Nevada AG race: Ross Miller’s strip-club confidential

By Ciara Matthews | Watchdog.org

In most U.S. states, candidates for public office might say “thanks, but no thanks” to a strip-club owner’s offer to host a campaign fundraiser. But this is Nevada.

Jamy Keshmiri, co-owner with his brother of the Wild Orchid and Fantasy Girls strip clubs in Reno, held a fundraiser Wednesday night for Ross Miller, the Democrat’s candidate for Nevada attorney general. He faces Republican and former Navy JAG officer Adam Laxalt.

In related news: Miller attacks Adam Laxalt’s war record here.

But the Reno Gazette-Journal broke that story more than a week ago. And though it was public for weeks that the moneymaker would be shaken on Wednesday, no one else has picked up the story. And no media — not even the GJ — have reported on whether the event came off as planned last night. Phone calls to attendees have gone unanswered.

David Damore, associate professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas said it is the “ubiquity of the sex industry in the state” that keeps a lid on news of the strip-club fundraiser.

Damore could recall only one other Democrat condemning the industry: U.S. Sen. Harry Reid.

Democrats, of course, have the challenge of serving several masters where sex is concerned: self-proclaimed civil libertarians who want more sexual freedom, as well as women’s rights advocates who may generally vote Democrat but who tend to see strip clubs as degrading to women.

Reid opened a third, more pragmatic front in the Democrats’ War on Women who Work Without Clothes: In a 2011 address to the Nevada Legislature, Reid argued the legalized sex trade keeps businesses from moving to his home state.

But not always. Lance Gilman, owner of the famous Mustang Ranch brothel outside Reno, also is the man behind the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center – location of the coming $5-billion Tesla gigafactory.