So, I'm asked: knowing what you know now, would you still oppose Marc Boldt's election?

The short answer?

Yes.

The long answer?

At the end of the day, Marc was wrong on a variety of levels.  His vote appeared to be completely co-opted by democrat Steve Stuart on many important issues confronting this community and those decisions ultimately have damaged and would continue to damage Clark County for decades to come.

I didn't vote for either Marc or David Madore.  My opposition to Marc was based in large part with my opposition to most on the left: they turn a deaf ear to the people they would govern.  And, regardless of party, those who ignore the people in favor of an agenda are unfit to govern, regardless of party.

Unfortunately, over time, it became clear that Marc had adopted the fringe-left plan of, as Steve Stuart put it, "speaking for no one but Steve."

And that was simply unacceptable.

Marc laughed at the idea of an advisory vote on the CRC.

Even after telling me to my face in February of 2010 that he would make sure their would be an advisory vote on the CRC Project, he did absolutely nothing to make it happen, telling me, quite falsely as it turned out, that such a vote would be "unconstitutional," and telling the democratian:

County Commissioner Marc Boldt, a fellow Republican who previously served with Mielke in the state Legislature, said he’s not inclined to support an advisory vote now.

“Once you go down that path, your ballot could be full of advisory votes,” Boldt said.

Once he failed to keep his word to me... all bets were off.

So, I had to make a choice: support my own brother-in-law and his decision to support policies and democrat positions that would hurt this county, or oppose him to keep him from doing any more than he'd already done.

Hindsight is 20/20; as some people are want to say.  I have no idea what Marc's hindsight tells him: we haven't spoken except incidentally, for years.

But Marc's failure to this community, a failure also noticed and acted on by the local GOP, was also his failure to me.

That I am related to him by marriage brooks him no pass from me.

Unfortunately, Marc chose to use his seat on the freeholder board to exact what he believes will be a little revenge against the man who ousted him from office.

A substantial amount of my wife's extended family blames me for his loss in the last election.  None of them seems to understand that, had Marc stood with the people of this county... instead of against them like the democrats... his title would still be "commissioner."

I tried to warn him.  And he would not listen.

I don't agree with David Madore on everything.  But his positions most closely resemble mine on the issues most important.  Further, he is one of the many people most responsible for the demise of the CRC Scam, since he hired Tiffany Couch to ferret out the underhanded, backroom garbage that led to it in the first place.

On that issue alone (And there are others) I find that I remain comfortable in my decision to oppose a major CRC cheerleader who had turned a deaf ear to the people and then failed to fight to give us at least some voice on the issue.

It was not an easy decision to be sure.  But I cannot hammer Steve Stuart for abandoning his responsibility to the people of this county and then give Marc Boldt a pass for the same thing.  Stuart knows.  He didn't run for re-election because he knew he'd get killed at the polls if he did.  And that would follow him around forever.

The local daily has the luxury and frequently indulges in situational ethics and blinding, partisan, hatred.

But where they are vitally concerned with the party affiliation of their targets, I have no such constraint.

In the end, Marc Boldt cost Marc Boldt his election.  And I believe that at some point within him, he understands that as well.

Marc is a good man.  I'm sorry that even after 18 years in elective office, he was still so politically naive that he felt those who had hated him a few short years before and a newspaper that had even demanded his resignation a few years before that, would suddenly have his... or our... best interests at heart.

The Lord works in mysterious ways.  I'm just sorry that Marc has not, apparently, received that message.