Las Vegas Gleaner

A couple Gibbons leftovers

Yes, sounds unappetizing, but...

* Flash floated the notion yesterday that Harry Reid might be providing stealth support to Jim Gibbons, as evidenced by Jay Brown, attorney and Big Friend of Harry, being an active Gibbons supporter and fundraiser. Payback for Gibbons deciding not to run against Reid last year, so the theory goes. We suppressed it. We're still, and continuously, disgusted by Reid's  despicable sheltering of GOP Sen. John Ensign, and learning that the Great and Powerful DEMOCRATIC Senate leader might be harboring Gibbons as well was too painful to acknowledge. After all, here at the Gleaner, we're really rather fragile and sensitive. So denial kicked in.

But Flash notes that his tip was picked up by the Hotline today, so the horrible prospect of a pro-Gibbons Reid reared its ugly and shameful head yet again, this time lodging in the Gleaner noggin for good.

A couple of operatives, which is to say people kind enough to take the Gleaner's calls, suggest that Brown, along with a handful of assorted Dems, are backing Gibbons not because they've been asked to by Reid, but for the usual Nevada reason: self-interest. They're betting Gibbons will win, and they want to be on the winner's side because it might come in handy sometime down the road.  Hopefully, that's the case explanation.

But with Reid already openly and brazenly providing aid and comfort to the enemy in the form of Ensign, and with Democrats apparently unable to mount a single credible campaign for a single congressional race except the one they've already got (Berkley's), it wouldn't be a bit surprising to learn that rank and file Democrats in Nevada are frustrated, if not just pissed. Maybe before Reid returns to his native habitat in D.C. to be fawned over by the national mainstream media, he could be bothered to say a few words here in Nevada about the state party, and about what, if any, race is important to the party next year, and how he intends to work his ass off to make sure that Democrats win in at least that race. Yes, he's busy, being a great man and all. But whether he likes it or not, he has some leadership responsibility with regard to the state party. And if he doesn't want to exercise that leadership, in a way that benefits the party, and not just him, then he should seriously get the hell out of the way.

* Speaking of the Democrats, it should have been mentioned in the earlier Gibbons post that new Nevada Democratic Party Spokestress Kirsten Searer led a contingent of folks to Gibbons' balloon drop with balloons of their own, shaped like the number 2, to illustrate what they called the Jim Gibbons "Second Choice" tour. The clever point: Gibbons is No. 2! Just fooling, that's our clever point. The Democrats' clever point is that Gibbons always puts Nevada second. Like when he said he wouldn't even be running for governor if his reindeer friends in the GOP House would have given him his first choice, chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee. The full Democratic statement is here.

Gibbons drops his balloons

His organizational skills on blazing display, Republican Rep. Jim Gibbons announced for governor in Las Vegas in the Wednesday morning heat, amid limited shade, and with only one or two interruptions caused by traffic noise from a nearby busy intersection. This is why we don't leave the house that often.

Among those on hand to support the frontrunner were Jack Kemp. It was great to see Kemp dusted off and propped up in front of the cameras on behalf of Gibbons, as Kemp brought so very, very much to the Dole presidential campaign in 1994. Also on hand were County Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald, who lost the biggest race she ever entered, taking a beating from Shelley Berkley in a 2002 congressional campaign, and Sen. John Ensign, who lost his first stab at winning a statewide race, to Harry Reid, in 1998. Good omens all.

Gibbons himself was gracious, emphasizing, for instance, how important it is that John Ensign be reelected next year to the U.S. Senate seat he eventually won in 2000 - an echo, sadly, of Reid's position.

As for the agenda, the reasons Gibbons is running for governor, there was lots of "will work closely" and "work to address" and "work to ensure" and "work to protect" various stuff. Veterans. Geezers. Children. Nevada. Bidness. Private property. Gibbons is "for" all of them.

On the details, eh, not so much. Asked by pesky reporters afterward how, for instance, he would manage to pay teachers more, as called for in his speech, Gibbons confidently explained that "we'll be developing these answers" as the campaign progresses. So keep an eye out for that.

But in his speech he did tout his "Education First" initiative, which would require the Legislature to fund education before it funds anything else. It should be called "Jim Gibbons First," because it's just a gimmick designed to bolster his candidacy. On the bright side, it's probably a totally meaningless gimmick, because the the Legislature can just work away on all the budget items, then when they're ready to go, simply pass the education budget first.

More importantly, as Ken Lange with the Nevada State Education Association notes, it's not the order in which the education budget is passed that matters. It's the amount of the budget. And on that score, Gibbons and nearly all who praised him at his balloon-drop took pains to emphasize that Gibbons is a fiscal conservative who hates taxes.

As for other initiatives floating around, like the one proposed by Sen. Bob Beers to limit state spending via a childish formula, or NV CD2 candidate Sharron Angle's Son of Prop 13, Gibbons refused to take a position. Answers are under development, no doubt.

For now, the campaign's top priority is to develop a warchest, already estimated by some to be bulging in the $2 million range. More than any pablum Gibbons served up in the heat this morning, Gibbons' continued ability to amass cash and dry up funds from potential GOP opponents Beers and Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt  will determine whether anybody can lay a glove on him in the Republican primary.

Once in the general election, however, Gibbons might want to start "developing these answers." We can't wait to see how the public welcomes them, especially the public in urban Clark County, where Gibbons has never had to win a significant number of votes.

Gibbons' congressional district includes but a sliver of Clark County, and he won 9,100 votes in the county in 2004 - his token opposition picked up 6,400. There are 724,000 registered voters in Clark County, and most of them went for Kerry. Everybody is concerned, rightly, about whether a Democratic candidate can pick up support in Nevada's values-totin' rural heartland. But the more people in Southern Nevada learn about Jim Gibbons, there is a distinct possibility that they will not be all that impressed. Regurgitating innocuous Republican talking points and touting your deep connection to rural issues doesn't sell as neatly here as it does in the sticks.

On a mission

We will be away from the desk for a while- gonna go watch GOP Rep. Jim Gibbons announce his campaign for governor this morning. It's an excellent opportunity to, you know, look into his heart. Also a good chance to see if his socks match. Assuming they let us in.

Yes, this means there will be a "Jim Gibbons announces for governor" post later today, because we're such slaves to convention.

We're sooo busted

R-J letter writer reveals the Gleaner's evil agenda (scroll to third letter).

Daily Glean

Out There

• Bush to release oil from Strategic Petroleum Reserves. Post
• Not as many National Guard forces on the scene as there should be, something to do with some war or other. Post
• Unnatural disaster: More than 600 killed in Baghdad stampede. Post
• The NYTimes dug into that census bureau report we noted yesterday, finding incomes are stagnant, as opposed to falling, because people are working more hours. Also, "first time on record that household incomes failed to increase for five straight years"
• Poll finds 64 percent of Americans think creationism should be taught alongside evolution. We've changed our position, and agree with mainstream America on this one. By teaching evolution, we'll be teaching something in our schools not offered by our most aggressive competitors in the global economy, because they're still focusing on that old-fashioned science stuff. That's sure to give our children a leg up as they prepare to compete in the global job market. NYTimes

'Round Here

• Nevada emergency folks head for Louisiana to help; others awaiting the word. LVRJ
• Reno Gazette-Journal, unlike much larger paper to the south, localizes census bureau report, focuses, appropriately, on NV's dismal health insurance coverage rates.
• As Jim Gibbons has made clear, "liberal, tree-hugging, Birkenstock-wearing, hippie, tie-dyed liberals" should leave the country, preferably to serve in Iraq as human shields. Unless, of course, they're pumping $10 million into the northern Nevada economy. Gibbons (and Ensign, too) to send staffer to Burning Man Festival to look in on members of the counterculture the congressman so heartily despises. RGJ
• Governor appoints nine to Problem Backbone of Our Economy Advisory Panel. LVRJ

Are you better off?

The Census Bureau's report on income, poverty and health insurance coverage released today confirms what most already know: household incomes ain't going up.

Some Nevada notes:

• Nevada's household income, poverty rate and percentage of uninsured all statistically unchanged over three-year average.
• Nevada median household income: $46,984; U.S.: $44,473.
• Nevada's poverty rate: 10.2 percent; U.S.: 12.4 percent.
• Nevada uninsured: 19.1 percent; U.S.: 15.5 percent.

On the uninsured front, by the way, Nevada had the fourth highest rate of uninsured, after Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. That dovetails with similar reports documenting Nevada's high number of uninsured relative to the rest of the country.

MiniGlean

• Katrina. We're going to stipulate that this is one of those times when cable TV is useful - and not just for the hurricane porn - and CNN has been wall-to-wall. Fox seems eager to return to apologizing for Bush full-time. Meantime, in print, the Post's early evening roundup and sidebars might be as comprehensive as anything else we've seen. NYTimes and USAToday also playing pretty hard. As mentioned earlier, the Times Picayune is filing reports, even though they evacuated their office earlier today. And DeadlyKatrina.com has a good roundup of information and stories from local sources.
• With a major American metropolitan area under water, ordered to evacuate, it's future shrouded in doubt, and a multistate coastline reeling in tragedy from a death toll in the hundreds and untold destruction, Bush goes to San Diego for yet another recital of empty slogans designed to bolster support for war. Reuters
• Local headline: "Nevada seniors average in reading on SAT" - we thought geezers received a better education than the rest of us, because back in the day the nation had values, and people were more honest and worked harder, and since when are geezers taking the SAT anyway and...oh, high school seniors. Average. Could be worse. Sun
• Founder of Nevada White People's Party is an ex-felon. Whew. If he was a law-abiding founder of the Nevada White People's Party, he might have caught on. Sun

Devastation, and chaos

Now the cops are joining the looting, reports the Times-Picayune's blog:

Some officers joined in taking whatever they could, including one New
Orleans cop who loaded a shopping cart with a compact computer and a
27-inchn flat-screen television.

Officers claimed there was nothing they could do to contain the
anarchy, saying their radio communications have broken down and they had no
direction from commanders.

“We don’t have enough cops to stop it,” an officer said. “A mass riot
would break out if you tried.”

Here's the Red Cross.

Lorraine who?

There's a woman in Nevada named Lorraine Hunt. She has a job called lieutenant governor. It's not clear that anybody has heard of Hunt, or her job, because every time somebody talks about the Republican candidates for governor, of whom Hunt is one, she's either ignored or mentioned as an also-ran.

Let's take the charitable view, and attribute Hunt's obscurity to her employment - or lack thereof. The lieutenant governor's official duties, as outlined in the Nevada Constitution, consist of a) hovering meaninglessly around the state Senate on occasion and b) being on call in case a piano falls out of a window and lands on the governor. In all likelihood, Hunt has been equal to those tasks since being elected to the post in 1998. But we can't know for sure, inasmuch as Kenny Guinn's tenure as governor has been, up to this point, happily free of plummeting pianos.

Over the years, the lieutenant governor's job has widened a bit to include chairmanship of the state Commission on Economic Development and the state Commission on Tourism. The former exists mostly to oversee the doling out of tax breaks to dubious companies, i.e., companies that won't come here unless they get tax breaks. The latter has been in an uphill battle to convince tourists, preferably Chinese ones, to come to Nevada for the pretty rocks and stuff and not just the casinos.

The tourism commission is innocuous at best, and probably redundant, given the jillions that hotel/casinos and their governmental subsidiaries spend marketing the state. The state has never been serious about economic diversification, and if the economic development commission wanted to be useful, it would be working to tax businesses, not give them tax breaks, so the money could be spent on the education system at all levels. But we digress. In any case, chairing neither commission has generated Lorraine a meaningful headline that might suggest she's, you know, gubernatorial material.

Hunt's predecessor as lieutenant governor, a physician named Lonnie Hammargren, managed to achieve a higher profile than Hunt, albeit by virtue of attempting to perform an unnecessary tracheotomy on an unsuspecting stuntman and amassing one of the largest collections of yard bric-a-brac in this or any other industrialized nation. Taking a shot of his own in 1998, he couldn't get any respect as a gubernatorial candidate, either. But perhaps Hunt, who for her part, sings, could list "restoring honor and dignity to the office" as her crowning achievement as lieutenant governor, and see if that flies.

Hunt wasn't always unknown. Prior to running for lieutenant governor, she served for four years on the Clark County Commission, historically a much more powerful and influential position than her current post. And unlike Hammargren, Hunt had to campaign against legitimate competition to win the job. She defeated an African-American woman named Rose McKinney-James in 1998, 50-40. McKinney-James was, is, very articulate, competent, accomplished and well-qualified - probably the last type of person voters associated with the lieutenant governor's office. Did we mention that Lorraine Hunt is a lounge singer?

In 2002, Hunt won re-election in a bruising campaign against Clark County Commissioner Erin Kenny. Hunt spent $764,000. Kenny spent $1.64 million, more than twice as much. Kenny took some shots at Hunt on TV, and Hunt retorted with blistering spots, hammering Kenny for piling up debts, filing bankruptcy, and getting sued. Hunt's ads concluded with the tag line, "Erin Kenny failed in business. She's failed us as a county commissioner. We can't trust her to be lieutenant governor."

Outspent two to one, Hunt won, 52-42, and promptly returned to obscurity. Even Kenny, in defeat, subsequently got more headlines than Hunt, albeit for filing guilty pleas in connection with taking bribes from strip club operators.

Neither of the Republicans gubernatorial candidates who do get headlines, state Sen. Bob Beers and Rep. Jim Gibbons, are Erin Kenny (a fact for which both, no doubt, are thankful). Guinn has openly cast about for a candidate to succeed him, which is a slap in the face of his "lieutenant." And Hunt is not expected to be able to raise enough money to compete anyway.

At the same time, neither Gibbons nor Beers has won a statewide race. Hunt has. And if Beers manages to raise enough money to make some noise - who knows? - the two proud wingnuts could split the proud wingnut vote, always a key constituency in any Republican primary, and Hunt could sneak through.

Even under that best-case-for-Lorraine-scenario, however, she's going to have to give her fellow Republicans some indication as to why she wants to be governor in the first place, and for matter, why she's even in political life. On the Nevada Newsmakers show the other day (our new favorite program), Hunt, asked why she was running for governor, immediately blurted, "Number one, I'm termed out as lieutenant governor." That probably is, in point of fact, the main reason she's running for governor, in which case her role as the Rodney Dangerfield of the Republican field is well-deserved.

Virginia is for chickens

Ever since George Washington, many Virginia politicians have liked to think of themselves as presidential material. Some of them were. Mark Warner isn't.

The Democratic governor confirmed this morning that he won't run against VA GOP Sen. George Allen next year, amid speculation that Warner will explore a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 instead.

"I want to be part of the debate that moves the Democratic Party back to being the majority party, I hope, in this country," Warner said.

He says the Democrats need to reclaim a "sensible center" in national politics.

"That centrist agenda is wide open right now."

Warner's extremist centrism has about as much chance of securing the Democratic nomination in 2008 as Joe Lieberman's "JoeMentum" had of carrying him over the finish line in 2004, probably less. Warner is a one-termer (VA doesn't allow governors to serve successive terms), with no foreign policy experience, and if he were to catch fire in what will assuredly be a very, very crowded Democratic field, it would be a supreme fluke. It's an incredibly long shot, and unless Warner is a complete idiot (unlikely) or deluded by his own ego (more likely), he knows it. His exploratory presidential aspirations, viewed realistically, probably consist of keeping his name in play and his funders in touch in the hope that Virginia's other Warner, 78-year-old GOP Sen. John, decides to retire rather than seeking a sixth term in 2008. As the dearth of candidates for federal office in Nevada - coupled with the glut of gubernatorial contenders - demonstrates, politicians prefer to run for open seats.

Allen plans to run for president, too, a campaign that will be sure to remind everyone that his father coached the "Redskins" to Super Bowls, and that the one true Christian god likes us best, so is that traditional values on parade or what? His chances to get his party's nomination are much, much better than Warner's. But first, Allen has to get re-elected next year. With Gov. Warner out of the race, that's all but a done deal.

A Warner-Allen race would have been long, very tough and and very expensive. But prior to Warner's announcement this week, he was reportedly leading Allen in polls. This was an excellent opportunity for Democrats to mount a serious challenge against a Republican incumbent. It's being squandered, because while Warner wants to be "part of the debate that moves the Democratic Party back to being the majority party," it appears he wants to do it the easy way, in a manner that doesn't pose any undue risk to his bright shiny career. Washington would be so proud.