Not so many decades ago, party \u201cinsiders\u201d chose their nominees for various public offices in conventions.<\/p>\n
Some people complained this led to \u201ccronyism.\u201d Sometimes it did. But while the \u201cparty bosses\u201d in those \u201csmoke-filled rooms\u201d might place loyalty to them and their party\u2019s political philosophy (sometimes boiling down to little more than \u201cmore jobs for our guys\u201d) over brilliance and innovation, at least they knew the nominee had to be able to handle the basic requirements of the office, that total weirdness or incompetence was bound to reflect back on their gang and its continued viability.<\/p>\n
Today, individual voters casting ballots in \u201canyone can file\u201d primaries have more say. On the other hand, they seldom know much more about down-ballot nominees than who has the prettiest yard signs. The \u201cparty nomination\u201d that once at least told us the nominee had been \u201cvetted\u201d — served an apprenticeship, interviewed face-to-face by SOMEONE — is essentially gone.<\/p>\n
This fall, many voters are kicking themselves that they were duped into believing Barack Obama\u2019s \u201cpost-racial, post-partisan\u201d rhetoric. What they got was a windbag campaigner who travels overseas to promote Islam and apologize all over himself for America\u2019s supposed misdeeds, a political neophyte with about as much sophistication about what makes an economy work, what leads entrepreneurs to go out and create jobs, as an enthusiastic college freshman coached by his Marxist college professor to wax ecstatic over Herbert Marcuse, Franz Fanon, and Jean-Paul Sartre.<\/p>\n
In short, a guy you wouldn\u2019t trust to run an ice cream parlor without adult supervision.<\/p>\n
Those voters are going to march to the polls and throw the Democrats out. Which is fine by me.<\/p>\n
When it comes to sinking beneath the waves in company with their Federal Reserve\/Goldman-Sachs \u201cfinancial advisers\u201d rather than give up their death grip on the same \u201cWashington-on-the-Moskva\u201d Keynesian \u201cstimulus\u201d economics that extended the Great Depression from 1930 to the mid 1940s, I think today\u2019s Democrats are at least 40 percent worse than the George Bush\/McCain Republicans, who were already well on their way to turning the once esteemed U.S. dollar into worthless wallpaper.<\/p>\n
Except for the fact that, for some reason, Nevada\u2019s office of Clark County treasurer is a partisan one. And our incumbent treasurer, Laura Fitzpatrick, who\u2019s done such a competent job that she drew no \u201cname opposition,\u201d is a Democrat — an \u201cincumbent Democrat,\u201d no less.<\/p>\n
So a certain number of voters will go to the polls this November and vote for the fellow who spotted an empty slot on the ballot and filed to be her GOP challenger, one Mike \u201cDoc\u201d Javornicky.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s one every year, but this candidate truly takes the cake.<\/p>\n
Two members of the Review-Journal editorial board chatted with Mr. Javornicky over the phone on Sept. 3. Asked for his qualifications, he described a wide-ranging career, working on oil rigs in the \u201960s and \u201970s, then on a GM assembly line. He even had his own carpet company in Ohio, before moving here to launch a similar venture, which seems to have gone by the boards.<\/p>\n
All perfectly respectable forms of employment, though none would seem particularly targeted at qualifying one to handle, disburse and account for millions and millions of dollars in county tax receipts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are you running for this particular office?\u201d I asked Mr. Javornicky.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not too demanding,\u201d he replied. \u201cIt\u2019s not a tough one, you don\u2019t have to be there every minute.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you\u2019re looking at this basically as a retirement job?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019d put it that way. But as long as you\u2019ve got a good deputy, you don\u2019t have to be there all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
We asked whether the challenger is unhappy with the way the office is being handled at present. He replied with a hard-to-characterize stream of consciousness discussion of mandatory auto insurance. I got the clear impression Mr. Javornicky believes the county treasurer is responsible for requiring all Nevadans to carry auto insurance — in fact a state legislative mandate. My notes show he asserted \u201cIf I was county treasurer you would not have to buy auto insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, I can\u2019t find any constitutional justification for the state to require anyone to buy insurance, either. The state mandate that one buy \u201ccoverage\u201d for every vehicle is particularly absurd, since it\u2019s the driver who\u2019s actually insured, no matter what vehicle he drives — something the car rental companies hate for you to know.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not even sure operating one\u2019s own motor vehicle on the tax-funded roads — as opposed to hauling passengers or freight for hire — is an activity subject to any legitimate \u201clicensing\u201d authority.<\/p>\n
But these still aren\u2019t things the county treasurer can change. So there was some head-shaking and a few puzzled frowns on our end of the line, by this time.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd why should voters believe you would be a better choice for the job than the incumbent, Laura Fitzpatrick?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh,\u201d Mr. Javornicky replied, \u201conly the tradition going back for centuries, that it\u2019s a job that ought to be done by a man. Traditionally your county treasurer was a man with a whip and a mustache who would kick down the door and make them pay up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pause.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd as you travel around on the campaign trail, you\u2019re bringing that up — that it\u2019s not a woman\u2019s job?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh sure,\u201d Mr. Javornicky replied. \u201cAnd more than 50 percent of the women agree with me!\u201d<\/p>\n
If the voters choose to examine Mr. Javornicky\u2019s credentials and elect him in place of their current incumbent — a competent professional financial officer untouched by any scandal — that\u2019s their right. I guess.<\/p>\n
Throw some bums out, by all means. But if you were planning to \u201cvote a straight Republican ticket,\u201d I need you to practice this statement:<\/p>\n
Clark County and all its far-flung associated jurisdictions collect and spend somewhere on the order of 4.6 to 6.5 billion dollars per year — \u2018billion\u2019 with a \u2018b\u2019 — some of it from me. And I can sleep soundly at night knowing this money will be safe under the supervision and control of newly elected County Treasurer Mike \u2018Doc\u2019 Javornicky, who at least promises \u2018not to be there all the time.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Not so many decades ago, party \u201cinsiders\u201d chose their nominees for various public offices in conventions. Some people complained this led to \u201ccronyism.\u201d Sometimes it did. But while the \u201cparty bosses\u201d in those \u201csmoke-filled rooms\u201d might place loyalty to them and their party\u2019s political philosophy (sometimes boiling down to little more than \u201cmore jobs for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[39,34,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2010-election","category-nevada","category-taxation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pWqFl-9t","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=587"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":590,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587\/revisions\/590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}