark James leaving. ... I'm not thinking about anything but the Clark County Commission. My hope is that my tenure here will exceed my tenure on the City Council."
In the campaign office, Boggs McDonald is asked why she's the best candidate in the race. She begins a stump speech about a long record of working for this community.
I drift a little. Just a tad. And when I come back, I'm asking that question again, that idiot question. "So, with a record like that that you're proud of, why run the idiot billboard?"
This is not a question that pertains to hard-hitting matters such as allegations of illegal money maneuvering, nor is it a question that pertains to the amorphous "growth" issue. But it's the billboard that, for me, encapsulates an entire election season, maybe an American era. It's my right—as an American?—to act like an idiot if I want to.
She pounds the pitch, reiterates something about him being immature and how it's related to his ability to do the job, and moves on. Her campaign manager, Ryan Erwin, said of the billboard earlier, "It was fun."
But doesn't this nasty campaigning bother you?
"Maybe my skin is so thick that it's become beef jerky," Boggs McDonald said.
This is not, of course, limited to political life. It pervades all of our lives. At home, I turn on the TV to get away from the roiling despair I feel about our lowbrow elections. On the tube, a woman is lying in a hospital bed, her head wrapped in gauze, her eyes black and blue, her reality TV plastic surgeon telling her it was a little more difficult than he had planned. I grab a bag of soy crisps and settle in. In the next segment, she's still wrapped in gauze and phoning her husband for support, but he doesn't answer. Probably working late. Later, the host tells us that she's having trouble staying committed to her exercise routine and may not meet her weight goal. In the end, an hour of my life later, she's deemed not as pretty as the show's other contestant and goes home a loser.
The winner is a gorgeous if assembled-by-factory beauty queen, but it's the loser who gets the last word before we head into a Levitra commercial. She looks directly into the camera over a stunning patrician nose and freshly stuffed lips, and says, "I'm a better person for having done this."
I get to thinking about her somewhat perverted notion of sacrificing for some greater good. I drift off on the couch, thinking of democracy as a mutilated reality TV show contestant. I'm grateful, so very grateful, she buys her own spin. Or this might not be fun to watch.
Although ever-present in headlines, the growth of Clark County draws heightened attention mostly when something goes awry, or when something threatens to go awry. Often, growth is a backdrop to all of our Vegas stories; too often it's seen formulaically: greedy developers versus earnest residents who want nice views of the mountains and no views of Wal-Mart. In this version of the story, there's sometimes the guest appearance of a politician to sell out his or her vote—a juicy, if tired, plot trick.
But the story of growth becomes a complicated art film with teeny subtitles when you get into complexities about economic diversification, jobs, wages, housing prices, infrastructure and environment.
District F includes much of the southwest Valley and Summerlin, an area where land values are steep and developers of all shapes and sizes have their eye on building everything from the neighborhood satellite of the Manhattanization of Las Vegas concept to enormous casinos to more housing, more housing, more housing.
So Goldwater accuses Boggs McDonald of being the puppet of developers. A group of Summerlin residents who swear up and down they are not affiliated with Goldwater recently sent out fliers accusing Boggs McDonald of being inaccessible to them and concerned only with developers. They cite her record as a city councilwoman.
"We were a little upset when a Strip-sized casino was going in, and she was not there for us," says Gabriel Lither, who ran unsuccessfully to fill Boggs McDonald's seat on the City Council, and heads up a group called Summerlin Residents for Responsible Growth. "She wouldn't meet with us. She was on Station's board of and it was 60 feet from her jurisdiction," Lither says. "We were very upset ...
"We eventually got to her when she was at a 'Strut Your Mutt' thing at a Summerlin park. We just approached her. I had my wife approach her, actually. [Lynette] is a very friendly charismatic person, she was very polite. She had a small black dog ...
"But I think there is still an issue. She wasn't there when we needed her before, so will she be there when we need her again?"
Boggs McDonald says, "Gabriel Lither represents the Summerlin fringe." If he represented the bulk of residents, she says, "He would've been my council successor."
Although Goldwater has labeled himself the slow-growth candidate, Boggs McDonald says her experience working with casinos has actually helped her in convincing them to consider the concerns of residents. In fact, she says, she got Rhodes Ranch developer Jim Rhodes to finally move forward with an elementary school he'd promised before doing more business."I have dealt with land-use for 10 years." Goldwater, she says, had "an election-year epiphany" in deciding that he wants to slow growth.
"The biggest difference is he's saying what he will do, and I can tell you what I'm doing right now," Boggs McDonald said. "What David Goldwater is saying is, 'I'm going to slow growth,' but the only thing that is not being implemented to control growth today, which I believe would have devastating consequences, is if we withheld the number of building permits," Boggs McDonald said. "We could say, we'll hold your permits a year or so that infrastructure can catch up. But who gets impacted? Say Donald Trump wants to build, it's not going to change his lifestyle one bit if we say to wait. But who gets impacted is the person who's doing the drywall or the the paint or other workers."
Boggs McDonald says that Goldwater "had his chance" in the Legislature—pointing to a 1997 article in the Las Vegas Sun that quoted Goldwater as saying growth in his district was not "on my particular agenda," although he served as chairman of the Infrastructure Committee.
Goldwater says he'll slow growth by insisting on more thorough infrastructure planning before allowing developers to build; he says that as a lifelong Las Vegan, he has the Valley's best interests in mind—he's worried about traffic, air quality, water.
"I'm running to slow down growth because at some point, the quality of life starts to decrease. I love to see it growing, but it starts to really affect things ... traffic is horrible ... education—there's nothing we can do about schools built for 800 kids that have 1,300 kids. And why don't I see a patrol car in my neighborhood anymore?"
I consider, as I'm talking to each candidate about growth in broad, bland terms, and listening to ads night after night that provide character assassination in micro-fine, if suspect, detail, that what seems to be growing right now in Clark County is grotesque antipathy.
David Damore, political science professor at UNLV, explains his take on nasty campaigning: "In general, across the board, a lot of it comes from lazy voters. That's a part of it. What's bigger is they [candidates] don't have to come out and say what they would do about the issues if they're focusing on negative campaigning.
"Voters, if they don't want to take the time to understand the issues, decide how they feel about a person and instead tend to project—if we see them being a sleazeball, then we won't vote for them.
"And the media likes the soap opera. It's not as exciting to report about positions on growth." I think, It's my right to be an idiot if I want to.
"So why do they want to be in politics that bad?" Damore asks. "There's a lot of secondary income in Nevada that comes with political office ... And it's an ambition thing; once you've got a taste of power, it's kind of hard to walk away from. You become an insider and the system buys you out and you lose touch, and it creates some degree of a political class.
"In that sense, it may be initially motivated by altruism but it quickly turns to power," Damore said.
Goldwater and Boggs McDonald both say they'd rather be discussing issues than nasty allegations. Time and time again, pronounced good intentions are bracketed by accusations of spitting and lying, stealing and cheating.
At home, I flip on the TV and pronounce that I've been doing way too much TV-watching and not enough solving of the world's problems. There's a teaser for tonight's newsmagazine program: "Do Republicans or Democrats have more sex? Cynthia McFadden investigates. Tonight on Prime Time Live." I settle in for the night.
It's my right to act like an idiot if I want to.