Thursday, May 15, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Winning ugly

McDonald, Moncrief scratch and claw for city's Ward 1 votes

By Larry Wills

Last April, the Las Vegas City Council primary election looked about as exciting as watching cement dry. After all, incumbents raise most of the money and don't tend to lose, certainly not to a political nobody.

Well, nobody told Janet Moncrief that. She spent weeks hoofing around Ward 1, pressing the flesh and asking for votes. And, by golly, she won the primary with 48 percent of the vote, only 2 percent shy of an outright victory. Councilman Mike McDonald, four points behind, was admittedly stunned by the outcome, and the hottest race in recent memory was on for the June 3 general election.

On weekends, McDonald's campaign headquarters on Decatur Boulevard resembles a war room, awash with a small army of the faithful in McDonald T-shirts, hitting the streets for their guy. Lou's Diner next door is doing a brisk business.

And politically ugly stuff is hitting the fan. Now, a boring campaign has become as much fun as watching Mike Tyson bite ears, promising even more snappy headlines before Election Day dawns.

Just who is this surgically masked woman? If you talk to the McDonald camp, Moncrief is a carpetbagger who lives outside the first ward and is financed by former casino mogul Bob Stupak. McDonald detects a plot to repeal a state law that limits neighborhood casinos and says a proliferation of gambling halls would wreck the ward. He also accuses Moncrief of breaking election laws, dirty tricks and a not-so-sober driving record.

If you talk to Moncrief, you hear other things. She says she's a dedicated nurse who runs a surgical center for low-income patients. She has worked at University Medical Center for 13 years.

She says she wanted to run a high-road campaign, but has been drawn into a down-and-dirty battle with the incumbent. Now she finds herself defending a barrage of charges, including proving she's a Ward 1 resident.

Stupak, she says, doesn't work for her. "If he was, I'd fire him," she says.

Moncrief says Ward 1 voters favored her because of a fatigue over McDonald's reign, in the wake of ethics complaints filed against him and a high-profile battle with Mayor Oscar Goodman, who now, by the way, endorses the councilman. "They want honest, good local government," she says of residents.

The people she's talking to are tired of the uproars that have surrounded McDonald, she says. "In my walks through Ward 1, I hear they're sick of it. I walked last night and every single person says they're happy I'm running and it's time for new blood."

And she insists the political dirt is backfiring. "Everything he has done has been negative." Her polls, she contends, show she has 50 percent voter approval, about 18 points ahead of McDonald, with the margin widening as the accusations increase. "Every time he hits me, it goes up," Moncrief says.

McDonald disputes those figures, claiming the pollsters have tilted the data for their employer. "We're walking every day in the neighborhoods and the support is phenomenal," he says.

He's secured the support of the Culinary and other unions. During the interview, a carpenter's union representative stopped by campaign headquarters to drop off a $5,000 check.

McDonald concedes he was blindsided by Moncrief's door-to-door campaign when many of his supporters didn't bother to vote in the primary, a situation he promises to remedy next time around. The self-described Democrat also accuses his opponent of skullduggery, including a flier depicting him as a union-bashing Republican. "We're a whole family of Democrats," he insists.

Moncrief says she has no idea where that flier came from. She also disputes charges that she's hiding expenses for her campaign. She's listed $11,600 spent on fliers, which McDonald says is impossibly low to saturate the first ward.

"We narrowed the first letter to 10,000 people," Moncrief says. "If you add it up, it comes to $2,500." Her opponent estimated she had to spend more than $100,000. So, it's safe to assume these candidates are taking the election personally and a battle royal is certain over the next two weeks.

But are there any issues?

McDonald says he's better informed about the ward since he's a lifelong resident, and he points with pride to improved neighborhood services, development of declining properties, such as the Wal-Mart superstore at Decatur and Charleston, and making streets safer with innovative traffic designs.

He wants to keep businesses from moving out of the ward, with better code enforcement and a crackdown on crime. He also believes communication with neighborhoods is better, thanks to regular town hall meetings. He also takes credit for the city's rapid response team, which can quickly address code violators.

And McDonald says the key to improvements lies with listening to the residents. "If you talk issues, more millions of dollars have gone into this ward than ever before."

Moncrief, from her medical perspective, wants closer cooperation between the city and the county on health care. She sees a need for a more comprehensive detox center that could focus on the homeless. And she says the financial crisis at UMC affects city residents. "It's an issue, even in the city," she says. "UMC is in an all-time crisis."

She also says the homeless are generally ignored by the city. "The homeless aren't a problem if they don't see them sitting in front of them."

She sees honesty as the best approach to talking with voters. "All I ever tell them is I will never promise to do something that I can't."

But issues may fall victim to longstanding feuds in this ward full of old-time Las Vegans. Neighborhoods there have little population turnover and, unlike new subdivisions, memories linger over decades.

McDonald has strong, nearly belligerent supporters who have union loyalties and like a native son to represent them. There also are lots of Mike-bashers who have repeatedly tried to unseat him, including former councilman and activist Steve Miller, who ran a recall campaign a few years ago.

Both candidates concede that the road to victory is one vote at a time, knocking on doors, saying, "Hi, please vote for me." That approach may lure 80 percent of the voters who shunned the polls in April to cast their ballots. It also may affect the nearly one in five voters who haven't made up their minds.

That lesson was forgotten by the incumbent during the primary.

We have the woman in the surgical mask to thank for that.