Ad you won’t see: Kate Marshall broke the world!

Boy, that mean Kate Marshall sure wrecked Nevada's economy!

At least, that's what you'd think if you saw the National Republican Congressional Committee's latest attack ad, which savages Marshall for driving up unemployment and foreclosures, and even advocating for a tax increase.

But you won't see that ad, at least not in Reno, where at least two TV stations pulled it from the air after Marshall's campaign objected that it wasn't true.

And while campaigns complain about truth in advertising all the time, it's very rare for a station to pull an ad on those grounds.

To some extent, Marshall has herself to blame, bragging in interviews that she's steered Nevada through the recession. That's kind of like the helmsman on a destroyer taking credit for steering the ship into a narrow harbor. Sure, it was his hand on the wheel, but it was the officer of the watch who gave the rudder orders.

But if Marshall inflated her resume slightly, the Republicans lost all sense of proportion by accusing her of crashing the entire state economy.

"Democrat Kate Marshall claims she's a financial expert," intones an ominous voice over a bad black-and-white photo of Marshall. "But under her watch Nevada plummeted from the second-strongest economy to the worst in the nation." It goes on to detail lost jobs and skyrocketing foreclosures.

Really? Marshall did all that in just six years? How the hell did she get former President Bill Clinton to sign off on bank deregulation? Or induce Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make all those questionable loans? Or get banks to lend money to bad risks? Or get Wall Street to bundle all those mortgage-backed securities? Or convince the newly conservative analysts at Standard & Poor's to say it was all good?

Wow, she sure is powerful.

Oh, wait, the Republican ad doesn't explicitly say she did all that, does it? It just says those things happened on her watch! Says the NRCC's regional press secretary, Tyler Q. Houlton: "The fact remains that, during Kate Marshall's tenure as Nevada's treasurer, the economy suffered the largest increase in unemployment and home foreclosure rates in the nation."

Which is a little like saying because Marshall was alive when all this happened, she must be responsible. Which is, of course, ridiculous.

Hey, you know who else was on the job when all this happened? Then-House Minority Leader John Boehner! And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell! And former Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons, followed by Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval! According to the NRCC, the fact remains that during the tenure of all these men, the economy suffered the largest increase in unemployment and home foreclosure rates in the nation. They must all be responsible, right?

Finally, the ad accuses Marshall of advocating for a big tax increase on businesses to pay off loans the state was forced to take from the federal government to pay unemployment benefits. But a transcript of a hearing before the Employment Security Council clearly shows Marshall trying to find ways to reduce interest costs for employers by selling bonds to repay the federal government and using tax proceeds to retire the bonds.

Interestingly, an account of the hearing does show noted conservative Ray Bacon of the Nevada Manufacturers Association advocating a much higher tax hike on businesses to repay the federal loans. The state ultimately ignored that advice, raising the tax from 1.33 percent to 2 percent.

Sadly, Marshall's bond idea required approval from the Nevada Legislature before it could be implemented. For somebody who wrecked the state's economy, it sure doesn't seem like Marshall has a lot of power.

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist and author of the blog SlashPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/SteveSebelius or reach him at (702) 387-5276 or ssebelius@ reviewjournal.com.