Monkeys and bears come out as California-Nevada feud gets weirder

Southern Nevada can’t offer California businesses a better-educated workforce or prettier scenery. (Its bachelor’s degree attainment rate is among the lowest of metropolitan areas and, sorry, Mandalay Bay Beach is no Pacific Ocean.)

So to woo jobs to a state where they’re really, really needed, officials are relying on mocking Sacramento with pig-nosed blonds and funny monkeys.

The Nevada Development Authority ads, unveiled this month, ridicule the Golden State so relentlessly that the Los Angeles ABC affiliate has reportedly declined to run them. In "Lipstick on a Pig," a high-cheekboned newscaster tells California business owners "you know your Legislature loves you" – before sprouting a snout.

In "Monkey Around," a narrator says Sacramento is toying with small businesses so much that remaining in California means – and here a monkey puckers up – you can "kiss your assets goodbye."

"Get your IOU yet?" the commercial sneers.

The campaign is the latest in...

...an ongoing interstate rivalry. In 2004, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger stood on the Las Vegas Strip to kick off a billboard campaign: "Arnold Says: California Wants Your Business. (Actually, he says Kah-li-fornia.)" Last year, Nevada officials unleashed the California Tax Bear, a toothy creature that appeared to swallow profits like honey.

This time around, the sparring is less good-natured. California’s unemployment rate is 11.6%; Nevada’s, 12.1%. And despite what the adorable simian says, both states are in disarray.

California is $24 billion in the hole, has issued IOUs to state vendors and is saddled with a fractious Legislature that critics say is dismantling the California dream.

Nevada is coping with a battered gaming industry, a governor derided as irrelevant, a senator sidelined by an extramarital dalliance and possibly the nation’s worst state budget gap in 2010. Frankly, for both states, getting back on track will take a lot more than monkeys.

Bring in the dolphins!

-- Ashley Powers

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