Lies, lies and more lies

By Tony Cook

Sunday, Nov. 5, 2006 | 8:05 a.m.

Given the choice to tout their own credentials or bash their opponents, candidates in Nevada have made a clear decision this year: Go negative.

With grainy black-and-white photos and music fit for horror movies, candidates have lit up televisions with attack commercials and flooded mailboxes with brochures that bend, if not break, the truth in tearing down their opponents - claims normally accompanied by the most unflattering photos possible of the foe.

With so many closely contested races - thanks in part to an anti-Republican and throw-out-the-bums mentality - few candidates across the nation are leaving any bullets in the barrel as Election Day approaches, and Nevada is no exception.

While down-to-the-wire campaign advertising often brings out the worst, this year is unique in the quantity of negative ads, political experts said. Though most elections include some races that turn nasty, this year candidates up and down the ticket are turning to attack ads.

Part of the explanation as to why so many candidates veered onto the low road this year is that close races often spawn negativity as the opponents kick and claw toward the finish line. And in Nevada, many races are competitive for the first time in years, partly because of a sour national political mood marked by scandals, dissatisfaction with the Republican-led Congress and low approval ratings for President Bush and his handling of the war in Iraq.

"We have a very unpopular incumbent president from the majority party," said David Wasserman, a political analyst at the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "People have strong feelings, and it's easy to take advantage of that. The national anger doesn't help to make our campaigns any more civil or positive."

Nationally, strategists and analysts expect 80 to 90 percent of political TV advertising to be negative in the final days of Campaign '06.

That trend seems true for Nevada as well.

"This is perhaps the most negative year I have ever seen," said Eric Herzik, a UNR political scientist. "We're just seeing a lot of plain nasty ads."

That said, a distinction needs to be drawn between tough-but-true ads and those that are not just negative, but also false.

Republican Sen. John Ensign, for example, nails his Democratic opponent, Jack Carter, for his frequent moves before he finally ended up in Nevada and decided to run for the U.S. Senate. The son of former president Jimmy Carter might not like being labeled a carpetbagger, but Ensign offers plenty of evidence to support his claim.

In contrast, Rep. Jon Porter warped reality when he tried to hang the carpetbagger label on his Democratic challenger, Tessa Hafen, a Henderson native with deep family roots in Southern Nevada that rendered his charge patently false.

Hardball politics is common in top-of-the-ballot races for governor and Congress. But even in what are typically more civil races, such as the generally low-profile contests for offices such as secretary of state and lieutenant governor, negative ads have dominated.

That's because the Democrats' ticket is unusually competitive, Herzik said.

"Democrats, after being down for a couple cycles, have fielded stronger candidates who are better financed, and nationally it looks like a Democratic year," he said.

The races for governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state and Nevada's 3rd Congressional District illustrate Herzik's point.

Four years ago Republicans handily won all of them. This year all of those contests are considered in play, and that means more negative advertising.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dina Titus has unleashed several tough ads, including one in which a war widow criticizes Titus' opponent, Rep. Jim Gibbons.

"I wanted to know what happened to my husband and Gibbons said he would talk to people he knew in Washington," the mother of two says in the ad. "He forgot about us. He couldn't go to my husband's service, and I got numerous letters from everybody and there was none from him. Gibbons let me down, he let my daughters down. And Gibbons forgot about us."

The state Democratic Party also has jumped into the governor's contest with two ads that raise questions about Gibbons' character and judgment in light of a Las Vegas cocktail waitress' allegation that he assaulted her and tried to force himself on her sexually in a parking garage after an evening of drinking last month.

"When the powerful cross the line, they always pull a lot of strings," one ad says. "Even the best cover-up leaves questions unanswered. Why was Jim Gibbons tipped off to the investigation? Why were critical videotapes mysteriously missing for two weeks? Why were investigators leaking information to the Gibbons campaign? Was the victim offered money for her silence? Is Jim Gibbons pulling the strings? Nevada is waiting for an answer."

Such ads have become commonplace.

"There are more negative ads," said Michael Green, a political observer and history professor at Community College of Southern Nevada. "You are not likely to see a lot of Jim Gibbons looking like Tom Cruise in 'Top Gun.' "

Gibbons, a former fighter pilot, returned fire with an ad that features a message that Titus, a UNLV professor, left on the voice mail of a student seen at the office of her Democratic primary opponent, Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson.

"Dina Titus will stop at nothing," an announcer says. "She verbally abused a student who worked for her primary opponent ... Now Titus and her liberal friends have produced false TV ads. They are trying to destroy Jim Gibbons with disgusting personal attacks."

The commercial, which features a photo of Titus in dark sunglasses, also says: "Videotapes proved Gibbons innocent."

That last claim reflects wishful thinking, not facts. At the time the ad was produced, Metro Police were still investigating the allegations against Gibbons and had not completed their review of security videotapes from the parking garage where the alleged assault occurred.

Another Gibbons ad, running in Reno, shows a trend among many campaign commercials this year - criticize your opponent for going negative, then go negative.

"At the end of the day when the negative attacks are behind us, we can return to the issues," Gibbons tells viewers.

He then attacks Titus.

"When we had a flood, she called us rascals while I fought for federal relief," he says.

But the hyperbole, personal attacks and truth-stretching in the high-profile governor's race are not anomalies - they are the norm this election season.

Secretary of state candidates Danny Tarkanian and Ross Miller are a case study in the down-ballot backbiting seen this year.

First Democrat Miller accused Republican Tarkanian of practicing law without a license.

That's not quite true. Tarkanian had a law license, but was on inactive status when he signed a court document.

Instead of simply setting the record straight, however, Tarkanian responded with an attack ad of his own that accused Miller of opposing a plan to require voters to show photo identification at polls.

"Why would Ross Miller make such a desperate attack?" the ad says. "Because Ross Miller will say anything to get elected. Miller's hiding the fact that he's against showing photo ID at the polls."

But that's not true either, Miller said. He, too, supports showing identification at the polls.

Then there's the attack ads in the race for the U.S. Senate between Ensign and Carter. Polls show Ensign safely ahead, a situation that normally would result in the much-better-funded Ensign campaign simply giving viewers a series of positive ads while ignoring Carter.

Not this year.

Instead, Ensign has launched two attacks. The first, an over-the-top spot that resembles the trailer to a B-movie spy flick, suggested that Carter is weak on national security.

"5 a.m.," an announcer says dramatically. "A call is made from a known terrorist in Afghanistan to a sleeper cell in the U.S. Jack Carter believes we should hang up and get a court order - a costly delay. An opportunity to stop a terror plot has been lost."

The only thing missing is Kiefer Sutherland of "24," and, according to Carter, the truth. Current law, Carter says, would allow the government to intercept the kind of call posed in Ensign's commercial and get a warrant retroactively.

The other spot features Ensign's carpetbagger attack against Carter: "He's moved from Georgia to Chicago to Cleveland to San Francisco to Bermuda back to Georgia and then back to Bermuda, where he bought a condo in Las Vegas online and moved from Bermuda to Las Vegas and run for office. And what does Jack have to say? 'I'll admit I'm a carpetbagger, but I want to be your carpetbagger.' "

The ad features images of Carter in a goofy safari hat, with postcards from the respective locales behind him and a slide whistle sound in between each new city.

"Usually in a race like that you (don't) acknowledge your opponent," said David Damore, a political scientist at UNLV.

The fact that Ensign does, though, underlines a fundamental political reality.

"People are more willing," Damore said, "to vote against someone than vote for someone."

Other candidates are banking on that being the case:

"Lynette Boggs McDonald: another corrupt, shameless county commissioner who would do anything to stay in power," the ad says. While the ad claims Boggs McDonald broke the law, no legal authority has found her guilty, although lawsuits and ethics complaints are pending.

"They stalked Lynette, secretly videotaped her young children and are even trying to get her family's personal medical records," the ad says. Brager has stressed she was not involved with the police and Culinary Union's hiring of a private eye to investigate the commissioner's residency.

The ad, repeating a theme in an earlier commercial, cites low test scores, graduation rates and school safety performances in charging that School Board member Brager has "failed our children." Not surprisingly, Brager dismisses the charge as a distortion and says she is proud of her School Board record.

"$190,000 - that's how much campaign cash political contributors gave Brian Krolicki's campaign before and after they got lucrative state contracts from his office," the ad says.

Krolicki responded with an ad in which Gov. Kenny Guinn endorses him and says, "Don't believe the negative attacks against Brian Krolicki."

"Illegal immigrants jumped the line once," the ad says. "Now Kate Marshall wants them to jump ahead of Nevada kids. Kate Marshall won't rule out Millennium Scholarships for illegal immigrants. So let's rule out Kate Marshall."

Marshall says she supports examining whether the state should require scholarship applicants to provide a Social Security number.

In mailers, she also has attacked DeStefano for filing for bankruptcy and engaging in fringe business practices.