Assembly District 40: The epic campaign attack backfire?

"You see, in our two-party system, the Democrats are the party of no ideas and the Republicans are the party of bad ideas. It usually goes something like this. A Republican will stand up in Congress and say, "I've got a really bad idea." And a Democrat will immediately jump to his feet and declare, "And I can make it sh---ier." — comedian Lewis Black

I'm not sure I've seen a better close-up example of a campaign attack backfiring than I did last night in the Assembly District 40 race.

Robin Williamson seemed to be doing everything right to fill the seat held by fellow Democrat Bonnie Parnell. She was working very hard, walking the neighborhoods, working with both Democrats and Republicans to gather the coalition she needed to win in this GOP-leaning district.

And then the Nevada Democratic Party stepped in and screwed it up.

A series of slick, large postcards with the state party's name on them began showing up in Carson City mailboxes several weeks ago attacking Republican Pete Livermore for alleged misdeeds while serving as Carson City Supervisor. The charges were very old news, questioning the sale of his fast-food restaurant to the city in order to widen a street, and voting himself pay raises.

By the end, the attacks became comical. The last one accused Livermore of voting for a pay raise in order to buy "designer suits," and showed a closet full of suits with his face imprinted on the hangers.

Now, I don't want to accuse Livermore of being a bad dresser, but there's about as much chance of seeing Pete in a designer suit as there is of our macho-but-hobbled Gov. Jim Gibbons dancing down Carson Street for next years's Nevada Day Parade wearing a Speedo and ballet shoes.

I talked to Livermore about these attack pieces when they first came out, and he read me a two-page letter from a political opposition research firm out of Washington D.C. that made official records requests for a slew of documents from his time in public service. The requests seemed to fixate on Livermore's travel expenses, and who he was traveling with, as if looking for some elicit affair.

It was obviously a fishing expedition — and a bad one at that — by this out-of-town firm trying to dig up dirt any way they could. If they had taken the time to actually talk to some local Democrats, they would have learned that those kind of attacks might work in big markets back east, but not against a well-known public figure in a small city.

Local Democrats complained to state party chairman Sam Lieberman that these negative mailers were doing more harm to Williamson's campaign than good, and asked for them to stop. But they didn't. They kept coming and coming coming, like some politically destructive Energizer Bunny.

There is no absolute, concrete evidence that these mailers cost Williamson the race. But you'll be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks they helped her.

Livermore seems to believe they helped him win, despite being outspent by more than three to one.

I estimate that the state party spent close to $100,000 for these attack mailers and the opposition research firm that put them together. I think that if they would have spent half that amount on positive mailers extolling Williamson's experience and qualifications, she might be spending this morning cleaning out her city office and preparing to move to her new Legislative digs down the street.

In fact, perhaps if the state party had spent nothing, she might have found enough votes to pull out a win, and they could have used the money in other races.

Either way, the Nevada Democratic Party screwed this one up, badly, and flushed 100 grand down the drain. I know that Lieberman will be hit with some angry questions about this in the coming weeks.

So here is some advice for Lieberman: The next time you want to do opposition research, hire someone local who actually knows Nevada politics. There is no reason to outsource political work like this, especially when you get these kinds of results. Shop local, Sam.

Then again, the Republicans sure have to be loving the fact that their counterpart helped fund their pick-up of this important Assembly seat last night, and are hoping for an encore in 2012. Outsourcing is working great for them.