Endorsement #7.2: CD2 - Why we’re not endorsing Jill Derby

We spent a lot of time on this one. At first, it was easy. Then it got a little harder. Then it was easy again. Then we just gave up. Both sides could’ve done better. We’re disappointed in the campaign – one that pitted two quality candidates up against one another, a race that we liked. Instead, what we’ve seen is a pathetic series of missteps on Heller’s part, rebutted all the way with so much dishonesty from the Derby camp… after a bit of time with our research, we couldn’t tell which way was up.

Buckle in, kids, and please keep your arms and legs inside the car at all times.

We originally intended to endorse Jill Derby. But endorsing Jill Derby would have been a lot like endorsing Nike as a shoe: there’s nothing there but a nice ad campaign and a air under your feet. Jill Derby isn’t a candidate for congress – she’s a product; a marketed series of poll-calculated policy positions and slogans. Under all the wrapping, Derby is like a blank floppy disk, waiting to download a slick ad campaign and a catchy theme song.

Sure, they’ve done a good job marketing it – just like Reebok did a good job marketing the shoes with the little air pumps back in our sporting days. We didn’t jump any higher or run any faster. But somebody made a lot of money, and we sort of got screwed.

Jill Derby pretends not to be a career politician. And, sure, Derby Supporters contend serving on the Board of Regents for eighteen years is closer to public service than political. After all, she doesn’t get paid. But she sure as hell acts like a career politician. In her eighteen years as a Regent, Derby has taken more taxpayer paid trips than any of her colleagues. In her eighteen years as a Regent, Derby has voted for more tuition and fee increases – the cost of tuition has about doubled during her tenure – than any of her colleagues. And we’ve seen the results of the career-politician-style throwing money at the problem: the Nevada System of Higher Education is still in shambles. A few years back, she was a vociferous advocate of firing a university President in secret — without first following the procedures outlined by the state’s open meeting law. Working behind closed doors to undermine someone’s credibility – remarkably like a career politician.

Even ignoring her record – Derby’s tendencies toward the same old career politician that she’d want to give the boot don’t end there. Jill Derby has done more to obfuscate her left-of center roots just to win an election, just like a career politician. Citing one of our e-mails from Steve, of Reno:

“Before she ran for Congress, Derby was an avid anti-war protestor. Suddenly, she’s all about staying the course in Iraq. And her “there are other options” Bull**** lines are, essentially, the same lines touted by republican leadership. She’s abandoned us on the left to make herself more appealing to the center.”

“Jill Derby was never a war protestor” somebody, probably another blogger, will leave in the comments. Even if her reputation as wasn’t well known as it is, a helpful reader sent us this link.

Much like a career politician, Jill Derby takes policy positions that will directly benefit her family much more than the people who vote for her. Derby and her husband, Steve Talbot (who owns a large veterinary practice in Douglas County), incidentally owns four properties, the values of which total in the millions of dollars, as we have gleaned from assessor records in Nevada and California (one of these is right on Lake Tahoe). Is it possible that the Derby family stands to benefit from a repeal of the estate tax?

For those of you who are frothing, getting ready to be all angry, ready to say to us something like: “MMP, we’re not gonna read you anymore. Somebody like you should know that political candidates have to make certain sacrifices and do certain things to aide in their election efforts. A vote for anybody but Derby is a vote for more of the same” or similar ridiculousness, we respond:

1. So stop reading already.
2. We know that. But we expect more. And Derby is pretending to be more than that. But she’s not. She’s… just like every other candidate for congress.
3. A vote for Jill Derby is pretty much a vote for more of the same, too. It’s like picking the blue cotton candy over the pink. It tastes the same, it’s just a different color. And worst of all, it’s still just empty calories.

We’ll wrap up with a quote from the Reno News and Review’s recent endorsement of Dean Heller in this race (when the independent local paper endorses a republican over the best shot the dems have had in years, you know you’re in trouble):

Derby could, of course, provide a vote for a Democratic House majority, but that rationale becomes less persuasive with the party’s growing subservience to corporate power. Just as Derby’s supposed liberalism provided political cover for the Board of Regents to abuse civil liberties, a Democratic majority would enable a continued screwing of working people by a majority coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats.

And they’re right. Sure, Derby could lead to a Democratic majority. Sadly, we believe the weak-willed democratic majority would be just as apt to give the governance of the nation over to monied special interests as the republicans who’ve done it so well over the past several months. We are therefore uncompelled to endorse Derby for that reason.

If this were a republican who had done and said all this, who had subjected you to such a ruse, you’d be calling for their head on a pike. An honest discourse is all we’re looking for in this race — and when Derby got into the race, we thought we’d see one. Sadly, what we’ve got is the opposite.

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