There’s a perception out there that Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak, now running for the Democratic Party’s nomination for Nevada governor, is a centrist.
Indeed, Sisolak himself is running like the proverbial scalded dog from the “liberal” label.
“I think people are more interested in moderate, centrist leadership,” he said in his announcement statement. “I’m not real liberal.”
And I guess compared to the rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth, anti-business lefties such as the Culinary Union and the Crazy Bernie fanatics, that’s true.
And if Sisolak was running against tax-hiking/ESA-killing/Medicaid-expanding Republican in Name Only (RINO) Gov. Brian Sandoval, he’d get a pretty good chunk of the GOP vote in the general election. But he won’t be running against a RINO next year, unless State Treasurer Dan Schwartz pulls a rabbit out of his, wherever, and wins the GOP nomination.
Don’t bet the farm on it.
No, the likely Republican candidate will be an actual, proven, common-sense, fiscal conservative – Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt. And the differences between Laxalt and Sisolak will be as stark as night and day.
For example, Sisolak opposes Education Savings Accounts, the voucher-like program that would allow parents, rather than the government, to choose which school their children attend.
Instead, he supports dumping even more money into the government’s “failure factories,” pledging on his website that “he will restore funding to at least pre-recession levels and prioritize class size reduction.”
Problem is, funding for Nevada’s public schools has already SKY-ROCKETED above pre-recession levels under Sandoval – with no sign whatsoever that it’s helped improve our worst-in-the-nation education system. And study after study has shown so-called “class size reduction” in Nevada to be a miserable failure and complete waste of money.
Indeed, the best, most cost-effective way to reduce class size in public schools is to give parents ESAs – a popular program Laxalt successfully defended all the way up to the Nevada Supreme Court – which will enable them to send their kids to private schools instead.
Sisolak also supports collective bargaining for state employees, which would cause statewide the same cost-inflating headaches unionization of local government workers has. And he’s all in with the propaganda campaign against repealing and replacing the disastrous ObamaCare program that’s in a death spiral nationwide.
He also appears to support sanctuary cities, a litmus test for the Culinary Union and other amnesty supporters, but voices concerns about how a cut-off in funding would impact local governments.
But if you suspect the commissioner’s true colors already bleed liberal blue, just watch what happens if a hard-left challenger, such as fellow County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani, enters the race.
That’s when his “centrist” sheen could be blown to smithereens.
Sisolak hopes to run as Democrat Lite. It’ll be interesting to see if the Kool-Aid drinkers in his party will swallow it.
Chuck Muth is president of Citizen Outreach and publisher of NevadaNewsandViews.com