I started my political demonstrations when I was not yet 15 years old. In 1948, Hungary’s Communist government nationalized (confiscated) all parochial schools, and I transferred to a state/municipal-run high school.

Early in the school year, we were ordered out to “demonstrate” and celebrate the 31st anniversary of the Soviet Bolshevik Revolution. After roll calls, we were given signs with approved slogans and red flags. If you were not lucky, you got stuck with one or the other. The demonstration was stop and go, and after a few hours the “enthusiastic crowd” started to melt.

When supervisors were not looking, we peeled off from the marching column. The signs and flags were just discarded on the sidewalk.

This was the modus operandi of my subsequent demonstrations until my junior year in college.

In those “happy” years, many basics were in short supply, including money, food and clothing. Some demonstrators took home the red flags for wives or mothers to use as cloth to fashion boxer briefs. In the summer of 1951, I worked in a foundry as a summer laborer. When a worker was spotted in the locker room wearing a pair of red briefs, he was sure to be ridiculed. It is important to note that while all steelworkers were automatically made Communist Party members regardless of their wishes, only a few were really communist. In those years, refusal of a party-membership card was very hazardous to one’s health.

The cynical observation in the wonderful communist democracy at that time was: “Almost everything is forbidden, but that which is allowed is compulsory.”

During my undergraduate years, I was able to dodge most of the demonstrations with the excuse that my parents lived in another city, and I went home on the communist holidays usually associated with “spontaneous” demonstrations. I pretended to go home even when I did not.

There was, however, one demonstration I was most glad to attend. Fortunately, it was arranged on short notice so there was no time to prepare signs or take the red flags out of storage. That demonstration took place in early March 1953, when “the dear leader of the international camp of peace-loving peoples, our respected and beloved(?) father,” the guiding light of the international proletariat, etc., etc., Josef Stalin, died. All afternoon classes were canceled, and the students ordered out to the street to demonstrate and mourn the deceased leader.

Fast forward to 2009. Stalin had been dead for 56 years, and the U.S. started a dangerous slide toward a one-party dictatorship. In February, Rick Santelli of CNBC called on U.S. citizens to push back, similar to the Boston Tea Party. Tea parties were quickly organized in many states, and the first nationwide protest took place on tax day, April 15, 2009. That also marked the first day of my renewed political demonstrating.

I went to a small industrial city near my home and was very pleasantly surprised. The demonstrators were regular Americans, including many seniors and veterans, many unemployed younger people and hourly paid workers who got off work early enough to attend.

The crowd was polite, considerate, orderly and patriotic. The signs protested the poor economy, unemployment, the anticipated tax increases and the enormous U.S. debts. There were no incidents of any sort, no litter, in spite of the 500 to 750 participants crowding a comparatively small area.

The next two tea party gatherings were even larger, with one at least 5,000 people strong. There was no factual reporting, only slanted, antagonistic news items in the “mainstream media.”

I am very disturbed by the name-calling coming from leading politicians: “Astro-turfers” by Nancy Pelosi, implying tea partiers are rootless individuals, “tea baggers” by President Barack Obama (is he is aware of the original obscene meaning of the phrase?) and recently, “racists” by the chairman of the NAACP.

Those and similar terms are very disrespectful to seniors who spent a lifetime in honest work, veterans and everyone else who dares to worry about the future of our country.

May I respectfully refer our leaders to the First Amendment of the Constitution?

Published in The Signal SCV
August 2, 2010

In the months leading up to an election, it becomes more difficult for candidates to bring forward any policy discussion without it being viewed in political terms — and rightly so. I welcome this scrutiny.

This is the most important time for candidates such as myself, and my opponent for the office of controller, John Chiang, to engage in serious public-policy discussions.

As a member of the state Senate and as someone who seeks to bring change to the Controller’s office, I look forward to having a number of respectful policy exchanges between Controller Chiang and myself. To that end, a recent spate of court decisions has thrust Chiang and his policies center stage and serves as a jumping-off point to begin the discussion.

To be sure, Chiang’s consultants have adroitly positioned his defiance of the governor’s minimum-wage order and the courts as a wedge to galvanize his powerful political supporters and divert discussion from what many view as a failure to lead.

One prevalent narrative out there is that Chiang’s refusal to implement the governor’s executive order is nothing more than another example of a politician doing the bidding of the government employee unions that spent millions to elect him. While I think it is fair, given Chiang’s action (or lack thereof) for eyebrows to be raised at the vast sum of contributions to his campaign from the unions, for my part I see a colossal mismanagement of taxpayer dollars as the real travesty here.

If one takes Chiang at his word, that his office simply cannot implement the governor’s ordered temporary pay reduction due to systematic technical issues, then he is going to answer an inconvenient $100 million question.

Chiang asserts that his defiance of the governor’s order and the law are due to the fact that his 1970s-era computer systems simply cannot process the payroll.  I’ve known John Chiang for more than 20 years, I like him and I want to believe him. Unfortunately, more technology experts and those with firsthand knowledge with the situation are coming forward to say that his Chiang’s explanation is simply not credible (some say it is political jujitsu).

Enough has now been revealed that I think Chiang should offer an explanation for spending what experts say is $100 million on a computer upgrade that has apparently not taken place.

On the day that Chiang was sworn in as state controller nearly four years ago, his office was already in possession of appropriated funds dedicated toward upgrading the state’s payroll system. The idea behind updating our computer system for a situation we now face was brought forward years before and became known as the 21st Century Project.

According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, and as reported by The Associated Press, more than $130 million of taxpayer dollars have been appropriated for his office in order to upgrade the payroll system. In 2009, three years into the project, the LAO reported that the Chiang had spent nearly $70 million of this money, “with few tangible deliverables to show for this.”

Whether it’s $100 million or $70 million, the controller needs to tell us how he’s spent $100 million with nothing to show for it.

Finding waste in government is never good news for taxpayers or those of us working for reform. Unfortunately, it is not always difficult to find waste — occasionally, it takes something like this situation (if the governor had not ordered the pay reduction, would we know that the controller still could not comply or that $100 million had been wasted?) to bring waste into the sunlight, where it can be exposed.

All of us in leadership positions, which certainly includes by fellow state legislators on both sides of the aisle, need to redouble our effort to eliminate waste and inefficiencies in government.

The public rightfully demands accountability, and as elected leaders we owe it to them to make sure they get it.

Published in The Signal SCV
July 30, 2010

Presently, our nation’s unemployment rate hovers about an unnerving 10 percent.

May’s jobs report delivered the raw truth that the only flourishing sector in recent job creation has been the public sector.

A mere 41,000 private sector jobs were created, while public sector jobs made up 411,000 of the remaining new jobs.

Within the specter of those circumstances, along with looming higher taxes and uncaged deficit spending, Congress has proven as decisive and potent as Louis XVIII by abandoning the first order of righting one’s fiscal house: producing a budget.

At a time when defined national priorities and responsible, common-sense leadership are that without which nothing else matters, the majority in the House has decided to abandon its duties.  

With much of America’s front-page challenges clearly being economic in nature, it is the philosophy behind the abdication of said duty — and the subsequent fallout — that concerns me most. And that philosophy is nowhere more evident than in its toll on California.     

In this state, the Assembly and Senate have ventured to be all things to all men.

Sacramento has segregated nearly every cultural/age group into their own field of perceived needs and wants; and it has taken every perceived need and want and created a specific department of state government for catering to those perceptions.

In order to feed its benevolent dictatorship, Sacramento moved into our bank accounts by imposing a sales tax, a corporate tax, an income tax, etc. that are arguably the most progressive in the nation.

And as California’s population continued to grow, and consequently as Californians’ “needs and wants” grew, Sacramento needed more fuel. Thus, our bank accounts seemingly became Sacramento’s vault. 

Underneath such benevolence is the idea that the individual matters only in so far as the group matters, and that one groups’ “needs” must be shouldered by another.

Furthermore, it disregards the inherent and unique qualities that distinguish one person from another.

That is, it partially dehumanizes us and defrauds us of the joy and reward that individual uniqueness brings. 

That dehumanization and defrauding steadily sinks us into an unthinking and victimized mold.

Convinced that it — by nature of being in elected office — knew better. Hence, we become a mass of indistinguishable humanity guided the managerial state.

By all accounts, that philosophy has landed us in an untenable fiscal state. The cure: a different philosophy.

A philosophy that believes you should reward individual entrepreneurship and hard work with low income and corporate taxes, that you and I know our individual needs better than the managerial state, that job creation in the private sector is the way to ignite economic growth, etc.

With the state Legislature firmly in liberal hands, we need an advocate in Sacramento to speak for us.

The bottom line: As California Republicans, we need Meg Whitman. 

Whitman once said that it has been a long time since a conservative philosophy was applied to anything in Sacramento.

And we know that she is right because we see the results.

As Newt Gingrich, Darrell Issa and Tony Strickland have attested to, Whitman is the fiscal conservative who we need.

Not voting for her would be aiding in the further entrenchment of liberalism in California.

Ideas have consequences; thus, it is time for a set of new ideas or philosophy in the state capital.                  

Published in The Signal SCV
July 26, 2010

Like many folks in business, I learned a long time ago that I needed to hear the whole story before passing judgment. At first glance, many situations can appear one way, but the addition of hidden or non-obvious information can change the whole scenario.

I once had a male supervisor who was accused of making sexual advances on a female subordinate. These were serious charges that merited a full investigation.  

When we sat down with the female, she told us the supervisor had been “sending her dreams at night” and “sent a talking rabbit to give her messages.” No joke. The supervisor was an excellent family man with an impeccable record. Case dismissed.

Another time, I had to counsel two individuals regarding their disruptive behavior in our department. Both of them wound up going to human resources and complaining that I showed favoritism to the other.

The funny thing was, neither one knew the other was complaining. On top of that, one claimed that I had showed favoritism due to my “long military record.” Only problem was, I was never in the military. After a good laugh with HR, the incident was closed.

Good managers and leaders always seek complete information to fully understand a situation before acting. This avoids tragic mistakes with unintended consequences.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration seems incapable of learning this simple but important lesson. Time after time, the White House stumbles and bumbles, especially when it comes to race issues.

Recently, the Agriculture Department ousted Shirley Sherrod — director of rural development in Georgia — for making racially charged statements. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack reacted to the initial firestorm of publicity and terminated her employment.

Unfortunately, her comments were taken out of context since she was actually using the illustration to make the point that race should have nothing to do with decision-making. Vilsack and President Obama personally apologized to her and offered her a new job.

The Huffington Post reported that White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said “everybody involved made determinations without knowing all the facts.” Gibbs went on to say that he “largely blamed that on a culture in which ‘things whip around. People want fast responses. We want to give fast responses.’”

So, to the Obama Administration, good leadership is simply fast responses, not well-reasoned and well-informed solutions?

This is disturbing indeed.  

If this was an isolated case, it would be no big deal. But it isn’t.

When black Harvard professor Louis Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct by a white police officer last year, Obama immediately condemned the incident and criticized the police for the handling of the situation.

Once again, the president did not have all of the facts. Not only did Sgt. James Crowley ignore repeated insults thrown at him by the unruly professor, he attempted to withdraw from the situation peacefully. After repeated warnings, Crowley was forced to arrest Gates because, frankly, Gates deserved it.

Obama apologized for his comments and was forced into having the infamous “beer summit” in the White House Rose Garden to encourage reconciliation between the parties. What he should have done was berate a racist professor and commend an honorable and disciplined cop.

In comparison to the administration’s near-glacial response time in reacting to the BP Gulf oil disaster, one must wonder why some issues get slow and fully investigated responses while others get the “Gibbs Fast Response” treatment?

The answer is simple. It’s still about race. As progressive as the administration is struggling to appear that it has moved beyond this impediment, it is consistently showing itself to be mired in all of the old sensitivities and problems of previous administrations.

But what if it is not about race? What if this is a management style that has infected this White House and threatens to impact other decision-making processes that have nothing to do with societal and social issues?

A knee-jerk response to a crisis is a truly dangerous thing for the leadership of this nation. A leader that reacts before thinking and gathering all pertinent data endangers us all.

Let us hope that the behavior shown by the administration is isolated to race issues and not general governance of the nation.  

In picking our next leader, we need to make sure that he/she is imbued with the patience to gather all the facts before making a decision. 2012 can’t come fast enough for me.

Right Here, Right Now
Published in The Signal SCV
July 23, 2010

“The world is run by those who show up.” 

That anonymous quote is one of my favorites, because it conveys a basic truth that sends a message of great significance in our lives.

The premise of the quote is that people can be classified into two groups: Those who are actively engaged in shaping events to secure their own future, and those who are detached, content to allow the activists control their lives. I like to refer to those in the latter group as the “melancholy herd” — a sad band who often unwittingly allow themselves to be guided to places they do not want to go.   

It is simple to become a member of the melancholy herd. In today’s hectic world, with many tugs on limited time it is easy to “trust others do the work.” 

The problem with that approach is that minority activists have learned they can take advantage of such resignation of the masses to forward programs and issues that would otherwise never withstand the scrutiny of critical public examination.

A current example is the move by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board to impose a sewer-water-rate increase for Santa Clarita residents. The justification for the rate increase — which has been  adequately covered in this publication and other media sources in the past few weeks — is to fund provisions to remove chloride from our waste water before it is allowed to flow downstream.   

The control board cites removing chlorides from the wastewater as necessary to protect crops grown downstream that might be damaged by high chlorides. Yet there is no scientific basis for such a claim. 

What’s more, under drought conditions the incoming water our community receives exceeds the allowable limits imposed for the chlorides, which would make us responsible for removing chlorides from upstream sources.

The control board is relying on the apathy of the melancholic herd to make the proposed rate increases stick. The reason is that now that public notice has been given, the rate increases will take effect unless a majority of the property users protest in writing to the new fee structure. 

Most feel that a majority will not protest for several reasons. First, few will take note of the notice, discarding it as another annoying letter from government.  Second, many will go along with the proposal based on their notion that the board knows what it is doing. Third, environmentalists may feel good about an initiative aimed at clearing salt from the water. Fourth, those who look at their rate increases may convince themselves that the increases are below their threshold of economic pain and not worth the effort of contesting.

These attitudes would be wrong for a number of reasons. First, not to act on such an egregious fee assessment will merely condition the misguided bureaucrats to the ease with which the public may be manipulated. 

Second, the cumulative amount raised by the new fees will total hundreds of millions of dollars over the coming years, and such public money should be spent on more important projects than this quixotic endeavor. 

Third, there is no scientific basis that our discharged sewer water causes the environmental distress claimed. Fourth, though the assessment for individual homeowners may be small, for many businesses they will be huge.  

The assessment may not breach your economic threshold of pain, but it could put your favorite business out of business and could dissuade new businesses from opening operations in our area — which will hinder, not help, our economy.

To avoid paying the proposed fee increases, the melancholic herd will have to stampede to the side of activism. 

Fortunately, the mighty Signal has made that task easy. A protest form and instructions on how to use it were on page A12 of the July 19 paper. Copies are also available on The Signal’s website, the-signal.com.  

The forms must be submitted before July 27.

How easy is the protest procedure? Starting from scratch, I completed the procedure in six minutes, including addressing the envelope and looking up my property assessor’s parcel number, which can be found on your property-tax bill.  

Six minutes is a modest investment of time to attend to such an issue of import. Please do your part to help. Stop whatever else you are doing and do it. Do it now, because time is of the essence.  

For the sake of all of us, do it — Right Here, Right Now!  

Published in The Signal SCV
August 15, 2010

Who is Meg Whitman? Is she your typical bored billionaire looking to buy her way into office? I don’t really know, and quite frankly, I don’t really care if she spends millions of her own money to be California’s next governor. If nothing else, her money helps the economy, creates lots of employment and plenty of jobs in media and advertising that wouldn’t necessarily be there if a pauper like me were running for the state’s top office.

I know, without doubt, without equivocation, the alternative to Whitman is far, far worse than anyone could imagine.

I am voting for Whitman for governor.

The consensus is the Republicans will stage a stunning defeat of Democrats in November, and may win as many as 60 seats. The Senate is also in play and Republicans may also win the upper house. How will that translate into California politics? Uncertain. One thing is for sure, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are planning their assault Nov. 3 during the lame-duck Congress.

There is just too much at stake. California has too much to lose if voters send aging ideologue Jerry Brown back for a third term as the state’s highest elected official.

Is Whitman my first choice for governor? Is she the promised candidate I would have preferred to guide California out of this darkest of black holes? No, she is most certainly not my first choice. But right now, Whitman is the absolute best choice for governor.

Last week, she appeared on the controversial John and Ken talk show on KFI AM 640.

No sugar-coating this, Santa Clarita: Whitman had a “bad hair day” as she dodged and weaved verbal rocks from John and Ken on immigration, education and the environment. I am not going to dwell on some of her gaffes, but her position on the important issue of illegal immigration was, simply stated, appalling.

For instance, Whitman would not implement the highly efficient E-Verify system in California because, “It only has a 90-percent success rate. ... Send it back to Washington for improvement.” E-Verify actually enjoys a 96-percent success rate, according to the Labor Department.

Whitman is working both sides of the street to appeal to conservatives like myself, and to many in the Democratic Party who, quite frankly, aren’t too enthralled with the direction our state is heading.

I had a long heart-to-heart with local Republican activist Bob Haueter. He delivered some sobering information I needed to ponder before I started to rail on Whitman. Approximately 30 percent of registered voters are Republican; 44 percent are registered Democrats. The remaining 26 percent are considered independents or fail to state their political affiliation. Whitman will need to sweep the table on Republicans, garner some 12-15 percent of Democrats and win at least half of the independents to win this election. It’s a daunting task, but I believe Whitman can pull off the victory. After listening to Haueter and reflecting on his view of the California political landscape, I determined Whitman is my candidate for essentially two reasons.

Taxes
In the last month, California added $1 billion more in red ink. The state budget deficit is about $20 billion at the time of this writing. If Brown is elected governor, you can guarantee your taxes will go up. From sales tax to income tax, count on the out-of-control Assembly and state Senate raising every conceivable tax they can find to fund the wild out-of-control spending. If elected, Brown would  be a good Democratic lap dog and sign new taxes it into law. With Whitman as governor, she promises — and I believe her — to veto news taxes on arguably the highest-taxed state in the union.

Reapportionment
As you are all aware, we are completing the 2010 census. As a result, the Legislature will take up congressional reapportionment. New congressional districts will be formed. California will most likely retain all of its 53 congressional districts. The left in Sacramento will reapportion as many of those Republican-held seats and merge those seats into new districts. For instance, the highly conservative 25th District represented by Howard “Buck” McKeon  may very well be gerrymandered into a district that would resemble a Rorschach test, for sole purpose of adding as many registered Democrats to the 25th as possible.

The Pelosi-directed lame-duck House will instruct Sacramento to merge several Republican districts for the 2012 election. The Democratic Assembly and state Senate would create new Democratic districts, and an all-too-willing Brown would rubber-stamp his approval.

Whitman would not sign that into law, of that I am certain.

A vote for Brown is a vote for big unions — Unacceptable.

A vote for Brown is a vote for more spending — Unacceptable.

A vote for Brown is a vote for higher taxes — Unacceptable.

For those of you considering opting out of the election, I suggest you reconsider. An abstention is a vote for Brown, ex-Gov. Moonbeam. Unacceptable!

Right now, the race is very close; indeed, your vote will matter significantly. Vote Meg Whitman for governor of California.

Published in The Signal SCV
August 20, 2010

The opinions expressed herein are my own personal views. I am writing as a private citizen, and not as an appointed or elected official.

I'm still receiving a lot of e-mail about Obamacare. No matter how it has been repackaged and renamed by Congress, the Health Care Reform Act continues to leave a bad taste in the mouths of most Americans.

The original bill, HR 3200, contained more than 1,000 pages and was pushed quickly through Congress by the Obama administration, essentially before legislators or anyone else had time to read it.

A little scrutiny, however, revealed that Section 1233, called "Advance Care Planning Consultation," required health care practioner/patient counseling every five years, and annually if they became sick or were in a nursing home. The consultations for aging adults included living wills and offered end-of-life services.

According to subtitle D, "The provision by the practitioner of a list of national and state-specific resources to assist consumers and their families with advance care planning, including the national toll-free hotline, the advance care planning clearinghouses and state legal service organizations (including those funded through the Older Americans Act of 1965)."

Yes sir, pages 425-430 aroused the old folks, and derailed the steamroller legislation.

I'm curious about the definition of "advance care planning clearinghouses." It sounds like the same "farm" to which my parents sent my old dog Duke who could hardly walk and my cat Lucky who became blind and feeble. Rationing by any other name is still rationing.

The practioner is required to explain "the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice, and benefits for such services and supports that are available." Palliative care is lawyer-speak for making the person comfortable without trying to cure the cause of the ailment - in other words, a faster path to death.

On Aug. 19, 2009, the Catholic News Agency stated, "many have expressed concern that Section 1233 of HR 3200 gives doctors an incentive to persuade ill patients that assisted suicide is the best option."

Jennifer Popik, a National Right to Life ethics attorney, called it "extremely troubling that Compassion and Choices (formerly The Hemlock Society), the principal group that promotes physician-assisted suicide throughout the country, is not only aggressively promoting these provisions, but claims responsibility for the inclusion in the main provision. Section 1233 allows assisted suicide and euthanasia to be promoted as an option in the places where it is legal (i.e. Washington, Oregon and Montana)."

The language used in HR 3200 is so confusing that only a bank of lawyers, and ultimately the judicial system, will likely decide the intended meaning. It clearly goes well beyond the Constitution's definition of what the federal government's role should be.

Besides, Congress voted against dropping its own health insurance for HR 3200. That ought to tell us something.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that in a faltering economy with double-digit unemployment and Social Security, Medicare and social programs going broke that the establishment of a national health care system might be used by Big Government as a fix.

In 1961, when the Democrats were trying to force socialized medicine down our throats, Ronald Reagan said: "One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project."

No amount of media-driven pooh-poohing by the left has persuaded mainstream Americans that their fear of government-controlled health care is unfounded. Most of us can't fathom how another massive, intrusive government-run system will work when the others are essentially bankrupt.

Of course, the real drain on our economy is not our own senior citizens living longer than Social Security was designed to support. It is the government's apparent inability to stem the flow of illegal immigrants crossing our borders to take advantage of our social programs, free education and way of life.

What a whacky world this is! The federal government gives 12-20 million illegal immigrants access and benefits, refuses to complete the wall on our southern border and allows gangs and drug traffickers to invade our country. Yet, this same government proposes amnesty for illegal immigrants and "end-of-life counseling" for its own senior population. This isn't apples and oranges. It's just plain fruity.

Additionally odd is that for the first time since 1975, American Social Security recipients received no cost-of-living increase in 2010; all the while national legislators continued to dole out hundreds of billions of stimulus dollars to unknown entities.

While there is a multitude of fastrack-to-single-payer-health care system issues under the large umbrella of HR 3200, I have focused here on Section 1233. The bill has morphed into the less encompassing bills HR 3962 and HR 3590 (signed into law on March 23).

The ultimate goal of the progressive socialists, however, still remains to be the contents spelled out in HR 3200. Stay tuned.

Published in The Signal SCV
August 9, 2010

Trish and I packed up the family last week and headed up to Las Vegas for a week of basking in the sun and enjoying the strange people and sights in Sin City.

Vegas is a real study in contradictions — not unlike the Democratic Party.

On the one hand, the city brags about its family-friendly atmosphere with roller coasters, ice cream and circus acts. On the other hand, there are illegal immigrants in the streets handing out advertising cards for call girls.

We had never been to Las Vegas as a family, so this was a first for us. We kept the teenagers safely in tow as we went to the various activities. There is no way on God’s green Earth that we would let them out of our sight.

One night was Fremont Street with its tremendous light display. Throw in Queen singing “We Are the Champions” and $1 shrimp cocktails, and I was on cloud nine. 

Fremont Street is old Vegas, and you truly get the sense of what it was like in the early days with smoky casinos and gritty little eating joints meant only to serve enough food to keep you gambling.

Of course, what Vegas trip is complete without a show? We got half-price tickets to the Blue Man Group and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I’ll never think of toilet paper in the same way again. 

The shooting range was a special treat. Nevada treats gun owners with respect and not like criminals, like California does.

In Nevada, the Second Amendment still exists. Ammunition can still be bought and shot. Good guys have guns, and bad guys are scarce.

The buffet at the Luxor was a winner. A little secret: Go 15 minutes before lunch is over and the dinner foods come out.

That way, you pay for lunch but still score all the shrimp and sushi that you can eat.

The most curious sight, however, was not the truck billboards advertising hookers, the toothless lions at the MGM Grand or the human statues at the Venetian. It was the political advertising.

With an impending City Council and general municipal election, political signs were everywhere.

The signs were not the average run-of-the-mill signs. You know what I’m talking about. Around here, a candidate sign usually consists of a star or a flag followed by the candidate’s name. The name is usually in big, bold letters that announces MESSINA or STRICKLAND is running. Simple and straightforward.

In Vegas, each sign carries the candidate’s face in full color. Correction: It’s usually a shoulders-up shot that captures not only the candidate’s physical perfection but also their taste in clothing. Each sign is also 4 feet tall and 8 feet long. The size and preponderance of signs with properly coifed candidates staring at you is staggering.

The first question, of course, is: Why? The only thing I can come up with is that the typical Las Vegas voter is overwhelmed by pictures of comedians, showgirls and (ironically) lawyers on every billboard. Politicians must show their face to influence the voter.

The next question becomes: How much does this cost? I’ve only seen one local candidate, David Gauny, put a picture on a campaign poster and it must have cost a bundle. Full-color banners in large numbers in Las Vegas must come from well-funded campaigns.

I looked up what some Vegas candidates raised for their 2009 campaigns. According to the Nevada Secretary of State’s office, City Councilmen Steve Ross and Anthony Stavros raised $168,775 and $213,540, respectively. A losing candidate named Jennifer Taylor raised a paltry $30,976.

I then took a look at the excellent article written by Natalie Everett in last week’s Signal detailing the monies spent by our local City Council members. Marsha McLean spent $34,936, Laurene Weste spent $31,488 and Frank Ferry a paltry $24,945.

Ferry wouldn’t get elected dog catcher in Vegas for that amount.

This goes a long way to explaining why we don’t see Las Vegas-style campaign posters in our fair city. The money simply isn’t available to spend on gaudy campaign signs that emphasize looks and aesthetics over substance, style and leadership.
I hope that we never become a city that looks only at surface qualities of candidates. Folks, as we approach new elections in the fall, let’s strip back the veneer and look at who the candidates truly are underneath. 

In the coming weeks, Right About Now will dedicate itself to stripping veneer and giving readers an in-depth review of the candidates and issues. It may not be pretty.