Silver Dollars & Wooden Nickels: Silver to the candidates who were above mud-slinging

The Nevada Appeal's "Silver Dollar" and "Wooden Nickel" feature recognizes positive achievements from the capital region and, when warranted, points out others that missed the mark.

Silver dollar: To Carson City candidates who ran clean, civil campaigns. Noticeably absent from nearly all of the contests was the vitriol that marked the U.S. Senate race. Winning Board of Supervisors candidate John McKenna said he put up only 10 signs, and was removing them the day after the elections. Newly elected school board member Barbara Myers conducted her campaigning by attending forums and other local events, talking to voters, as did many of the others. It was a refreshing example of old-fashioned democracy in action.

Silver dollar: Another silver dollar, to join the one handed out after the primary elections, to Clerk-Recorder Alan Glover and his crew at the Carson City elections department. While power outages and unexpected lines were gumming up the process in other counties, holding up results, Carson City's election day went off without a hitch. Well done.

Wooden nickel: To the machinations that resulted in Bill Raggio stepping down as Senate minority leader last week. Even worse is the loss of Raggio's decade of expertise on the Senate Finance Committee as the state heads into the worst fiscal firestorm in its history when the Legislature convenes next year. Furious at the 40-year veteran's endorsement - a tepid, qualified endorsement at that - of Harry Reid, state GOP leadership decided to take punitive, and, in our opinion, petty action against the lion of the Nevada Legislature. A bad omen for aisle-crossing cooperation in 2011.

Silver dollar: Finally, some giant cheers for the kids with the golden arms: Tim Lincecum and Madison Bumgarner. We have socks older than these kids, 26 and 21. And yet their cool-beyond-their-years steely-eyed pitching led the San Francisco Giants to their first World Series in 56 years. Northern Nevadans streamed across the Sierra to join in the celebration Wednesday in San Francisco. This was the party everyone waited a long time for, and no one wanted to miss.