Unopposed and unchanged, Assemblyman Ira Hansen sent a missive to his caucus mates this week criticizing GOP leaders and their "excessive expenditures on consultants."
Hansen itemized about a quarter million dollars worth of spending on Cory Christensen, a close adviser to Majority Leader Paul Anderson, who last cycle formed the Growth & Opportunity PAC that helped take the majority. " A grossly disproportionate share of our funds has been, in my opinion, largely squandered on a single consultant, Cory Christensen," Hansen wrote on Wednesday, almost exactly two years after he raised questions in emails about caucus priorities during the last cycle.
This week's email, sent to caucus members, sparked a vitriolic and swift reaction from Christensen, who derided the northern assemblyman's desire to have a "merry band of Irates."
"You have no clue what was done last election cycle or what it will take to win this cycle," Christensen replied. "You live in this never, never land where everything just happens magically. There is a real world out there Ira where democrats and independents live and in those areas where more of them live than republicans there is actual work done to get elected.
Anderson declined to comment. But this shows how Hansen, who has openly said he is trying to defeat GOP colleagues who voted for the tax increase, is willing to be a thorn in the leaders' side from now until November.
Here is the exchange
Ira,
Since you have chosen to include me in your weak attempts at attacking others in the caucus I am going to set the record straight. There will be tons of grammatical errors in this because I just don’t care to take the time to clean it up.
Nobody buys your concern for others. You care about nothing but Ira so when you try to say the caucus this and the caucus that you can just insert “I, me or mine”. Everyone knows what you really mean.
You have no clue what was done last election cycle or what it will take to win this cycle. You live in this never, never land where everything just happens magically. There is a real world out there Ira where democrats and independents live and in those areas where more of them live than republicans there is actual work done to get elected.
“It shoulda been me!” I think that ought to be put on your tombstone. It’s eating you alive. You had the gavel and gave it up when you caught up with yourself. You just couldn’t run from who you really are and then you couldn’t stand the heat when it became public. Go ahead, blame the Gov, blame the liberal tax raising so and so’s. Whatever you say publicly, you can’t get away from that little voice in your head screaming “it shoulda been me! It was me and I gave it all away!”
I think that voice also knows that it really is better that it wasn’t.
Oh yeah, despite what you think, not all of my advice is followed by leadership. If it was, you certainly wouldn’t have been Asst ML or a committee chair. If they would have listened to that we might have got some of the other good legislation out that was killed in the Senate or held before heading over to the senate where it didn’t stand a chance because you decided to get into pissing contests (excuse me ladies, I cant think of another term describes what went on) with them.
————————————————————————————————————————————————
Now the detail-
First, you say-
Our caucus voted in the spring of 2014 to stay out of all primaries and support only incumbents. Despite being the elected leaders of our caucus, Hickey and Anderson, (with Christensen), deliberately and knowingly violated that agreement and were directly involved in at least seven primaries. In six of those primaries, the candidates Hickey and Anderson backed with Christensen as consultant, lost.
Not sure where you get your information but I’m very sure that you will not find 7 races that we were involved in the primary and I will also say that you can’t find 6 people who’s races I was involved in that lost.
I’m not sure if you actually believe your own b.s. Or if you are so used to lying that you can't remember the truth. In the highly unlikely scenario that you are just sincerely ignorant I’ll enlighten you a bit. I invite you to check with any of the folks that you believe that I helped out in primaries directly to check the accuracy of what I am writing.
Once brought on by Pat, he asked that I go out and meet the folks that were running in the primaries to give him an opinion on who might give us the best opportunity to win the general election.The plan was to meet with the various candidates and then based on that see if we couldn’t have conversations with them that could save us from having expensive primaries and save the resources for the general election in areas where we would be likely to need them.
We had a plan to focus our resources on a more limited number of races as opposed to past cycles where thousands of dollars was spent in races with little accountability by the candidates to the caucus and other closer races ended up being lost where they could have been won with more resources used on them.
I went through that process, met with various candidates and gave my opinion on various races. Some recaps-
AD-4 I was asked by a former republican member of the assembly (X) to meet with a woman that was interested in running against Fiore. There are quite a few social conservatives that were/are unhappy with Fiore and were looking for someone to replace her. While I do not believe Fiore to be legitimate conservative because of her stances on same sex marriage and legalization of pot, I explained to X that we would not be running a primary against Michele but that I would meet with Ms.Laughter as a favor. I proceeded to meet with Ms. Laughter, told her that the caucus would be supporting Fiore and that I didn’t see any viable path for her. I called X and a couple of other folks that were not in support of Michele staying and let them know that this Ms.Laughter was not what I would consider a serious candidate and although well intentioned I couldn’t see a scenario where she could win. I let Paul and Pat know that I had these conversations and this meeting and then forgot about it. No money or time beyond that was spent on that primary race even if that doesn’t fit in the storyline you like to tell.
AD-5 I met with a couple of people that looked at running in AD5. I originally met with Max Miller-Hooks prior to his moving into AD5. He was not yet sure where he was going to move his family. I told him that I thought that he could be a legitimate candidate if he found the right race. Subsequently I met with Erv Nelson, who had mentioned to a couple of common friends that he was thinking of running and they thought that he would be a great candidate for that area. Erv had lived in the district for over 20 years, was very involved in the schools, church and politically as an activist for conservative issues and so I recommended to Paul and Pat that we support Erv. This district is immediately to the east of where I live and I have known Erv for 10 or so years through business and church and knew him to be a well thought of person that would be able to win. Paul and Pat agreed with me and we ran Erv’s campaign. After we had already decided to support Erv, Max Miller-Hooks moved into the district and ran. Erv won.
AD-9 While there was not a primary, David Gardner was elected because Pat and Paul decided to spend a significant amount of resources in that district for the general. We did all the mail into the district, had paid walkers and paid callers that worked in AD9 while David was dealing with the sudden loss of his father. It has been speculated by you and others that David just won because of the “Red Wave” but I know that speculation to be due to the lack of knowledge about what work was actually done in AD9 or any knowledge of what it takes to run a race in a democrat district at all.
AD-19 This is one of three districts where I was involved in running a race in the primary in an open seat and the only race we lost. Cresent Hardy asked us to help Laura Bledsoe and we were helping the people that incumbents wanted to have as their replacements. For full disclosure I believed that Laura Bledsoe, a conservative woman that has lived in Overton for +20 years, with a husband that had been in the LDS stake presidency in the area would be a better candidate for that district. Chris Edwards had only recently moved into the district and didn’t have many relationships there. This is the one primary that we lost that I was involved in. Chris put his head down, walked like a madman and just flat out out-worked Laura. You walk you win, you don’t you won’t. Chris won.
AD-29 This was a targeted takeover district in our plan and so is was another district that we were active in the primary. I met with both Stephen Silberkraus and Amy Groves and was convinced that Stephen was the better candidate. I recommended to Pat and Paul that we support Stephen and they agreed. Stephen won.
AD-31 There were originally 3 folks looking at running in this seat. Jill, a former county commissioner and city councilman. I met with all three in Reno. After meeting with the three it was obvious that there were pro’s to all of them. 2 were former elected officials and Jill and her husband Tom were active in the local party central committee. We thought that they might be able to talk and work out who should run. We invited the three of them to a dinner to talk it out. The two former electeds came but Jill didn’t feel comfortable coming without Tom and that point. (we had asked it to just be the candidates) Nothing was solved that night but by Jill not being willing to participate we decided that she would not be the one that was going to be supported. Over the course of a couple of weeks the two men worked it out that Ron Schmitt was going to run and Jill also decided to run. Ron had a campaign manager that he had used in the past and that is who ran his campaign, we only did a donor sheet for him. I couldn’t tell you anything about his campaign as I had no further involvement.
Jill went out and worked her butt off and won the primary.
I believe what Pat did after the primary tells you what you really need to know. He spent his time, talents and treasure in working to get Jill elected in the general election. Exactly what we laid out in the plan that we had created.
AD-35 While I met with Mike Bajorek originally, we explained to him that we would not be spending caucus resources in that race and we didn’t.
AD-38 I drove out and met with Dr. Titus in her office. During that meeting I gave her the impression that we would not support her although when we left her office I told Pat that I thought that she would be a conservative, reasonable member of the caucus.
After meeting with Robin we went and met with Norm Frey, a former county commissioner that the incumbent was supporting. We had a good meeting with Norm. When we were done I told Pat that I like Norm as well although there was concern as to how much he would be able to campaign because his wife had just had some surgeries that required him to be available to her most of the time.
In between our having met with Robin and leaving Norm’s there was a post by Chuck Muth that we had gone to Robin’s to tell her not to run. While I had told Pat previously that I thought either Robin or Norm would be good in my view, I was unhappy about the rapidness of Muth’s post and Robin’s assessment of our meeting. The former assemblyman was supporting Norm and so at that point I told Pat that I thought Norm would be the better choice. (We had decided that we would try to respect the current assemblyman's desire for a replacement). Again it was decided that no caucus resources would be used in that race, including me. I didn’t hear about that race again until election day.
AD-39 Pat and Jim Wheeler had some problems the previous session and Pat wasn’t interested in having to work with him again. He asked me to meet with Robin Reedy to see what I thought. After I saw the video of Jim attacking southern Nevada as a bunch of thieves I also thought that it would be best to not have him back in the legislature as I believe that the North/South garbage is one of the biggest problems in our legislature. I told Pat that I thought that Robin would be a good, conservative, thoughtful legislator. That was the full extent of my involvement in that race. The caucus did not spend any resources in that race.
AD-40 I only met with PK as he was the incumbents choice to replace himself and I thought that PK would be a great candidate and assemblyman. He hired a northern campaign manager to run his campaign and while we were fully supportive of PK we had little to do with his campaign.
So Ira, why don’t you enlighten us on what races I’m missing here that I was involved in and exactly what 6 of 7 races I lost.
Considering the caucus, previously, got the full services of Red Rock Strategies for only $3,000 a month for only a few months out of the election year, the amount spent on Christensen is extremely inflated.
Again, since you know squat about running campaigns, you have no idea of the comparison in services between what was being done by Red Rock and what I do.
While Red Rock consulted to the caucus, each candidate still hired their own campaign managers at an additional price. The total dollars spent in 2014 was less than had been spent in previous election cycles throughout more races. The reason that donors continue to donate is because they have seen the data that shows that our candidates cost per vote was considerably less than senate races in the same districts.
Thus I was disturbed to see in October and November of 2014, $75,361 dollars paid to "Campaign Data Solutions", Nathan Emen's political consulting business.
Knowing nothing about running campaigns you either don’t know that Campaign Data Solutions is also a printing/mailhouse or you do know and are purposely misleading your caucus mates to try and cast doubts on leadership. Fortunately the majority of the caucus had mail pieces done through Campaign Data Solutions that the caucus paid for so they know you are wrong. (maybe everyone had mail go through the print shop as the Governor endorsement piece was mailed through them.)
After I stepped down-
This is what all your issues are really about. Your idiotic writings came out and showed who you really are and when that was exposed to the light of day you couldn’t stand the heat from it. You are the king of the blame game and as opposed to owning the fact that YOU resigned, you look for someone, anyone to blame.
Since many of the incumbents expected at least some money in their re-election efforts, the fact "Leadership" (and I use that term loosely) has spent all the caucus funds, leaving next to nothing for all the members of the caucus, should cause all of us to pause
You know as well as anyone that it is close to impossible to tell what is carried forward from one finance report to the next (Hey, that might be a good BDR for someone) and we all know that you aren’t worried about what anyone else is getting, you just want to know how much money there is to beat yours and Brent's candidates and are attempting to drive a wedge in the unified side of the caucus.
What happens to the money in caucus accounts has always been up to leadership. That is what has always happened. I know that you think by having so many freshman in the caucus you can try to confuse them into believing that there has always been some form of pro-rata distribution (is that….communism?) but all they have to do is look at any of the other legislative caucuses to see that the money is always distributed as the leaders feel there are needs.
There is a significant amount in the caucus accounts and the only money being spent out of them is for bank reconciliation and filing C&E’s.There is no longer an Executive Director or any other expenses besides those above. The plan is to have this money available for the general elections when hopefully we can finally come together to try and maintain the majority.
Oh yeah, you don’t want the majority so I guess you will still be working against most of the rest of the caucus.
Is there going to be money for the caucus members? I would bet there is, but do you think that you’ll see any of it? LOL
Quick question for you Ira, how much money have you raised for your caucus mates copied here? That’s right, you aren’t raising for them, you are the one making all of them spend money in primaries and you are the one that would like to see all of them lose so that you can lead a merry band of 14-15 Irates.
Now that I have wasted way more time on you than you deserve, you now have the truth. I can now know w/o a doubt that when you run around talking as if you have a clue as to what was going on, you know you are lying.
Cory
From: Ira Hansen Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2016 10:32 PM Subject: Where the caucus funds went
Dear Fellow Assembly Caucus members,
As you are all aware, following the November 2014 election the caucus pressed for an audit of the Assembly Republican funds. At our November 2014 meeting in Paul Anderson's office in Las Vegas we were told we had roughly $200,000 dollars. After I stepped down and Wes Duncan resigned, Hambrick was elected Speaker. He promised a full and complete audit of our funds. Needless to say, Hambrick did not do anything of the sort. We as a group know little about the money that rightfully should be for our caucus use.
I have done an unofficial audit of sorts from the mandatory C&E reports. A grossly disproportionate share of our funds has been, in my opinion, largely squandered on a single consultant, Cory Christensen.
First of all, let’s list the Political Action Committees (PACs) under caucus control:
1. Rural Republican PAC
2, Republican Assembly Victory Fund PAC
3. Republican Assembly Leadership Caucus PAC
4. Assembly Republican Caucus PAC
All of the above PACs as of the January 15th 2016 filing are essentially or very close to empty.
A quick rundown:
Rural Republican PAC
2015: $30,000.00 in/ $42,000.00 out
Republican Assembly Victory Fund
2015: $45,000.00 in/ $35,000.00 out
Republican Assembly Leadership Caucus
2105: 0 in/ 0 out.
Now for the big one,
Assembly Republican Caucus PAC
2010: $287,000 in/ $286,000 out
2011: $175,000 in/ $125,000 out
2012: $454,000 in/ $405,000 out
2013: $115,000 in/ $148,000 out
2014: $445,000 in/ $485,000 out
2015: $24,000 in/ $28,000 out
Paul Anderson had in 2014 set up a PAC, the "Growth and Opportunity" PAC.
This PAC in October 2014 received $160,000 from Sheldon Adelson/Sands Corporation.
Anderson and Hickey, when they told us we had $200,000 in the Caucus accounts, also included this sum.
Thus we were down to $40,000 in Caucus accounts and had $160,000 in Growth and Opportunity PAC.
Total for Growth and Opportunity PAC:
2014: $247,000 in/ $97,000 out
2015: $66,000 in/ $131,000 out.
So, where did the money go?
Perhaps the most disturbing expenditures involve consultant Cory Christensen.
Our caucus voted in the spring of 2014 to stay out of all primaries and support only incumbents. Despite being the elected leaders of our caucus, Hickey and Anderson, (with Christensen), deliberately and knowingly violated that agreement and were directly involved in at least seven primaries. In six of those primaries, the candidates Hickey and Anderson backed with Christensen as consultant, lost.
As you recall, we had, as a caucus, let Christensen go in November 2014. However, immediately after that, Anderson and Hickey transferred $20,000 from the Assembly Republican Caucus PAC account to the Growth and Opportunity PAC which then put Christensen on its payroll where he remained until it too ran low on funds. Following that Anderson was forced to pay him from his own campaign account.
By January 15th 2016 Cory Christensen has been paid $253,362 from various accounts. Considering the caucus, previously, got the full services of Red Rock Strategies for only $3,000 a month for only a few months out of the election year, the amount spent on Christensen is extremely inflated. (A full breakdown of the payments made to Christensen is attached.)
Since Christensen is a political consultant, I assumed after spending over a quarter of a million dollars on his services, we would not need to hire additional high dollar consultants.
Thus I was disturbed to see in October and November of 2014, $75,361 dollars paid to "Campaign Data Solutions", Nathan Emen's political consulting business.
Add to that $20,000 paid in June and July 2015 to Red Rock Strategies, and the total paid from the above PACs to political consultants totals over $348,000 dollars!
Since many of the incumbents expected at least some money in their re-election efforts, the fact "Leadership" (and I use that term loosely) has spent all the caucus funds, leaving next to nothing for all the members of the caucus, should cause all of us to pause. These excessive expenditures on consultants will hamper our ability to raise funds. In fact, I think some of this is already known and has hurt us already. Few things trouble donors more than seeing their tens of thousands essentially squandered on over-priced "consultants".
Of course I still want a full accounting. If "Leadership", as I anticipate, will claim my numbers are wrong, let’s have a full audit as promised. As they say: “Sunlight is the best disinfectant”.
Unopposed and unchanged, Assemblyman Ira Hansen sent a missive to his caucus mates this week criticizing GOP leaders and their "excessive expenditures on consultants."
Hansen itemized about a quarter million dollars worth of spending on Cory Christensen, a close adviser to Majority Leader Paul Anderson, who last cycle formed the Growth & Opportunity PAC that helped take the majority. " A grossly disproportionate share of our funds has been, in my opinion, largely squandered on a single consultant, Cory Christensen," Hansen wrote on Wednesday, almost exactly two years after he raised questions in emails about caucus priorities during the last cycle.
This week's email, sent to caucus members, sparked a vitriolic and swift reaction from Christensen, who derided the northern assemblyman's desire to have a "merry band of Irates."
"You have no clue what was done last election cycle or what it will take to win this cycle," Christensen replied. "You live in this never, never land where everything just happens magically. There is a real world out there Ira where democrats and independents live and in those areas where more of them live than republicans there is actual work done to get elected.
Anderson declined to comment. But this shows how Hansen, who has openly said he is trying to defeat GOP colleagues who voted for the tax increase, is willing to be a thorn in the leaders' side from now until November.
Here is the exchange
Ira,
Since you have chosen to include me in your weak attempts at attacking others in the caucus I am going to set the record straight. There will be tons of grammatical errors in this because I just don’t care to take the time to clean it up.
Nobody buys your concern for others. You care about nothing but Ira so when you try to say the caucus this and the caucus that you can just insert “I, me or mine”. Everyone knows what you really mean.
You have no clue what was done last election cycle or what it will take to win this cycle. You live in this never, never land where everything just happens magically. There is a real world out there Ira where democrats and independents live and in those areas where more of them live than republicans there is actual work done to get elected.
“It shoulda been me!” I think that ought to be put on your tombstone. It’s eating you alive. You had the gavel and gave it up when you caught up with yourself. You just couldn’t run from who you really are and then you couldn’t stand the heat when it became public. Go ahead, blame the Gov, blame the liberal tax raising so and so’s. Whatever you say publicly, you can’t get away from that little voice in your head screaming “it shoulda been me! It was me and I gave it all away!”
I think that voice also knows that it really is better that it wasn’t.
Oh yeah, despite what you think, not all of my advice is followed by leadership. If it was, you certainly wouldn’t have been Asst ML or a committee chair. If they would have listened to that we might have got some of the other good legislation out that was killed in the Senate or held before heading over to the senate where it didn’t stand a chance because you decided to get into pissing contests (excuse me ladies, I cant think of another term describes what went on) with them.
——————————————————————————————
Now the detail-
First, you say-
Our caucus voted in the spring of 2014 to stay out of all primaries and support only incumbents. Despite being the elected leaders of our caucus, Hickey and Anderson, (with Christensen), deliberately and knowingly violated that agreement and were directly involved in at least seven primaries. In six of those primaries, the candidates Hickey and Anderson backed with Christensen as consultant, lost.
Not sure where you get your information but I’m very sure that you will not find 7 races that we were involved in the primary and I will also say that you can’t find 6 people who’s races I was involved in that lost.
I’m not sure if you actually believe your own b.s. Or if you are so used to lying that you can't remember the truth. In the highly unlikely scenario that you are just sincerely ignorant I’ll enlighten you a bit. I invite you to check with any of the folks that you believe that I helped out in primaries directly to check the accuracy of what I am writing.
Once brought on by Pat, he asked that I go out and meet the folks that were running in the primaries to give him an opinion on who might give us the best opportunity to win the general election.The plan was to meet with the various candidates and then based on that see if we couldn’t have conversations with them that could save us from having expensive primaries and save the resources for the general election in areas where we would be likely to need them.
We had a plan to focus our resources on a more limited number of races as opposed to past cycles where thousands of dollars was spent in races with little accountability by the candidates to the caucus and other closer races ended up being lost where they could have been won with more resources used on them.
I went through that process, met with various candidates and gave my opinion on various races. Some recaps-
AD-4 I was asked by a former republican member of the assembly (X) to meet with a woman that was interested in running against Fiore. There are quite a few social conservatives that were/are unhappy with Fiore and were looking for someone to replace her. While I do not believe Fiore to be legitimate conservative because of her stances on same sex marriage and legalization of pot, I explained to X that we would not be running a primary against Michele but that I would meet with Ms.Laughter as a favor. I proceeded to meet with Ms. Laughter, told her that the caucus would be supporting Fiore and that I didn’t see any viable path for her. I called X and a couple of other folks that were not in support of Michele staying and let them know that this Ms.Laughter was not what I would consider a serious candidate and although well intentioned I couldn’t see a scenario where she could win. I let Paul and Pat know that I had these conversations and this meeting and then forgot about it. No money or time beyond that was spent on that primary race even if that doesn’t fit in the storyline you like to tell.
AD-5 I met with a couple of people that looked at running in AD5. I originally met with Max Miller-Hooks prior to his moving into AD5. He was not yet sure where he was going to move his family. I told him that I thought that he could be a legitimate candidate if he found the right race. Subsequently I met with Erv Nelson, who had mentioned to a couple of common friends that he was thinking of running and they thought that he would be a great candidate for that area. Erv had lived in the district for over 20 years, was very involved in the schools, church and politically as an activist for conservative issues and so I recommended to Paul and Pat that we support Erv. This district is immediately to the east of where I live and I have known Erv for 10 or so years through business and church and knew him to be a well thought of person that would be able to win. Paul and Pat agreed with me and we ran Erv’s campaign. After we had already decided to support Erv, Max Miller-Hooks moved into the district and ran. Erv won.
AD-9 While there was not a primary, David Gardner was elected because Pat and Paul decided to spend a significant amount of resources in that district for the general. We did all the mail into the district, had paid walkers and paid callers that worked in AD9 while David was dealing with the sudden loss of his father. It has been speculated by you and others that David just won because of the “Red Wave” but I know that speculation to be due to the lack of knowledge about what work was actually done in AD9 or any knowledge of what it takes to run a race in a democrat district at all.
AD-19 This is one of three districts where I was involved in running a race in the primary in an open seat and the only race we lost. Cresent Hardy asked us to help Laura Bledsoe and we were helping the people that incumbents wanted to have as their replacements. For full disclosure I believed that Laura Bledsoe, a conservative woman that has lived in Overton for +20 years, with a husband that had been in the LDS stake presidency in the area would be a better candidate for that district. Chris Edwards had only recently moved into the district and didn’t have many relationships there. This is the one primary that we lost that I was involved in. Chris put his head down, walked like a madman and just flat out out-worked Laura. You walk you win, you don’t you won’t. Chris won.
AD-29 This was a targeted takeover district in our plan and so is was another district that we were active in the primary. I met with both Stephen Silberkraus and Amy Groves and was convinced that Stephen was the better candidate. I recommended to Pat and Paul that we support Stephen and they agreed. Stephen won.
AD-31 There were originally 3 folks looking at running in this seat. Jill, a former county commissioner and city councilman. I met with all three in Reno. After meeting with the three it was obvious that there were pro’s to all of them. 2 were former elected officials and Jill and her husband Tom were active in the local party central committee. We thought that they might be able to talk and work out who should run. We invited the three of them to a dinner to talk it out. The two former electeds came but Jill didn’t feel comfortable coming without Tom and that point. (we had asked it to just be the candidates) Nothing was solved that night but by Jill not being willing to participate we decided that she would not be the one that was going to be supported. Over the course of a couple of weeks the two men worked it out that Ron Schmitt was going to run and Jill also decided to run. Ron had a campaign manager that he had used in the past and that is who ran his campaign, we only did a donor sheet for him. I couldn’t tell you anything about his campaign as I had no further involvement.
Jill went out and worked her butt off and won the primary.
I believe what Pat did after the primary tells you what you really need to know. He spent his time, talents and treasure in working to get Jill elected in the general election. Exactly what we laid out in the plan that we had created.
AD-35 While I met with Mike Bajorek originally, we explained to him that we would not be spending caucus resources in that race and we didn’t.
AD-38 I drove out and met with Dr. Titus in her office. During that meeting I gave her the impression that we would not support her although when we left her office I told Pat that I thought that she would be a conservative, reasonable member of the caucus.
After meeting with Robin we went and met with Norm Frey, a former county commissioner that the incumbent was supporting. We had a good meeting with Norm. When we were done I told Pat that I like Norm as well although there was concern as to how much he would be able to campaign because his wife had just had some surgeries that required him to be available to her most of the time.
In between our having met with Robin and leaving Norm’s there was a post by Chuck Muth that we had gone to Robin’s to tell her not to run. While I had told Pat previously that I thought either Robin or Norm would be good in my view, I was unhappy about the rapidness of Muth’s post and Robin’s assessment of our meeting. The former assemblyman was supporting Norm and so at that point I told Pat that I thought Norm would be the better choice. (We had decided that we would try to respect the current assemblyman's desire for a replacement). Again it was decided that no caucus resources would be used in that race, including me. I didn’t hear about that race again until election day.
AD-39 Pat and Jim Wheeler had some problems the previous session and Pat wasn’t interested in having to work with him again. He asked me to meet with Robin Reedy to see what I thought. After I saw the video of Jim attacking southern Nevada as a bunch of thieves I also thought that it would be best to not have him back in the legislature as I believe that the North/South garbage is one of the biggest problems in our legislature. I told Pat that I thought that Robin would be a good, conservative, thoughtful legislator. That was the full extent of my involvement in that race. The caucus did not spend any resources in that race.
AD-40 I only met with PK as he was the incumbents choice to replace himself and I thought that PK would be a great candidate and assemblyman. He hired a northern campaign manager to run his campaign and while we were fully supportive of PK we had little to do with his campaign.
So Ira, why don’t you enlighten us on what races I’m missing here that I was involved in and exactly what 6 of 7 races I lost.
Considering the caucus, previously, got the full services of Red Rock Strategies for only $3,000 a month for only a few months out of the election year, the amount spent on Christensen is extremely inflated.
Again, since you know squat about running campaigns, you have no idea of the comparison in services between what was being done by Red Rock and what I do.
While Red Rock consulted to the caucus, each candidate still hired their own campaign managers at an additional price. The total dollars spent in 2014 was less than had been spent in previous election cycles throughout more races. The reason that donors continue to donate is because they have seen the data that shows that our candidates cost per vote was considerably less than senate races in the same districts.
Thus I was disturbed to see in October and November of 2014, $75,361 dollars paid to "Campaign Data Solutions", Nathan Emen's political consulting business.
Knowing nothing about running campaigns you either don’t know that Campaign Data Solutions is also a printing/mailhouse or you do know and are purposely misleading your caucus mates to try and cast doubts on leadership. Fortunately the majority of the caucus had mail pieces done through Campaign Data Solutions that the caucus paid for so they know you are wrong. (maybe everyone had mail go through the print shop as the Governor endorsement piece was mailed through them.)
After I stepped down-
This is what all your issues are really about. Your idiotic writings came out and showed who you really are and when that was exposed to the light of day you couldn’t stand the heat from it. You are the king of the blame game and as opposed to owning the fact that YOU resigned, you look for someone, anyone to blame.
Since many of the incumbents expected at least some money in their re-election efforts, the fact "Leadership" (and I use that term loosely) has spent all the caucus funds, leaving next to nothing for all the members of the caucus, should cause all of us to pause
You know as well as anyone that it is close to impossible to tell what is carried forward from one finance report to the next (Hey, that might be a good BDR for someone) and we all know that you aren’t worried about what anyone else is getting, you just want to know how much money there is to beat yours and Brent's candidates and are attempting to drive a wedge in the unified side of the caucus.
What happens to the money in caucus accounts has always been up to leadership. That is what has always happened. I know that you think by having so many freshman in the caucus you can try to confuse them into believing that there has always been some form of pro-rata distribution (is that….communism?) but all they have to do is look at any of the other legislative caucuses to see that the money is always distributed as the leaders feel there are needs.
There is a significant amount in the caucus accounts and the only money being spent out of them is for bank reconciliation and filing C&E’s.There is no longer an Executive Director or any other expenses besides those above. The plan is to have this money available for the general elections when hopefully we can finally come together to try and maintain the majority.
Oh yeah, you don’t want the majority so I guess you will still be working against most of the rest of the caucus.
Is there going to be money for the caucus members? I would bet there is, but do you think that you’ll see any of it? LOL
Quick question for you Ira, how much money have you raised for your caucus mates copied here? That’s right, you aren’t raising for them, you are the one making all of them spend money in primaries and you are the one that would like to see all of them lose so that you can lead a merry band of 14-15 Irates.
Now that I have wasted way more time on you than you deserve, you now have the truth. I can now know w/o a doubt that when you run around talking as if you have a clue as to what was going on, you know you are lying.
From: Ira Hansen
Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2016 10:32 PM
Subject: Where the caucus funds went
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