“The heat is on, the heat is on. The heat is on, it’s on the street.” — Glenn Frye
This is something you see only in the Republican party, which in this day and age has become the island of broken toys. You are only too painfully familiar with Paul Gosar, whose family has valiantly come forward again and again as he runs for reelection and explains that the man is mentally ill. Now Gosar has a doppelganger in neighboring Nevada, although his family is not complaining about his mental illness, rather his character.
Adam Laxalt is basically a carpetbagger, who has “leveraged and exploited the family name” to get ahead in politics and that’s not coming from me. That’s coming from the mouths of his own flesh and blood. Nevada Independent:
Fourteen members of Republican Senate candidate and former Attorney General Adam Laxalt’s family announced Wednesday that they would collectively endorse his Democratic opponent, incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, in the heated race for Nevada’s U.S. Senate seat.
The three-page letter, obtained by The Nevada Independent, does not mention Laxalt by name or his Senate campaign, focusing instead on praising Cortez Masto. That includes her positions on women’s issues, opposition to a proposed federal mining tax, public land preservation and her record as the state’s attorney general from 2007 to 2015.
“We believe that Catherine possesses a set of qualities that clearly speak of what we like to call ‘Nevada grit,’” the letter said, adding that “no further comments will be made, as we believe this letter speaks for itself.”
The letter is lovely, the kind of tribute that would bring tears to the eyes of any public servant. Hit the link to the Nevada Independent and read it in full.
Back to Laxalt, this is the second time that family members have come out to discourage people voting for him. The last time was in 2018, when he ran for Governor of Nevada. Now we move from Paul Gosar to shades of J.D. Vance — again, coming from the mouths of his own family. Reno Gazette-Journal:
The decision to write this column has not been an easy one for us. We are writing as members of the Laxalt family who have spent our lives in Nevada, and feel compelled to protect our family name from being leveraged and exploited by Adam Laxalt, the Republican candidate for governor.
[…] Over the years, we’ve always supported our family, even when we haven’t always agreed with them or their politics. But as this Election Day nears, we feel compelled to speak publicly about why we believe that Adam Laxalt is the wrong choice for Nevada’s governorship.
There are many specific, well-documented reasons why we believe this to be the case.
First, for those of us who were actually raised in Nevada, it’s difficult to hear him continue to falsely claim that he was raised in Nevada or has any true connections to Nevadans. The simple fact is that while he may have been born in Reno, he left as an infant and was raised on the East Coast, 3,000 miles away, in Washington, D.C., and moved here only in 2013, only one year later launching his political career. Aside from the occasional short visit, Adam never knew the state or its people. Perhaps if he had, he would stand for Nevada’s values rather than for those of his out-of-state donors.
Ouch. And it gets worse.
An example: Recently, Adam held his “Basque Fry,” a fundraiser that he has put on over the last several years in Gardnerville. This event perfectly captures the Adam Laxalt candidacy: the phoniness of the setting and costumes, the pretense of folksiness used as a prop for Washington power players like Kellyanne Conway and Devin Nunes. [emphasis mine]
In a promotional video from the event, Adam is dressed in a “western” shirt monogramed with his campaign logo, “work” boots and jeans that look like they were ordered off Amazon the week before. An orange tractor is placed prominently behind the stage, which is decorated with hay bales. All this careful arrangement is meant to project an image of authenticity, of a deep family tie to Nevada and its history. But it’s all fake, all props paid for by someone else.
And it gets worse, still. You can’t make this up.
His brief experience as a practicing lawyer was described as a “train wreck” by members of his own firm. His tenure in the attorney general’s office has been little more than a four-year publicity tour for his current campaign for governor — in fact, he outsourced jobs in the AG’s office to out-of-state lawyers who were given special exemptions to practice law in Nevada.
Then, with the help of his outsourced entourage, Adam proceeded to undermine, time after time, not only twice-elected Governor Brian Sandoval, but the welfare of all Nevadans. Most concerning are the ethical shortcomings that have come to light while Adam has been attorney general, and his willingness to ignore the law for self-serving political purposes. In his short time in public office, Adam has already demonstrated a servitude to donors and out-of-state interests that puts their concerns ahead of real Nevadans’.
If he responds to this column at all, it will probably be to say that he hardly knows the people writing this column. And in many ways that would be true. We never had a chance to get to know him, really — he spent his life in Washington, D.C., while we lived in Northern Nevada and grew up in public schools and on public lands. He moved to Nevada in 2013 so that he could lean on the reputation of a family that he hardly knew while tapping into support by donors who had no interest in our state or its people.
It’s worth saying that this column isn’t about politics. We would be proud to have a Laxalt running for office on Nov. 6, regardless of whether they were Republican or Democrat or independent, so long as we believed that they would be good for Nevada. We’re writing because we care about Nevada and because we know the truth about this candidate. We think that you should, too.
One final note about Adam Laxalt: He lied to the State Bar when he was getting his license to practice law. Reno Gazette-Journal:
Republican governor candidate Adam Laxalt should’ve disclosed all of his arrests on his initial application to practice law in Nevada.
That’s according to attorneys with the State Bar of Nevada, the public corporation that regulates Nevada attorneys. They say Laxalt, now the state’s top law enforcement officer, was required to divulge his 1996 juvenile arrest on suspicion of assaulting a police officer.
Laxalt last month told the Reno Gazette Journal that he told the bar about a 1997 DUI arrest, but was not required to report the 1996 incident.
Brian Kunzi, the bar’s director of admissions, disagreed.
More:Records show Adam Laxalt was arrested for allegedly assaulting a police officer as a teen
Laxalt was a juvenile delinquent and a teenage alcoholic, who decided to go into a rehab facility when he was 18. His legal career was described as a train wreck, but now he wants to go to Washington and make laws.
The guy’s a mess, but be that as it may, he could also shoot somebody in the middle of 5th Avenue and the GOP would be fine with it, just fine. They just want to flip one senate seat and right now this race is under hot scrutiny. Look at the clown car of candidates running for U.S. Senator: J.D. Vance, Adam Laxalt, Herschel Walker, Mehmet Oz, Blake Masters. This is the best talent they’ve got.
You know, a lot of families would try to profit and such off of another family member’s entry into politics and if the member gets elected many families would do everything possible to profit off of their family member’s political office. Who’da thunk right?
Question: did he actually decide to go into rehab (as opposed to being forced by some means)? Has he been sober since (or is the reason his legal career was a “train wrek” because he hasn’t?) Because, if it was his decision to undergo rehab, and if he has been sober/clean since, that’s not a negative, that’s a positive.
I speak as the wife on an alcoholic who, knowing that his impules control was virtually non-existent (at least in part due to TBI), decided on his own to voluntarily go on daily Antabuse in order to stay sober. Don’t get me wrong – my guy’s not perfect, and Laxalt is clearly a POS – but that detail just may not be part of the evidence for his being a POS.