Treasurer race a 'he said-she said' spectacle

The race for Nevada treasurer has turned into a finger-pointing, "he said-she said" spectacle that rivals any of this year's election battles in political rhetoric.

Democrat Kate Marshall and Republican Mark DeStefano are in a tight race for the job being vacated by Treasurer Brian Krolicki, who can't seek re-election because of term limits.

A late-September poll commissioned by the Las Vegas Review-Journal showed a statistical dead heat. Marshall had 29 percent and DeStefano had 33 percent in the poll that had an error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

The candidates' pointed jabs at one another indicate just how close the contest is for what's generally considered a lower-profile statewide elective post.

The Marshall campaign has called DeStefano a liar and points to his bankruptcy in 1989, litigation, business dealings and contributions from backers with legal troubles as evidence that he's unqualified for public office.

DeStefano, a Las Vegas businessman, says Marshall has a flawed plan for the office and has run a negative, unfair campaign against him. While he said he's run a positive campaign, he has called Marshall a liar.

Marshall, a Reno lawyer and former state and federal agency antitrust attorney, says DeStefano is desperate. She said the information her campaign has amassed against him is "publicly available and relevant to the office."

Marshall campaign strategist Gary Gray is more direct: "DeStefano is just lying. Every time he's confronted with something he comes up with another lie, hoping he can keep it up and not be caught until after Election Day."

DeStefano countered that Gray's tactic "is to slime people.."

DeStefano also said he's been subjected to "left-wing" press accounts of his business dealings, referring to a recent Las Vegas Sun story that said he's involved in "a murky world" of penny stock activity that lacks heavy scrutiny by government regulators.