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Adam Laxalt, Nevada's attorney general and the Republican candidate for governor, speaks at the Southern Hills Republican Women's Club in Henderson, Nev., On Aug. 28, 2018. 12 of his family members have opted against his candidacy. (AP / John Locher)
"A house divided against itself can not stand."
Abraham Lincoln's famous line, which he draws from scripture in 1858 as a contest of the future of the Union of the United States, bears repeating ahead of a different issue, one waged in voting booths rather than a bloody battlefield.
Families are again divided. Of course, they often are; home life is messy. These are a method of political persuasion, however, which is a measure of the contention marking American life as the midterm elections approach.
The latest domestic volleyball came Monday, when 12 family members of Adam Laxalt, the Republican candidate for governor in Nevada, published an op-ed in the Reno Gazette-Journal urging the state's voters to reject their own kin. They base their appeal not just on their relative positions but also on their personal character. They say "phoniness" and "self-serving political purposes."
"The decision to write this column," wrote the candidate's family members, "a group that includes a family medicine physician, an educator, a lawyer, a mental health therapist and an artist. "We are writing as members of the Laxalt family who have spent our lives in Nevada, and the United States is the world's largest employer."
Laxalt, Nevada's attorney general, enjoys a slim polling lead in his race against Democrat Steve Sisolak, a businessman and county commissioner.
The op-ed was the latest proof that family is loyalty is losing to political difference. The bitter, take-no-prisoners approached by David Brill, a Democratic Congressional Candidate in Arizona, only to reveal the end of the spot they were siblings of the opponent candidate, incumbent Republican Rep. Paul A. Gosar.
Parker Briden, a spokesman for Laxalt, said in a statement to the Washington Post that the candidate "has a large family and some remote relatives are lifelong liberal activists, donors and operatives."
He added: "Adam's record of protecting Nevada senior citizens, veterans, and women in the world." Steve Sisolak's support for raising property taxes, his doubling of student tuition and his pattern of pay-to-play politics – for which The judge in question, Robert Jones of the Federal District Court, scolded Sisolak and his fellow Clark County commissioners in 2010 for their handling of a road-widening project, accusing them of acting "corruptly," charge that Sisolak said was mischaracterization.
The column in the Gazette-Journal – by an aunt and cousins, among others relating – anticipate the campaign's response, arguing that it "would be true" for Laxalt to claim he "hardly knows the people writing this article."
"We never had a chance in Washington, DC, while we lived in Northern Nevada and grew up in public schools and on public lands," they wrote.
In a campaign video, Laxalt speaks with a single mother, Michelle Laxalt, a Washington lobbyist who has appeared with her son. Born in Reno, Nev., And raised in the nation's capital, Laxalt, 40, describes himself as a "fourth-generation native Nevadan." He is also a Navy veteran. But his family members were less than "Nevada's values" than "those of his out-of-state donors." He is the grandson of Reagan confidant Paul Laxalt, who served as governor of Nevada and a US senator and died in August.
The column hits Laxalt hardest for his stance on immigration. As attorney general, he is the former President Barack Obama's deportation deferral program, and, under President Trump, he has supported the administration's efforts to penalize cities.
His family members said Laxalt's position was at odds with his family's history. Laxalt is the great-grandson of the Basque immigrants who ventured to the US in 1900. In his campaign launch, the candidate spoke of his great-grandfather, "who came from the Basque Country to the hills of the Sierra Nevada and went on to be a sheep herder and rancher. "
"In the face of Nevada's history of a newcomers, including our own immigrant forbears," the column states.
At the same time, the authors accused Laxalt of exploiting his Basque heritage by holding an annual fundraiser billed as a "Basque Fry." This year's event featured Kellyanne Conway, counselor to Trump; Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), Trump acolyte and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee; and Dana Loesch, spokesperson for the National Rifle Association. In jeans, workbooks and a shirt monogrammed with his logo campaign, Laxalt aims at "an image of authenticity, of a deep family tie to Nevada and its history," his family members observed. "But it's all gone, all props paid for by someone else." The event was put on by the Morning in Nevada PAC, whose donors include the NRA.
His family members also took care of Laxalt's career as a lawyer and attorney general. They have pointed to a performance evaluation that has been described as "a wreck." They said it was a little bit more than a four-year publicity tour for his current campaign for governor. that he has used his role as attorney general to "protect those who need more protection" and quoting his efforts to reduce the sexual assault kit backlog.
There is scarcely an issue on which his family members spared him – from health care to public land to education. But most of all they impugned his character and intentions, writing of his "self-serving political purposes" and "servitude to donors."
They say they would be "proud" to have a family member, Democrat or Republican, running for office, "so long as we believe that they would be good for Nevada." The column is narrowly focused on Laxalt, not mentioning his opponent. But their individual writers have had their say in Sisolak's support, which is why it is so popular that the Democratic candidate has publicized on social media.
The Republican's aunt, Kevin Marie Laxalt, has been professor at Great Basin College in Elko, Nev., Appeared earlier this month in ad for Sisolak. Meanwhile, the nominee's cousin, Monique Laxalt, said she and others felt "an obligation to speak out … it's any misunderstanding that because it carries our family name, it represents our family's values."
Sisolak's most recent campaign finance disclosure shows that members of the Laxalt family have donated hundreds of dollars to his campaign.
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