My Only Reaction

So Sad Shermy wrote another diatribe responding to this. Given that his premise is that I don't value the fight against copyright theft and that's so obviously untrue to anyone who can read or listen to the radio, I can't see the point of bothering to rebut any of his other silliness. Besides, it appears his many commenters have handled that for me. I'll let you go find it for yourself if you wish, but I'm not all that eager to perpetuate this nonsense. My remarks are analysis of facts; his are just invented inanity. You can't argue with invented inanity.

But I am fascinated by one particular comment on Sad Shermy's blog from none other than unceremoniously dumped former editor Thomas Mitchell, whose lengthy tenure at the helm was honored by the company with about a full sentence deep in a news release. Here's what he wrote about my prior post regarding the debacle in which Righthaven, the law firm partnering with the R-J to sue folks who lifted their material, got spanked in court:

I really don't care what Friess has to say on any topic. But I take considerable umbrage with the last paragraph of his meandering screed:

"It's quite unlikely that Thevenot would've been able to cover this quite so properly if Sherm were still in charge. So there's that."

I assure you Friess was never in any position whatsoever to evaluate the integrity, ethics or journalistic values of anyone in management at the newspaper. If Sherm were still in charge, if anything, the story might've gotten more prominent play.

I defend that stance against all comers.

That is a stunning moment of dishonesty and imperiousness if ever there was one. EVERY reader is in a position to evaluate the integrity, ethics and journalistic values of a publication and its editorial choices. This perspective tracks back to that time that Mitchell wrote a column about how much he despised bloggers because they borrow and reference other work. That post borrowed and referenced Orwell, but he didn't catch the irony. Mitchell's had a rough go of the changes in the business, as reflected in that column as well as this comment, because, essentially, he found it maddening that he and his no longer could decide who gets to voice their views. Mitch couldn't dictate or moderate the public discourse anymore thanks to the Internet, and it drove him bananas.

But beyond that, I find it pretty hilarious that Mitchell suggests Sad Shermy would have dictated bigger, broader coverage of this week's action in which a judge smacked around Sad Shermy and his lawyers for possibly deceiving the courts. He can try to "defend that stance to all comers," except there's this little problem:


That's a search of the Review-Journal archive for the term "Righthaven." It may look like a lot, but five of the eight entries are actually blog posts by Sad Shermy. That means that in the course of the past year, as more than 200 Righthaven lawsuits were being filed and this unusual way to combat copyright fraud was being covered intensively by the national/journalism/tech media, the R-J printed a grand total of THREE proper news stories and no letters.

It gets better! The first, as I mentioned, was when they sued Senate candidate Sharron Angle. The second was when they sued the Drudge Report. And the third was yesterday, when a judge castigated them for alleged dishonesty.

Tom Mitchell and Sad Shermy were fired in November. Two of the three of those pieces ran after that. So they presided over precisely one single story on their nationally newsworthy and unique campaign against copyright fraud.

Yet Mitchell would like us to believe he and Sad Shermy would have INSISTED on full, ever more prominent coverage of this decision! Because, uh, they committed all of 482 words to the matter under their oversight of the newspaper?

As the kids say: For realz?

A 7-Point Analysis Of Sahara's Closure

[UPDATE: Find other excellent analysis from David McKee at Stiffs & Georges. Point me the way if there's more elsewhere worth noting.]

OK. I raced to get my own version of the Sahara closure story up, and it was interesting because it seemed I was the one telling pretty much everyone I interviewed that it was happening. That included economist Stephen Brown from UNLV, Sandy Hackett whose dad's management of the show room drew in so many bold-faced names and Stacey Loizeaux, owner of the demolition company that gets the call whenever there's a piece of Vegas history to destroy.

You can read my account -- and their thoughts -- at AOL News. [Aside: I just received an email from my editor saying that despite the massive layoffs this week as a result of the AOL merger with Huffington Post, my gig is the same as always for at least a while. Whew and yay, because the new HuffPo traffic will make AOL News stories easily among the Web's most-viewed reporting.]

Anyhow, some little ideas and thoughts that have occurred to me, some of which I have Tweeted:

* Was Sharron Angle right? Remember when Sen. Harry Reid's GOP opponent suggested Reid's saving CityCenter and not, say, the Fontainebleau, was a case of government picking economic winners and losers? And when she said that the 12,000 jobs "saved" at CityCenter would end up coming from elsewhere? Is this the proof of that? If Reid had shaken down the Lending Tree and Fontainebleau had opened, would Nazarian have chosen to double down on Sahara rather than fold? Instead, a part of the Strip that looked just a couple years ago to be the Next Big Thing is an atrophied disaster area that some are suggesting shouldn't even be considered part of the Strip anymore. UNLV's Brown, in remarks I did not include in my piece, said it's not so simple, that CityCenter helps Vegas compete with posh international gaming destinations and distinguishes the city differently than, say, a Sahara overhaul might. Fair enough, but it's worth considering that the F'Blew effect is clearly a big factor in the Sahara's demise as well as the Riv's bankruptcy and other long-term construction paralysis in that area.

* What now, Monofail? Seriously, what the hell happens now? Do they just shut down that stop? I've parked at the Sahara and ridden the rail to the Las Vegas Convention Center, and now I can't even park there to do that? What's the point?

* We heart Sahara. Riviera? Meh. The outpouring of emotion on Twitter today over the Sahara's fate is fascinating because it's so Stardust-esque. There's a genuine affection for the Sahara, but I suspect there won't be if/when the Riviera finally bites it. Not all Old Vegas properties are created equal, as we saw with the mourning over Stardust and the good-riddance shrugs over the Frontier.

* Woo-hoo, Interwebs! This story was broken by Chuck at VegasTripping.Com last night, a full 14 hours before the MSM picked up on it with Sam Nazarian's statement. I just love when this happens. I love it more when I'm the one who does it, but nonetheless, it warms my heart.

* Hooray For Unions. Organized labor has had a very rough year so far, and it's terrible that more than 1,000 employees will lose their jobs. But the only reason why they get to stay until May instead of being out on their asses tomorrow is that the unions got lawmakers to dictate a 60-day notice. So all you non-union folks at the parts of the Sahara that aren't union, be grateful for that, k?

* Will SLS Way disappear? Remember this bit of official branding:


So, what now? SLS stands for "Something Lovely's Starting" which is vomit-in-mouth-inducing to begin with. But will it just be wiped from the map?

* Commemorative chips anyone? I chatted with Sheldon Smith of the Casino Chip and Gaming Token Collectors Club for that AOL News piece as well, and he said that folks should expect a small bump in value of mint-condition Sahara chips after the closure. They're hoping they'll issue commemorative closing chips, too, which could be a lot of free money for the casino. I'm doubting it, though; unlike Boyd, which did it for the Stardust, Nazarian and his crew aren't really in the casino business. (The casino was managed for them.) That said, could be time to get over there and grab some keepsakes. Or maybe they'll have an auction! Yay!

That's all I got for the moment. More will come, no doubt.

Sun Wins Pre-Pulitzer Prize! (And The RJ Changes Pollsters)

[UPDATE: Marshall Allen leaves the Sun for the nonprofit investigative journalism organization Pro Publica tomorrow. CONGRATS!]


Here we go, Vegas! The Las Vegas Sun is -- as I said a few weeks ago -- a serious threat for its second Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in three years after tonight's huge triumph as winners of the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting from Harvard's Shorenstein Center.

Reporters Marshall Allen and Alex Richards landed the $25,000 award, a predictor of Pulitzer finalists, for the investigative report "Do No Harm: Hospital Care in Las Vegas."

Bravo. The Pulitzers are announced in mid-April. A very big deal.

* * *

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, the new Review-Journal regime continues the mopping up job. Yesterday, they ran a big poll in the Vegas mayor's race. This is the big picture:


But this here is the news:


Their new pollster is Magellan Research. They dumped Mason Dixon, it appears. Which makes sense since they had the polling completely bass-akward in the Reid-Angle race and mislead the national press in the process. You know how it's an improvement? I don't recall Jon Ralston making any remarks at all about the methodology.

From Politics To Poker

OK, I'm ALMOST there.

I think I may have finally stopped writing about the 2010 midterms with this Politics Daily piece that expands on my earlier blog post in crowning the mainstream media a big winner this year. It includes some insight from Sunbelt chief Bob Stoldal and Tony Hopfinger, the Alaska reporter handcuffed by GOP candidate Joe Miller's goons. Favorite line: "But it went further than that, with Angle providing so much footage of herself running from cameras that she may be ready for this weekend's New York City Marathon ... ."

And then it was on to poker. Early this morning, the World Series of Poker Final Table was reduced from nine to two, and these two guys will square off at 8 p.m. PT at the Rio. I've been covering for Agence France-Presse and for AOL News, and you can see how subtly differently the approaches are based on the audience. If you're really, really into this, totally check out Howard Stutz's and Oskar Garcia's coverage of same.

If you're not hip to the rah-rah poker stuff, check out my current Las Vegas Weekly column about the fact that the Cosmopolitan won't have a poker room and what that portends for The Game. And apologies to East Coast Gambler, who had known and blogged about the Cosmo's no-poker deal back in August.

I had planned to do some other blog posts today about stuff in the papers and such, but I've gotta be up ridiculously early tomorrow to appear on radio shows around the country discussing my Daily Beast and Politics Daily coverage of the Harry Reid-Sharron Angle race. So after that, I'll post this week's episode of "The Strip" and catch up on some other stuff.

Probably My Last Election Piece: How Reid Won

I'm out front on The Daily Beast today with an assessment of how Harry Reid won. I like to think it's a colorful view, and it includes remarks from folks like Danny Tarkanian, who lost to Sharron Angle. Here's the top:

How Harry Pulled It Off
By STEVE FRIESS

As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took his victory lap on Wednesday before a state and a nation that had anticipated his humiliating demise, the reasons for his triumph became so obvious that it’s a wonder the outcome was ever in doubt.

Yes, he ran a magnificent, vicious, and effective campaign, one to be studied by political masterminds for generations. But rival Sharron Angle also ran an epically terrible campaign, one that comes with a sidesplitting blooper reel for the DVD.

It’s not simply that Angle was a tragically flawed candidate given to surprising, polarizing, or baffling statements. Under the right circumstances—say, when running against a loathed incumbent who is the chief lieutenant of an unpopular president, and your state’s economy is at all-time lows—Angle’s peculiarities might have been overlooked or charming.

But the uncompromising Tea Party purist seemed to work actively to avoid expanding her base in a way that would ever have resulted in a win in Nevada, ...

Read the rest at TheDailyBeast.Com

Election Winners & Losers, MEDIA EDITION

OK. As I wrote for Politics Daily, Harry Reid's a winner and Sharron Angle's a loser. Duh. But there's much, much more to it.

* WINNER: MSM. Sharron Angle believed the Fox/Limbaugh hype that the "lamestream" media is irrelevant. And perhaps in the national universe that's become more true. But not in local races and certainly not in places like Nevada. Literally running away from reporters looks juvenile and inept. Believing you can simply say you never said the thing you just said and get away with it when you're recorded makes you a bad liar. Pissing off the most significant pundit in the state by reneging on a clear promise to debate before him with your opponent is just asking to be treated as if you have no credibility. Angle will surely claim the press was out to get her, but she even froze out the Review-Journal after the June 8 primary, and those are her people. Yes, Harry Reid also played hard-to-get with the media, but at least his people didn't, providing quick and thorough responses to every niggling question in a usually timely, respectful manner. Also, he's the incumbent with years of media under his belt; you're the relatively unknown challenger. Contrary to what Palin and Friends say, The Media is an important means for leaders to be held accountable for their statements and actions and a useful way to communicate with the broadest cross-section of the public they hope to lead. This trick may work in Kentucky because Rand Paul was always the red-state favorite, but it didn't work for Angle or Delaware's Christine O'Donnell and probably not for Alaska's Joe Miller. Miller's folks handcuffed a reporter.

* WINNER: Jon Ralston. The only pundit who got it right is also, as we learn again and again, the only pundit who matters when it comes to Nevada. He could've played it safe and hedged, but he perpetually railed against the likely inaccuracy of the polls -- oversampled this, ignored that, did not make any sense. He predicted a win for Harry Reid and saw silver linings in early voting data and took some guff for it, most notably from the Review-Journal publisher Sherm Frederick, who claimed it exposed Ralston's partisan bias. I'm offended by Ralston's simplistic, petty and personal version of "media criticism" precisely because it lacks the guts and balance and any introspection whatsoever, all things he applies to the rest of his journalism. But he swung for the fences this weekend and bashed it over the wall.

* LOSER: Sherm Frederick. Sunday's Opinion section of the R-J was soaked with pieces explaining why Reid would lose. The worst offender was the publisher, who suggested Reid would need a "Dewey Defeats Truman" moment to pull it out. So, when Sherm turns out to be wrong, does he at least show a little class and humility and offer a mea culpa to Ralston or his entire readership? Boy, that's a funny thought, isn't it? No. Instead, he keeps referring to it as a "surprising" Reid victory and quotes that same Dewey-Truman column to compliment himself for foreseeing the House flipping red even though he merely got that impression from pollsters and journalists elsewhere whom he saw on Fox. Reid's victory wasn't that surprising to the people he tried nastily to discredit before the election - Ralston and Reid's people. Sherm just spent YEARS viciously attacking the senator and eviscerating the public's ability to respect or trust his reporters' work. He laid waste to any claim he had of being able to read Nevada's mood and sank to a shocking low by giggling when Sharron Angle gave the sneaky slip to reporters asking reasonable, important questions. He even wrote of Reid at about 10 p.m. last night: "Initially, he was up over 50%, which was hard to believe. But the margin of victory appears closer now, and more credible." Reid's final tally? 50.2 percent. Sorry, Sherm. As the kids say, epic fail.

* WINNER: KNPR. You might recall back in June, I was pretty peeved that Our World of News and Information was re-running morning chat shows as the votes were being tallied. That is, they sat out the first big act of the most significant Senate race in Nevada history. I'm a massive fan of KNPR and I put my prospects of being invited to appear on the air again at risk over that, and KNPR management wrote in the comments that such coverage was too expensive and not in public demand. My solution to the first part was to partner up with a local TV station and take the audio of live victory and concession speeches, maybe have some anchor in the studio talking to analysts and calling up candidates. I don't know if they did the latter, but in my drive from Venetian (GOP party) to Aria (Dem party), I did hear them taking KSNV audio of Rory Reid's speech. Given that the local race was a national one and the national NPR feed contained tons of Nevada reporting, that was pretty adequate. I'm delighted they did it, so I'll be sending an extra check real soon.

* WINNER: KSNV. This one's a point of personal privilege. Miles and the News 3 crew slaved and stressed for weeks to craft the NBC affiliate's election night coverage. I didn't get to see any of it because I was running around doing my thing, but I understand from many people that it was fantastic. And many people should know, because the station won the night in the ratings. Awesome.

* LOSER: Me. I've made more money in the past two months than in the dreadful second half of 2009, thanks to Reid, Angle and new clients such as CBS, Politics Daily, Tablet and The Daily Beast. But now it's over and there's no Sen. Sharron Angle, R-Cuckoo, to appallingly fascinate the political world. Proof of how fast the national media has lost interest in all this? I spent the morning pitching the idea of a profile of Jon Ralston, the only-pundit-who-got-it-right. Responses, and I quote: No, No, Who cares, Thanks but we'll pass. If this had been a big CA or NY race and it was one dude against the entire pollosphere, you know they'd snap that one up. So once my Daily Beast How-Reid-Won piece posts, I suspect that'll be all for now on this. I'll be on to covering the World Series of Poker, and I just don't think anyone's going to care nearly as much.

Election Day: Not Angle's Time, WHHSH & Ralston 'Media Analysis'

A few random thoughts as we head into the election:

* BEST cover ever! Awesome, right? Oh, also, if you're already done with this election, be sure to skip ahead to 2012 in my column this week.

* The WHHSH Watch Is Baaaack! That is, tomorrow I plan to shame the national reporters so lazy that the best they could do was start or transition parts of their stories with, "Nevada voters made sure that what happens in Vegas didn't stay in Vegas...". Our very first violator of the day is, in fact, not a journalist but some scribe with the Sharron Angle campaign who pushed out a missive this morning predicting victory that began: "For one night – tonight – what happens in Vegas, will not stay in Vegas." GROAN.

* Where's Sharron?


Notice someone missing? The Angle campaign may believe that its anti-media position will help them, but it also ensures her utter irrelevancy as part of the national dialogue and conversation should she win. Why isn't the ultimate Tea Partier who may slay the ultimate Obama proxy on the cover of Time? Or even mentioned at ALL in this piece? Why are two likely losers -- Meg Whitman and Christine O'Donnell -- there instead? I suspect it's because Angle wouldn't talk to Time or even sit for a portrait. Meanwhile, by another measure, Sharron Angle is the sixth most covered politician of 2010, behind THREE likely losers, Whitman, O'Donnell and Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania. That may -- and in O'Donnell's case definitely -- relate to candidates' proximity to the nation's media nerve centers of New York, DC and Los Angeles. But add this disinterest to the fact that many Angle voters I spoke with today at the polls seem to believe her more extreme positions don't matter BECAUSE she won't have any power, and I suspect Angle will be surprised at how irrelevant she is if/when she gets to Washington.

* RalstonSpin. It's worth noting that Jon Ralston took yet another jab at the R-J for its Election Day editorial reiterating their desire to see Reid go bye-bye -- an opinion piece on the opinion pages, the nerve! -- but conveniently didn't care that the by-far dominant image on the newspaper's front page today was a beautiful shot of uber-popular Michelle Obama embracing the senator. How is THAT explained in the world view of those who view an entire reporting and editing operation as the subsidiary of Sharron Angle's campaign? And while the Las Vegas Sun surprisingly managed not to shove our faces in its pro-Reid bent today, the last big campaign story the paper chose to print was yesterday's front page piece about a 4-day-old John McCain appearance in which it is posited that the Arizona senator is champing at the bit to restart Yucca Mountain as a nuclear repository once Reid is gone. This sentence, in the reporter's voice, was particularly intriguing: "Reid is the only obstacle between McCain and his energy platform, which relies on construction of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain." As I've said before, both papers have their problems, but the Sun's bias in its news columns is far more overt and strident. It doesn't matter to Ralston because where his bread is buttered matters more than being fair to his colleagues.

Geeking Out On Voter Data: Harry Reid's In Trouble

I'm on the hook to be supplying election data and analysis (off-air) for a major TV network in addition to my other clients this election, so I've spent the past two days digging deep into the numbers that are out there right now. Today is the final day of early voting, and at least 33.4 percent of registered voters have already cast ballots or mailed them in.

The only thing we really know is how many people of each party have voted early or by mail for four counties that represent nearly 90% of the state, Clark (Vegas), Washoe (Reno), Carson City and Douglas (South shore, Tahoe). The Nevada Secretary of State has also put out party breakdown for the first week of early voting for all counties, so I've incorporated that data as well. (The other 13 counties do not provide daily breakouts of party affiliations.)

I know, I know. It's a lot of numbers. But here's some of what I've distilled:

* As of this morning, Democrats hold about a very tenuous 7,400-vote lead statewide out of more than 330,000 cast, a figure that includes the four counties with up-to-date data plus the first-week totals from the rest of the state. It's actually probably a lot smaller because we haven't got second-week breakdown from 13 counties that represent 10 percent of the state.

* 55,423 "others" have already voted. The GOP needs about 57% of those to neutralize the Democratic statewide advantage.

* All of this, of course, assume that all D's vote D and all R's vote R. They don't, obviously, and Jon Ralston wrote that behind recent CNN-Time poll (which was 49-45 Angle but of which he questions the age of the sample) found significantly more D's said they were voting D than R's for R. If that's true, Harry Reid wins. However, the R-J is out today with another 49-45 poll for Angle in which both candidates are getting about the same support from their own party and Angle is getting 55 percent of independents. The R-J poll doesn't show the oversampling of independents that Ralston found in the CNN-Time poll, either.

* The big question is whether the Republicans are more energized. I've analyzed the data for the four counties that are up-to-date as well as the first-week party-breakdown data for the other four counties with more than 10,000 residents. Together, that accounts for more than 97 percent of the state. The result? In every county, Republicans are outperforming their share of the electorate by at least 5 percentage points and in several cases more than 7 points. That's a GOP surge.

* The reasons why it doesn't make for an automatic Sharron Angle landslide is (a) not all R's vote R and (b) a 5-point overperformance in Clark County by Republicans still doesn't overcome the Democrats' registration advantage there, and Clark County is 66 percent of the state.

The real conclusion is, of course, that there is none. If:

* ...independents break big for Angle, she wins.
* ...the Democrats' mythologized, legendary get-out-the-vote apparatus kicks in today and on Tuesday in Clark County, Reid might win.
* ...anti-Reid voters split a few points among minor-partiers and "none of these jerks," Reid might win.

One more point. It is likely that 60 percent of those who vote will have voted by the end of today. Rarely do percentages change much in terms of party breakdown or even vote outcome percentages after that. That is, the first bunch of numbers we see at about 8 p.m. PT on Tuesday night will be all of this and, historically, the standings don't budge much after that.

RJ Publisher Hates The Media!!!

Sherm, man. I've tried. I really, really have tried. I've done more than anyone in this state to evaluate your reporters' work as separate from your advocacy, to allow you your opinions, to acknowledge that your counterparts at the Las Vegas Sun are at least equally tainted in their strident, overt political views on the Reid-Angle race and how it impacts their coverage.

But last night, you truly and spectacularly hit a new low. I am in awe of you, and in the worst possible way.

In Review-Journal publisher Sherm Frederick's latest blog post, he celebrates (!) the fact that Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle faked out the media. He thinks it's cool, clever and amusing that a woman who would represent the state in the most powerful deliberative body on Earth is so afraid of answering questions from reporters that she deploys a decoy to throw them off her trail.

If Sherm Frederick were any old Republican political hack -- and, frankly, he may very well be -- maybe I'd get this. But he is the publisher of the state's largest newspaper. His most important "political position" ought to be in the service of ensuring his reporters can do their jobs, that his publication be as unfettered as possible in the pursuit of getting information and providing it to the public. He ought to be viscerally offended by the behavior of someone like Angle at this stage of this important historic moment.

Instead, we have a major newspaper publisher who thinks it's a riot when a candidate who has been shown to have lied incessantly and repeatedly is so uncertain of her ability to talk to the media that she resorts to juvenile trickery. We have a major newspaper publisher who parrots the Rush Limbaugh-Sarah Palin line about a "compliant press" when he knows they're just trying to get a woman on the verge of immense power to subject herself to the same scrutiny and rigors that politicians have always expected and the public demands and needs. What would he, as a publisher and lifelong newspaperman, have the state's journalists do, sit home until next week and then dutifully report the outcome? Angle didn't even have the guts to speak to HIS reporters since her primary victory; is he saying his own reporters are "compliant" and unworthy of her attention?

Frederick is welcome to support Angle. That's his choice. But his top job is running a news operation and ensuring its legitimacy and viability. Is it really unreasonable for journalists to want to speak to the focal point of the most significant news story of the year as that story is about to climax? That's compliance?

No, Sherm. That's their jobs. And you just sold out yours for a cheap political attack.

Sunday Readings: Hoover, Reid-Angle, Wynn

This past week, I extensively juggled two significant stories out of Vegas, the Reid-Angle race and the opening of the Hoover Dam's bypass bridge. So which one, on this fine Sunday, did more Americans read about?

Well, lookit:


Parade Magazine, inserted into more than 30 million copies of Sunday papers and is the largest circulation magazine in the world, put the bridge on the cover. I can't say the piece is even all that great, but that's a pretty big hit for a built-within-budget $240 million public works project at a moment when public works projects and government spending in general get a pretty bad name. (See Dig, Big.)

Meanwhile, a few other things from the Sunday papers:

* Reid-Angle Ugly. I must agree with CityLife editor Steve Sebelius' assessments on Twitter of Laura Myers' strange side-by-side profiles of Harry Reid and Sharron Angle. As Sebelius notes, the opening anecdote of the one on Reid is about 30-year-old, unproven claims of Mob dealings while the opening for Angle's was all about her scrappy, up-from-the-bootstraps early life. By the time you finish both pieces, you probably have a reasonably well-rounded perspective on both people, but given that most people don't go much farther than the headline and first 300 or 400 words if that, it's weird. And, as Sebelius also said, the contrasting headlines -- referring to Reid as a focus-group-hated "career politician" and Angle as a focus-group-loved "political outsider" -- was disturbing and noticeable. Still, it is also worth noting that Sun publisher Brian Greenspun put yet another essay about Reid's greatness on the front of his newspaper without any disclosure that his family has given about $370,000 to federal Democrats since 2006. It just goes back to what I've been saying over and over again, that the R-J deserves its lumps for a lot of its Reid-Angle approach, but so does the Sun. And nobody else in the mainstream media seems to wants to point out that both are flawed in very similar ways. And, yes, that also includes the Sun's story placement and the tone of its political reporting.

* And Another R-J Thing. The state's paper of record never bothered to do any significant fact-checking of the claims made during Thursday's debate. That's shameful, an abdication of one of the paper's most significant roles.

* Reid-Angle National. There were two interesting columns about or involving the Senate race in today's Sun, one by Maureen Dowd of The New York Times and one by David Broder of the Washington Post. Each chose to shorthand the race in colorful ways. Dowd called it a battle between "the former boxer and the former competitive weightlifter," which sent me to look up that, yep, the 61-year-old marm was once a weightlifter and made me wonder why nobody else really has put that specific contrast to work. Broder, meanwhile, referred to the debate as a "contrast between the unacceptable and the profoundly uncomfortable" without actually specifying who was who. (Given that Broder's a liberal, I assume Angle's the "unacceptable.")

* Now I Get It. Howard Stutz does a pretty good job today of giving perspective on the confusing financial casino dealings of late and what it means. It helped me keep it all straight, anyway.

* Krolicki Love. I'm intrigued that incumbent Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki has somehow become the Republican who the left-leaning media can love. Or the Republican they can endorse to prove they're not completely in the Democrats' pocket. Today, the Las Vegas Sun endorsed him, a week after the consortium of gay publications did so as well. Perhaps it's because the lieutenant governorship has no power? Does anyone seriously think either of these groups would be writing such kindnesses of him if he had run against Reid for Senate, as he was expected to until he was sidelined by a fairly specious, now-dismissed indictment?

* Wynn's Villa Extravaganza: If you're curious what Steve Wynn's home at the Wynn looks like, head to Architectural Digest to see the slideshow. The article is a little strange, though: the Golden Nugget was not a 1990s Wynn creation, Parry Thomas was not a lawyer and there's nothing new about the fact that Wynn has an Ivy League education or waxes eloquent about the Precambian explosion. Still, the pictures are cool.

One More Thing: Reid and his Yellow Papers

As I mentioned in my Politics Daily piece, Senator Harry Reid began scribbling on yellow legal paper the moment he got to the podium, and the pages kept multiplying throughout the hour until he couldn't figure out where he'd put a tepid closing remark he would have been better served to wing. Is it really possible that he doesn't know what to say for himself if it's not written out for him?

Actually, yeah. On the secret tape I obtained of Angle talking to a business group in July and wrote about for AOL News at the time, she was asked about the plans for debates. And among other things, she said this:

[Reid] said he would like to have his talking points available to him, we said, no, we want a microphone, no podium and no notes. Let’s just talk.

Reid spokesman Jon Summers denied that to VegasHappensHere.Com at the time:

Her take on the debates is wrong and over-the-top. NPR never came up. Neither did this whole thing about talking points and podiums.

But seeing Reid get to work writing up a novel on stage and being so dependent on it in at the end of the hour, I've got to think it must have really been something they wanted.

Post-Debate: Odd smiles, goofy web poll & more

The general consensus for last night's Harry Reid-Sharron Angle debate was that she "won" it by seeming sane. A few thoughts:

* Here's my coverage for Politics Daily.

* The press and public clearly got that Harry Reid was underwhelming, but if you weren't in the studio you may not realize just how badly he performed. He looked half asleep and highly annoyed to even be there. He walked up to Angle for a couple of pre-debate moments, said a few nothings and then condescendingly patted her hand as he ambled rather unsteadily to his podium.

* And That Smile. Not hers, which was weird, too, and buried under makeup quite possibly applied by RuPaul. But Reid's smile. That creepy, odd, bad-toothy smile that came out at all the wrong moments. After Angle accused him of voting to give Social Security to undocumented immigrants, for example, he shot back: "These ideas of my opponent are really extreme. Her facts are absolutely wrong." And then, suddenly after a beat, out came That Smile. Shivers.

* By the way, the nonscientific web polls on the R-J and Sun's sites both assert that Harry Reid won the debate.

This probably is the result of, I'm guessing, someone from the Reid campaign being assigned to do nothing but vote for him all night long on the R-J's site. The Sun's site, which would naturally attract more Reid supporters, also prevents people at an IP address from casting multiple votes, but the R-J's crack technology staff led by their Online Guy hasn't yet figured out how to prevent such newfangled shenanigans. (Disclosure: I just voted six times just for shiggles.)

* My favorite wrap-ups came from Slate's John Dickerson ("In the casinos in Nevada when this happens, they pump in oxygen. This debate did not do that for this race") and some dude named @delrayser who Tweeted: "Man, Harry Reid is the WORST. Except for that crazy lady running against him." -every Democrat on Twitter last night." For an interesting and different view, my Politics Daily editor-in-chief Melinda Henneberger, formerly of The New York Times, wondered why the media is being so nice to Angle today.

* Bravo to the Las Vegas Sun for having David McGrath Schwartz on hand to fact-check what was said. Yes, Laura Myers of the R-J did a little of that in her piece, but there needed to be a LOT more and the main newspaper let down the readers by failing to do so. Maybe they could have skipped the dullsville feature on supporters waving signs outside the VegasPBS mothership.

* The only publication that really gave Reid much credit was, intriguingly, the allegedly diabolically pro-Angle Review-Journal, which intoned, "Reid gave as good as he got" even though he really, truly didn't. Nonetheless, Jon Ralston mocked their coverage as slanted towards Angle -- for saying essentially the same things he has said about the same event -- because he just can't help himself. Whatever.

* Reid's somnolent, dour performance makes my Daily Beast piece from yesterday even more relevant. The nation has to be wondering how this man got to his height of power. I explained.

* It's hard not to admire the quick work Reid's folks did in turning around a TV ad within hours of the debate. See it:

On Debate Day: Daily Beast, PBS & Ralston

Tonight's the big debate between Sharron Angle and Harry Reid, so the national media is descending and CSPAN will broadcast it. I'll be covering it for Politics Daily, so keep watch for that.

A few random thoughts before I plunge into a marathon writing day:

* My in-depth look at Harry Reid and the race is up on The Daily Beast, the product of interviews with more than a dozen former Reid staffers as well as a long list of Nevada politicos and even a current John Ensign staffer. There are plenty of interesting bits in here including Steve Wynn talking about being torn over Reid's support of the Obama agenda and U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley recalling how Reid predicted more than a year ago that Sharron Angle would be his opponent.

* I know Vegas PBS' Mitch Fox will do an able job, but it is interesting that last night's Senate debate between Christine O'Donnell and Chris Coons in Delaware was on CNN and co-moderated by Wolf Blitzer and Mitch Fox's Delaware counterpart in public TV. Which race, really, is nationally more important and closer?

* I got quite a giggle out of Jon Ralston this morning delusionally believing he was pointing out to the descending national media some sort of proof that the Review-Journal's news coverage of the Angle-Reid race is hopelessly tainted. I agree there have been some very sad low points, but what he showed everyone was an adequate, standard-issue story on a new poll showing Angle up by two points and up 4 from her last showing. He wrote:

"You have to read the piece to see how tendentious the paper is: Release poll earlier than usual (usually on Fridays or Saturdays), have it written as if reflective of surge and play HUGE."

The trouble is, the R-J played this, ran this and wrote this precisely as pretty much any major newspaper would. Following the horse-race of polling as if it is actual news is bullshit, but it's how everyone does it nowadays, and a four-point increase in Angle's support in a race this tight absolutely would qualify by any poll-obsessed journalist's measure as a surge or a bump. Also, while Ralston claims the R-J article he is showing the world is clearly slanted towards Angle, the quote from the R-J's own pollster is: "I wouldn't call it momentum...". So they're NOT suggesting that she's got some huge wind on her back.

The other problem with Ralston's R-J tantrum today is that, as usual, he has no interest in taking note of the blatant conflicts of his own newspaper and TV station. His bosses have combined for nearly $600,000 in donations to Democrats since 2006 while the R-J's publisher has given nothing to anyone.

And today's Las Vegas Sun is a terrific example of how much more open and obvious Ralston's publishing home is about its support for Harry Reid: Their top news story? "Train project a priority for Reid." Yup, a news story that could be run any day of the week -- the Sun's content does not need to be dictated by when Reid chooses to have a press conference -- but is nonetheless atop the fold today of all days. Why, Jon? Oh, that's right. To remind everyone of Reid's juice, the potential for pork and, probably, the notion that Sharron Angle wouldn't be able to or want to do that.

What Ralston actually did today with his email attack on the R-J was ensure that the national media who pay attention to his political expertise will ignore his droning about his competing paper from now on. There's nobody who matters who actually believes Jon Ralston is an objective or fair arbiter of the attributes of either newspaper anymore than anyone believes that Harry Reid is an objective or fair arbiter of the attributes of Sharron Angle.

Reid's Two Answers On Angle's $14m

This morning, Elizabeth Crum broke on National Review that Sharron Angle is reporting a record-busting $14 million raised in the third quarter of the year for her campaign against Harry Reid. It's a stunning number even in this age of megabucks politics.

But the fun part, really, is the way Reid responded. That is, the ways. See, within four minutes of one another, I received two emails from Reid.


The first one, to the media, went like this:

"Sharron Angle's fundraising number is meaningless without disclosing how much they spent to raise it. In fact, Angle's shady fundraisers are reputed for cooking the books and fleecing their clients, so any number Angle may assert to generate media buzz is highly suspect."

And the second one, to potential Reid donors, went like this:

"A major development here in Nevada: My Tea Party opponent just announced that she received $14 million in donations in the last quarter. That could be enough to dominate Nevada airwaves in the critical final days and prevent us from exposing her wild rhetoric and dangerous extremism. I need you to send a contribution as soon as you can."

OK. So it's not a real $14 million but, also, it is, so send us a check RIGHT NOW!!!

Or something.

Parade of Vegas Stars To Shine For Reid?

I interrupt my writing marathon to bring you news that in a first -- but surely not final -- celebrity appearance in the Harry Reid-Sharron Angle race, Harrah's headliner Rita Rudner has narrated this quite funny campaign ad for the Senate Majority Leader.

Rudner put her name on a Reid fundraising email blast today, too, with cringeworthy lines like: "I love comedy, but Bush, Rove, Angle and these extreme Tea Partiers cannot be laughed off - we've got to work together to defeat them!" Wayne Newton has already offered his support, but who knows if he'll actually appear.

Can't wait to see who else from the Strip or other celebritydom might swoop in. Pretty doubtful Angle can get someone other than, say, Ted Nugent, to shill for her. Maybe that goofy band I YouTubed at the Searchlight tea party rally might make a visit?

I'd love to balance this post out with some clever or funny pro-Sharron Angle ad, but I haven't seen any. This below is the best I've seen from the right, and it's really not that great:

Zzzzz...

The RJ, The Sun and The Angle Tape

Today may very well be the day that the Review-Journal's credibility in covering the Harry Reid-Sharron Angle race evaporates once and for all. As of now, there is still nothing anywhere on the R-J's website about the secret tape that the Sun's Jon Ralston landed and posted of a private meeting between GOP hopeful Sharron Angle and Tea Party candidate Scott Ashjian. She had wanted to get Ashjian out of the race, concerned he could split conservative votes and cost her the race.

It's not even that the tape is all that shocking. It certainly gives the Reid folks plenty to work with, what with her hypocritically offering Ashjian to drink of her "juice" in the form of access to Sens. Jim DeMint, Mitch McConnell and Tom Coburn after beating up on Reid for all his backroom dealings. But while some are fascinated by the awkwardness that comes with Angle having scathed the Republican establishment in advance of addressing the Republican establishment on Wednesday, that's nothing new. Recall any number of interviews in which she's said the same thing, not to mention the secret tape I received and posted in August in which she also rambled on about resisting Washington's effort to co-opt her. Attacking current and recent Republicans is part of her schtick and ultimately bolsters her credibility since, even in private, she is truly dismayed by GOP spending over the past 20 years.

Yet for the Review-Journal to ignore the new tape altogether is simply journalistic malpractice. They didn't need to get something in this morning's paper -- the Sun didn't either, in fact -- but they have a website, however ridiculously arranged, and could have blogged something last night or at least by 2 p.m.4 p.m. TODAY. Has the Review-Journal simply given up on trying to cover this race as exhaustively as the public deserves and expects?

Maybe it's the childish notion that if Ralston had it the R-J can't touch it? That's certainly a game Ralston plays occasionally, but Ralston is a sole operator who has the prerogative to pick favorites. The R-J, on the other hand, is the state's largest full-service newspaper, and the paper of record must reflect that this tape has emerged and will be -- fair or not -- a potent political weapon in the weeks to come.

As blog readers know, I don't take quite the same view of the R-J as Ralston. To Jon, the paper could never and will never do anything right. I cringed last week when Ralston ranted about some cousin of the R-J-owning Stephens family who gave money to Republicans as more proof that the paper is thoroughly corrupted. Both of Ralston's bosses, KSNV owner Jim Rogers and the Greenspuns, have given and raised significantly more money to/for Democratic groups and candidates and have also made their views of the candidates exceedingly public to no criticism from Ralston. (The Greenspuns have given more than $370,000 and the Rogers family more than $200,000 to federal candidates since the 2006 cycle, almost all of it to Democrats. Frederick? $0 to anyone.)

So I disagree with Jon's overall write-off of the newspaper itself. Both publications have serious flaws and challenges, and even a recent Los Angeles Times commentary that Ralston routinely references as skewering the R-J for partisanship also contained these lines:

• The liberal Las Vegas Sun persistently finds bright spots for Reid...
• The paper (delivered inside the R-J, in a novel arrangement) sometimes seems to treat Reid as a Great Man of the Senate...
• Sun staffers winced in February when Greenspun wanted to put on the front page an editorial praising Reid...
• the Sun favors Reid

So Nevadans have it rough finding a media source that comes close to providing even a perception of earnest objectivity or fairness. And I'll continue to argue that overall the R-J does a fairly good job of covering the general news and a very fair job of presenting national and international news stories. Also, it's website is inane.

What I probably can never do again, however, is praise the R-J for its coverage of the most important state election in Nevada history. I don't know if it's partisanship, jealousy, laziness or incompetence that has the Review-Journal ignoring the Angle tape. And I don't care. It shouldn't matter. It's a disgrace any which way.

Dear Righthaven...

Quit suing small chump. The Vdara Death Ray story has provided you a chance to go after HUGE fish. The list of publications that have ripped off Mike Johnson's sci-fi-esque graphic of the sun hitting the hotel and refracting onto the pool deck grows every day, and most of those offenders have much, much deeper pockets than the hapless schmucks you've been going after.

Here, I'll start a list for ya!

• The Daily Mail
• RawVegas.TV
• Gizmodo.Com
• JustMeans.Com
• Switched
• i09.com
• The Atlantic Wire
• Gawker
• HospitalityNet.Org

Now, I'm sure Righthaven CEO Steven Gibson's super-secret, proprietary method of finding offenders (translation: Google searches) have carried this process this far, but I'm highly doubting that it'll pick up on reuses of copyrighted artwork. So I'm here to help.

P.S. Congrats, R-J, for proving just how seriously you take copyright theft. Copyrighting is so important that, as your top lawyer Mark Hinueber told a Society of Professional Journalists gathering, it is nearly fundamental to the very foundation of the American way of life. But, on the other hand, someone who steals from you? She ought to be a United States senator! Cognitive dissonance much?

(Hat tip re: Daily Mail to Mark Wike)

Wynns, Murrens MIA On List of Pro-Reid Business Leaders

The Reid campaign just released a letter to the media signed by "nearly" 100 business leaders in Nevada arguing that Sen. Harry Reid's re-election is vital to the state. It's really just a re-configuration of other material that's been out there -- there already were "Businesses For Harry Reid," "Republicans For Reid" and others groups that featured some of the same names.

But there are a few peculiarities here that make it baffling they'd even bother to trumpet this thing. For one thing, by "nearly 100" they mean 90, which is, sure, close to 100, but they couldn't get even 100? There must be tens of thousands of businesses in this state!

Second, the headline is "Nevada Business Leaders Sign Letter Supporting Reid, Denouncing Angle on Economy" and it references Sharron Angle's "hemorrhaging support" even though Angle really never had any significant support from the business community to begin with.

And finally, this list may actually be more notable for the names that are NOT on it. Here are the gaming/Strip-related folks listed:

* Marybel Bayter, Harrah's
* Jan Jones, Harrah's
* Gary Loveman, Harrah's
* Karlos R. LaSane II, Harrah's
* Michael Morton, N9NE Group
* Blake Sartini, Sartini Enterprises (bro-in-law of Fertittas)
* Steve Cloobeck, Polo Towers developer
* Steve Nightingale, Club Cal Neva (Reno)
* John Farahi, Monarch Gaming (owns Atlantis in Reno)
* George Maloof, Palms

And that's pretty much it. No Steve or Elaine Wynn, no Tim Poster or Tom Breitling, no Jim or Heather Murren, no Bobby Baldwin or Phil Ruffin, no Fertittas or Thomases or Macks or Boyds or Gaughans. No Zappos or Ethel M people, either. Not even a Wayner, this week's most famous Nevada entrepreneur!

So, Reidites, why bother? You can't claim this is only a list of small business people because Maloof and Loveman are on there. You might say it's not an all-encompassing list, but what stopped you from producing one? Some of those who I just mentioned do appear on some of those other pro-Reid lists I referenced, but you couldn't get them to sign on to this letter?

Plus, the Wynns are a pretty glaring omission, and they also don't appear on the Republicans For Reid list, either. It was only last year that both of them were loud and clear that replacing Harry Reid would be a grave error. But then recall what Mr. Wynn said to me in August:

"I am so confused, Steve, about what’s going on in America. I’m so deeply concerned about the shape that our government has allowed our economy to get into and it precedes this government, it precedes Harry’s role as majority leader. ... [long discussion of problems of debt and entitlements] ... And that means Nevada is at risk not whether it’s Sharron Angle or Harry Reid, but whether our government in Washington can somehow reverse the course it’s been on, the juggernaut of reckless, irresponsible spending and borrowed money without destroying the economic health of the country permanently. ... [more economic discussion] And I don’t blame anybody, I don’t blame Harry, and I don’t know if Sharron Angle’s election of defeat is the issue or our time. ... I support Harry Reid. I support Harry Reid in the sense of 'Harry, make it go away, make it stop.' Something’s gotta be done, it can’t go on this way. … Am I conflicted by my ideological differences with what the Congress has done and my friendship with Harry? My answer to that question is yes and I’ve expressed frustration over that conflict to my friend Harry over the phone."

It strikes me that the omissions in this list say more than the names on it. At this stage, the Reid people ought to be aiming a little higher than "nearly 100," no? If they actually tried, you'd think they'd be able to say "more than 1,000." That would be news, perhaps. This is a backfire.

The Sun Pulls A Reid-Angle Funny

I've been under the gun and suffering bruising writer's block trying to finish a long-overdue feature that is really screwing up my schedule for the week, so I didn't even step out to pick up today's paper until now.

Too bad. I could've used this giggle from the Las Vegas Sun's corner of the R-J's front page sooner. I've actually never seen a headline quite like that in a newspaper. It's completely inappropriate, but an unexpected chuckle nonetheless.

Oh, and you'd only see it if you got the print copy of newspaper. The real story by Anjeanette Damon and Delen Goldberg, with its actual, non-April-Foolsy headline, is here.

Now back to my regularly scheduled misery.

Lady Gaga on Ellen: Call Harry Reid Re: Gays

Prepare for a tsunami of calls, Reidites, on Don't Ask Don't Tell. Gaga's on a warpath and every major gay blog is picking this up (see here and here and here) -- with the contact info for Reid's various offices. Fun times.