Review-Journal political reporter Erin Neff reports today that professional loser (that’s our term, not hers) Tony Dane has purchased a bunch of Internet domain names using the name of Nevada Supreme Court Justice Nancy Becker. Dane says he’s unsure if he’s going to use them in a sure-to-fail campaign against Becker. On the one hand, he was very upset about the Guinn v. Legislature decision of 2003, in which the high court ignored the voter-approved two-thirds requirement to raise taxes. On the other, he once came out on top in a lawsuit in Becker’s courtroom long ago. So he’s torn.

What principles.

It sounds to us like Dane is trying to extort Becker to buy the domain names back from him and head off a negative campaign that would highlight her role in Guinn v. Legislature. After all, Dane and his equally failure-prone pal, George Harris, claimed they were going to recall some justices in the wake of the decision (not to mention Gov. Kenny Guinn). No recall ever materialized.

Don’t get us wrong: There are plenty of good campaign issues to deploy against Becker. Don’t forget she was one of the three people who undersold Las Vegas on the concept of a Regional Justice Center (with ex-Sheriff Jerry Keller and ex-D.A. Stewart Bell). The center is over budget, years behind schedule and still not open. And picking through the court’s decisions would no doubt yield more fodder that could be used against the justice.

But if Dane is the one doing the digging, Becker may as well order those new bookcases for her office, because she’s guaranteed to win again. In politics, having Dane as an opponent is a talisman of success.