Reno Gazette-Journal editorial damns Gov. Guinn with faint praise: "Guinn's next term needs leadership...It’s arguable that the gaming industry would not have proposed a gross receipts tax that would dig into its own pockets if Neal had not been calling for increased gaming taxes."

       HAPPIEST OF HALLOWE'ENS — The Reno News & Review, the feisty northwestern Nevada alternative weekly newspaper, endorsed Sen. Neal for governor in its Thursday, October 31, edition. A big thanks to the RNR guerrilla journalists.

Joe Neal for Governor
Nevada has only one political party
    By Tom Wilson

       The Nevada news media have achieved something thought impossible in a modern, industrialized nation — They disappeared the Democratic Party candidate for governor from almost all news reports. In northern Nevada, perhaps half the electorate cannot name the Democratic candidate, State Sen. Joe Neal of North Las Vegas. Without adequate information, voters cannot rationally decide who to favor at the polls. Thus, Nevada maintains only the illusion of democracy.

Tom Wilson is a retired journalist who resides in Carson City, Nevada.

State Sen. Terry Care, Nevada's Democratic Party chairman, led the drive to abandon Neal, the candidate voters duly nominated for governor in the primary election. Neal's mortal sin has been to urge fair taxation of casinos during his three decades of legislative service. One could make a cogent argument that Chairman Care and his lackeys should resign for damaging their own party and its under-funded candidates. They freed Gov. Kenny Guinn , the darling of the gamblers, to donate big chunks of his $3 million plus campaign trove to Republican assembly and senate candidates.

At the state party convention last spring, Care and the Democratic leadership, used rudeness to convince Tierney Cahill, a Reno teacher, to withdraw from the race for Congress. Cahill made a surprisingly strong showing against the near invulnerable Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., two years ago. Thanks to Care, Gibbons now faces an even lesser-known Democratic opponent, Travis Souza, and a few third-party regulars.

Cahill shares a fatal flaw with Neal. She believes in Democratic Party values. The state party leadership doesn't.. Rep. Gibbons can now join Gov. Guinn in funding Republican candidates for the legislature. Care may have paved the way for a Republican takeover of both houses of the state legislature.

In Nevada, an overwhelming campaign chest all but guarantees a candidate's election.

Care left Democrats in many districts with DINO--Democrats In Name Only--candidates. In the Carson City Assembly District 40, the party expects Democrats to rally around Stacie Wilke, a casino manager. George Dini, a casino owner, is the Democratic assembly candidate in the adjoining Carson-Lyon district. Casinos are moving from financing campaigns to direct rule.

In the past, the Las Vegas dailies assigned reporters to accompany major party nominees during the general election season. Daily reports kept the public thoroughly informed. The Associated Press picked up their stories and sent them to Reno. Generally, the Reno daily employed an experienced political editor who made sure vital issues were covered. None of that is happening this year. Under-informing the public benefits a newspaper's bottom line profit margin in the short term. It is deadly for the public's long-term welfare.

Nevada levies the world's lowest gambling taxes. Of this revenue, the state shovels back to the casinos one dollar in three in the form of corporate welfare. As Gov. Guinn pole axes social welfare programs, casino corporate welfare remains off the table.

That's why Neal supporters insist Nevada has only one political party: the casino party.

Carson City activist Tom Wilson's guest editorial appeared in the 10-24-2002 Reno News & Review.


Neal is right on raising gaming tax

To the editor:

Gov. Kenny Guinn states that raising cigarette and alcohol taxes will not hurt tourism.

"People are not going to stop drinking and smoking ..." he said in the Oct. 17 Review-Journal.

Does the governor believe that raising the gaming tax would hurt tourism, or that people would stop gambling?

The governor is correct in his assessment that we "are in a very, very fragile position and (he's) got to do something."

But it appears Democratic candidate Joe Neal would do something -- by raising the gaming tax. Apparently he is the only one around with sufficient intestinal fortitude (guts) to advocate such a proposal -- one which would solve Nevada's financial mess.

C.J. SMITS
Las Vegas

The above letter appeared in the Oct. 24, 2002, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Joe versus the Donkey
  "Any Nevadan worth his dice ought to take a chance on this longshot"

Winnemucca, Nev. -- Democratic gubernatorial candidate Joe Neal has finally met the soldiers hiding inside the giant Trojan donkey known as the Nevada Democratic Party and they don't seem to like him. These arrogant Donkey-men can't even honor the voters of their own party by supporting the duly-elected Neal -- winner of his party's primary.

Commentary by Gary Begin, Editor Humboldt Sun Sept. 17, 2002

What has Neal done to upset the party elite?

Is it because he is a black man?

Is it because he actually had the chutzpah to run for office in the first place against a popular Kenny Guinn?

None of the above. It is because Joe Neal has said some negative things about the casino industry.

Bad Joe, bad Joe. Now the wrath of the big money casino lobby has let it be known that Neal is persona non grata at their craps table.

He violated a major tenet of Nevada politics: Thou shalt not badmouth gambling...ever.

Poor Joe, poor Joe. He can't raise a warchest to campaign with to fight Gov. Guinn's $2 million. Joe has peanuts, better suited to feeding GOP elephants than donkeys.

(U.S. Sen.) Harry Reid, D-Nev., has shunned Joe. The major Dems and GOP'ers get their money from the casino lobby -- a major reason why they are against the Yucca Mountain project by the way -- but Joe, poor Joe... Joe won't toe the line and is thusly shunned.

Any Nevadan worth his dice ought to therefore take a chance on this longshot of a Neal victory come November.

That's right. Vote Neal in November. I will. It takes guts to buck the easy money lobbyists and Neal's got it.

It'll take guts to lead this state into a more diversified economy than to just rely on casinos visiting gamblers.

Hasn't anyone noticed how states nationwide are advertising gambling junkets to their new Indian casinos or to special ships and barges conveniently parked on lades and rivers and coastlines all over America to stimulate their economies?

Call me Lucille, but every state will be offering enticing packages and be drawing away revenue from Nevada.

Maybe Joe Neal is the only one with enough gutes to say the truth: The emperor is naked (and the textile factory has been moved to Mexico.)
____________
Gary Begin is editor of the Winnemucca, Nev., Humboldt Sun, and Battle Mountain, Nev., Bugle.

A Fair Deal?

Dear Sen. Neal:

I am a registered white Republican living in Douglas County. I am nevertheless appalled at the treatment the Nevada State Democratic Party has accorded you, and as a result plan to vote for you for Governor.

I think your stand on gaming taxes is eminently reasonable. While I am
certainly not anti-gaming, and I don’t think you are either, the state’s
largest industry clearly needs to pay its own way.

It is shameful how our politicians talk about our budget deficits and the need to raise taxes, while there is never a mention of the casino industry.

I hope, whatever the outcome of the Governor’s race, that you will continue your efforts to have the casinos share the tax burden fairly with the citizens of this state.

Respectfully,

Ken Watters
Genoa

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Douglas County, 60 miles south of Reno, is the most Republican county in Nevada.]