Sandoval is no Jim Gibbons, but is he Kenny Guinn?

By Jon Ralston

Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2010 | 2:01 a.m.

It’s easy to say Gov.-elect Brian Sandoval is Gov. Jim Gibbons, minus the spectacularly embarrassing drama.

No new taxes. The requisite “living within our means” clichés. The budget-is-a-math-problem myopia.

But if his first month as governor-elect indicates anything, it is that Sandoval is not Gibbons, but Kenny Guinn redux. Almost every move Sandoval has made so far — and I grant you time will tell if they are real or cosmetic — has been less redolent of the insular Gibbons than the ecumenical Guinn.

This has little to do with taxes — I believe Guinn ran with the intention of presenting a tax package (it took him three sessions) while Sandoval ran with the intention of winning, period. But the incoming governor’s style and approach are Guinnesque, from his postelection calls to legislative leaders to his outreach trip to Washington this week to his transition team announced Monday.

Indeed, Sandoval’s 29-member advisory group was released almost exactly 12 years after Guinn announced his transition folks, a 1998 roster that was headed by future chief of staff Pete Ernaut, who is now Sandoval’s shadow. There are actually two members of Sandoval’s team who also were on Guinn’s — water guru Pat Mulroy and James Gibson, Henderson mayor in 1998 and now an executive with The Greenspun Corporation, which owns the Las Vegas Sun.

The incipient Sandoval administration also has similar building blocks to Guinn’s 1999 iteration. Ernaut transitioned into the top appointive job with the indispensable Denice Miller, a research maven and policy wonk, as a senior adviser. Heidi Gansert, like Ernaut a former moderate GOP lawmaker and lifelong Nevadan, will be Sandoval’s chief of staff and her right hand will be Dale Erquiaga, like Miller an inestimable government hand who will assume the role she had with Guinn.

The more Nevada changes, the more it doesn’t.

So what does this all mean? If Sandoval isn’t Gibbons, is he really Guinn? And is this a transition to the future or to the past?

Sandoval has played a nearly flawless first month, sounding all the right bipartisan notes while sticking to his “no new taxes” chorus. Guinn did much the same warbling when he was elected in 1998, but the song can only be played for so long.

There are other similarities, too, but the real issue is proportionality.

Guinn was facing a $110 million shortfall; Sandoval has, depending on how you calculate it, $1 billion to $3 billion to find. Like Guinn, Sandoval is evaluating a list of cuts, but unlike Gibbons and like Guinn he is determined not to mindlessly cut across the board.

“It pains me every time I look at the list we have generated,” Guinn said in his initial State of the State speech. “To me, they are not simply numbers on a page. These programs have faces. They affect people. There is no question in my mind that my actions will have an impact. But the fact is, we had no choice.”

Of course, as the pointy-eared guy on “Star Trek” used to say, there are always alternatives. But Guinn did not want to come into office raising taxes, nor does Sandoval. And Guinn had a luxury Sandoval does not — if he won’t find new revenue, Sandoval cannot, as Guinn did, shuffle money around.

Sandoval’s conundrum is tenfold worse than Guinn’s, and he has boxed himself with his Gibbonslike mantra. But Sandoval also benefits from following Gibbons.

People were not longing for Bob Miller’s departure as they are for Gibbons to leave. He set the bar at a subterranean level for Sandoval to surmount.

Sandoval may well be following the Guinn model: Fix the economic mess, get credibility with cuts, then bring the revenue package. (Ironically, Guinn did not substantially broaden the tax base as his gross receipts tax was rejected for a payroll tax, which many want to repeal.)

More importantly, I think, Sandoval is repeating Guinn’s two critical mistakes. First, the new governor did not educate the public during his campaign about the true magnitude of the problem. And second, Sandoval accepts that righting the financial ship and putting it on a long-term course must be done sequentially and not concomitantly.

Guinn said in his first State of the State that he believes “government should intrude as little as possible in our personal lives, but I recognize that we have a duty to — and, I hope, compassion for — our fellow men and women, senior citizens, and children. Government belongs at the balancing point between our rights and our responsibilities.”

Gibbons had no clue — or didn’t care — about that balancing act. Like Guinn, Sandoval seems to get the broader, philosophical challenge. But unlike Guinn, he has a much bigger crisis and much less time.