Las Vegas Gleaner

Other corrupt people Dean Heller has met (and admires, and takes campaign contributions from)

When thin-skinned quasi-senator Dean Heller threw his hissy fit and declared that his opponent was the most corrupt and unethical person he'd ever met, David Vitter must have felt slighted.

During the short, accidental Senate tenure of Dean Heller, he and his wingnut colleague from Louisiana appear to have struck up a close working relationship.

Vitter is also featured on this year's list of most corrupt members of Congress, as compiled by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). This year's dishonor marks the third time Vitter has made the list. In addition to indulging his fetish for wearing diapers with prostitutes (it takes all kinds), Vitter has come under fire for keeping a guy on staff who tried to stab a woman, and trying to bribe a cabinet officer. As CREW executive director Melanie Sloan helpfully explains, "There likely is no senator who has been before the Senate Ethics Committee more often than Sen. Vitter."

And there is no member of Congress who has received more money from Vitter's "Louisiana Reform" leadership PAC in 2012 than Dean Heller -- $10,000 as of Sept. 3 to be specific. That's twice as much as Vitter's PAC has contributed to any other politician in America, according to opensecrets.org.

Oh, well, CREW is just some icky liberal do-goody outfit that hates Republicans, so who cares, right?

Except innocent humans whose eyeballs have been subjected to Dean Heller's campaign commercials are left with the impression that CREW's "Most Corrupt" list is one of America's most sacred founding documents. Heller's campaign is almost entirely built around Shelley Berkley's appearance on CREW's list, albeit Berkley garnered a mere "dishonorable mention," a fact that Heller never honorably mentions because he, too, is probably embarrassed that Nevada -- Nevada! -- can't crack CREW's official top 12 "Most Corrupt" list, like his valued colleague David Vitter has not once, not twice, but three times.

If Dean Heller wants Nevada voters to know anything this election year, it is that earning a dishonorable mention on CREW's list disqualifies Shelley Berkley from being a U.S. Senator. That's the core message of Heller's campaign.

So to recap: Heller is using money provided by a disgraced skank and recurring star of CREW's list to buy ads saying that Berkley can't be in the U.S. Senate because she's on CREW's list. Hypocrite? Or just a Republican? Ha. Trick question obvsly.

Speaking of disgraced skanks, the disgraced skank who more than anyone else is responsible for Heller being in the Senate in the first place, John Ensign, still had $20,000 in his leadership PAC, as of the last reporting period, anyway. In this cycle Ensign has already donated to Mark Amodei, whoever that is, as well as that one weirdo who is always running for something (and always losing) whose dad was a basketball coach. The Hairdo might as well fork over the rest to Heller. He'll take anybody's money.

Nevada Senate race meeting expectations

"The most unethical, corrupt person I've ever met in my life is Shelley Berkley," appointed senator and dumb blond Dean Heller says.

Actually, in an embarrassing blow to Nevada's hard-won reputation as an unethical backwater where organized crime apologists get elected by acclamation and all public policy is determined by which sleazeball juice-broker can swing the most lucrative sweetheart deal over whores, cocaine and cocktails on any given day, Berkley and her wildly boring micro-scandal earned merely a "dishonorable mention" on CREW's report of the most corrupt members of Congress -- a report that serves as the sum total of Heller's campaign.

The dozen members of Congress who were named full-on "most corrupt" are, according to CREW, anyway, by definition more corrupt than Berkley. And presumably Heller knows all of them, especially the two-thirds of them who are Heller's fellow Republicans.

Plus...

Surely Heller knows Sheldon Adelson.

Heller knows Jim Gibbons.

Heller knows, or at least has endorsed, Mitt Romney -- although now he doesn't want to get any on him.

Heller and the other "grown up" Nevada Republicans would prefer to pretend that the Nevada Republican Party doesn't exist. Yet it is hard to imagine that Heller has never met state GOP chairman and standard-issue Nevada flim-flam man Michael McDonald.

Indeed, Heller is a career politician who has been in one elected office or another for nearly all his adult life. Name any prominent Nevada sleazeball, and chances are Heller has met them.

And the obvious specimen, as Ralston quickly noted on his new post-Sun website thingy, is the vile piece of work whose corruption created the Senate vacancy Heller was appointed to fill.

Berkley's new ad about Heller's drug-trafficking money-laundering crony is exactly the kind of televised noise that has nothing to do with anything that matters to anybody's life, which is to say it truly reflects the campaigns being waged by both sides in this dumb-as-dirt race for Senate. True, unlike Heller, Berkley has run some substantive ads on public policy. But evidently polling shows the best chance of winning is to join Heller and his handler Mike Slanker by mounting a campaign in the shit-covered, vomit-drenched milieu that is Slanker's preferred habitat.

One would prefer to see Berkley focus on dismantling Heller's puerile policy prescriptions and make a case for an aggressive progressive agenda. Alas, Berkley is not an aggressive progressive. So evidently we'll just have to settle for Berkley needling, taunting and teasing Heller, prompting Heller to ball up his fists and stamp his feet and yell "stop it you stinky poophead! You're the stinkiest poophead I've met, so there!"

In other words, the race is shaping up exactly as anticipated.

He's just not that in to you

Just because it has been revealed, in no uncertain terms and so as to remove any sliver of doubt, that Republican nominee by default (really, who else did they have?) Mitt Romney's loathsomeness is mutual -- he thinks you're vile and disgusting, too -- Nevada Democrats must not get complacent.

For one thing, Romney doesn't deserve to lose Nevada. He deserves to lose Nevada by a soul-crushing margin that will humiliate not only him but anyone who has campaigned, supported and/or apologized for the lies, race-baiting, class warfare and condescending claptrap that is his presidential campaign (i.e., Brian Sandoval).

More importantly, Nevada Democrats need to show up at the polls in huge numbers, not merely to rid America's political landscape of Willard once and for all, but also to vote for Shelley Berkley, Steven Horsford and John Oceguera. No, your Gleaner has no interest in any of those people as, you know, people. Their individual political careers are neither here nor there. Seriously, don't care. Really, if potted plants were running as Democrats against Republicans the need to support the foliage would be no less urgent (and maybe easier?).

It's just that the Tea Party mustn't control Congress, s'all. (More on this in CityLife later this week btw.)

Now is not the time for Nevada Obama supporters to dance on Romney's grave. Now is the time to toss the rest of the Republicans in after him.