Commentary - October 15, 2026 - by Rachel Dahl

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There is a point in Sam Shad’s two-part conversation with Sig Rogich when the discussion comes down to a question about water.

Who would you want negotiating on the Colorado River?

Shad was recalling Rogich’s support for Harry Reid in his final Senate campaign against Sharron Angle. Here was a Republican political strategist backing a Democratic senator, and the explanation involved something considerably more consequential than which team would get to celebrate on election night.

Nevada needed somebody at the table who could deliver.

Out here, where a community’s future can turn on water, access to land, or a decision made by people who have never driven through the place, that is a language we understand.

You can argue politics all afternoon. Eventually, somebody has to make sure the town has water.

Rogich has plenty of political convictions. Anyone listening to these interviews will come away with a clear understanding of that. He argues forcefully for teaching the history of socialism and communism, praises Joe Lombardo, criticizes Democrats, and offers opinions on everything from California government to the national press.

But the part that stayed with me was his account of working with people whose politics differed from his own.

Rogich recalled opposing Mike O’Callaghan in the 1970 governor’s race. Four years later, he said, O’Callaghan hired him to run his reelection campaign.

Think about the judgment required on both sides of that arrangement.

A governor had to see value in somebody who had worked against him. A political operative had to recognize something worth supporting in a man he had tried to defeat. Both had to get beyond the previous election long enough to consider the next job.

Rogich described O’Callaghan as a governor who considered what made sense for Nevada rather than what served either political party.

That is a useful standard. It also requires considerably more work than checking the letter after somebody’s name.

We have become awfully efficient at sorting people. Republican. Democrat. Conservative. Liberal. Once the sorting is finished, we can save ourselves the trouble of listening.

Except the business of governing remains unfinished.

A county still needs a workable budget. A school still needs teachers. A business still needs enough certainty to hire somebody. The people responsible for those things have to make decisions in a world where the available choices rarely arrive in tidy ideological packages.

Rogich’s explanation of his support for Reid belongs in that practical world.

He recalled conversations with Republican senators Orrin Hatch and John McCain about what Nevada stood to lose without Reid’s influence. He described his own decision as a calculation about the state’s interests.

People can disagree with that calculation. Crossing party lines does not automatically make a decision wise, any more than staying with your party automatically makes it foolish.

What matters is whether you can explain your choice in terms of the people you are supposed to serve—and accept scrutiny of the result.

That same obligation surfaced elsewhere in the interview when Rogich discussed public spending.

His question was straightforward: What did the money accomplish?

There ought to be a clear answer. When government appropriates money, somebody should establish what success looks like, who is responsible, and when the public will learn whether it worked.

Those questions belong to everyone who pays the bill.

In a small business, the distance between a decision and its consequences is usually short. Buy equipment you cannot afford, hire without enough revenue, or repeatedly pay for work that never gets finished, and the consequences eventually arrive at your own desk.

Public institutions need that same clear connection between promises, spending, and results. Approving the appropriation is only the beginning of the responsibility.

Then there was O’Callaghan’s relationship with the press.

Shad brought up the former governor’s reputation for calling reporters early in the morning when he disliked their stories. Rogich recalled getting an even earlier call himself.

As a publisher, I found that exchange particularly interesting.

An angry telephone call can still be a conversation. A public official can challenge a story, explain a decision, supply a missing fact, and answer another question. A reporter can listen, check the evidence, correct an error when necessary, and stand by accurate reporting.

That exchange takes some backbone on both ends, but so does governing alongside people you opposed in the last election.

What I heard beneath the arguments in Rogich’s interview was an expectation that people remain capable of doing business with one another—and that somebody ultimately answer for the work.

Nevada has room for fierce political disagreements. We also have communities whose needs will outlast every campaign.

When the election is over and the signs come down, somebody still has to sit in those seats. I want to know whether they came prepared to look out for Nevada.

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