When will Jim Gibbons be set adrift

By Jon Ralston

Friday, May 30, 2008 | 2:01 a.m.

The scene Wednesday of the game gubernatorial press secretary, Ben Kieckhefer, abruptly ending a Jim Gibbons news conference should have had a bell tolling in the background.

When you call a feel-good event to talk about teachers’ home loans and it devolves into an inquisition about your wife’s allegations in an astonishing divorce filing, causing your spokesman to scuttle the event, the bell has begun to toll. And, Gov. Gibbons, it tolls for thee.

With apologies to John Donne, Jim Gibbons is an island.

No one wants to be connected to the governor because they know the smell of death and want no part of it. Oh, there may be a few sycophants still hanging on — but the true, effective loyalists have left or been forced out by this repellent crew.

The ugly divorce, exacerbated by Gibbons’ characteristically awful handling of the situation, is but the final link in a chain of events that began long ago and inevitably led us here. I ask you, people, what was it about Jim Gibbons’ political career or his campaign for governor that now has anyone surprised that state government has become a dysfunctional mess, a mirror of his now-exposed personal life?

That a perennial backbencher of a congressman, who made so few friends that he was passed over for natural advancement and could hide amid a Gang of 435, should now be exposed under the glaring spotlight of the state’s highest office as thoroughly inept and totally disconnected is hardly shocking. Yes, the depth and consistency of this Lack of Administration’s incompetence and Gibbons’ Rudy Giuliani-like handling of his divorce may stun some folks.

But this is what the people wanted, and how ironic that the place where Gibbons so often found his strength — Elko — began the bell tolling this dirge with a scathing editorial about his treatment of the first lady. The subsequent court filing by Cal Dunlap, the former Washoe County district attorney representing Dawn Gibbons, simply increased the pealing volume.

That document, now posted on the Sun’s Web site on my blog, makes legal arguments about unsealing the divorce almost as an afterthought, with the first third leaping off the pages as a vitriolic, no-holds-barred assault on the governor’s character and fidelity. Gibbons’ denials notwithstanding — and if he is found to have lied about having an affair, the funeral will come sooner — his recklessness has now been well-documented by an unrestrained media. He may be forgiven if he were found to have lied about sex, as so many pols have. But it is the governor’s attitude that is most astonishing: the same blithe disregard for the greater good that has characterized his tenure — for his family, his party, his state.

And that explains why the post-mortems have begun on an administration that is not quite dead yet, as Republicans, much more than Democrats, hope to hasten Gibbons’ demise. GOP insiders, especially those who take the long view, understand that the longer Gibbons stays, the more carnage he could inflict. He cannot help John McCain win the state in 2008 — he may even hurt the presumptive GOP nominee. And if the Republicans lose the governor’s office in 2010, with Democrats perhaps controlling both houses of the Legislature, too, Gibbons’ legacy could be felt for a decade or more as reapportionment and redistricting loom in 2011.

I find it almost comical to hear the constant chatter in Republican circles about what might have been — this has become the “if” administration.

If only Gibbons had hired his well-regarded campaign manager, Robert Uithoven, as his chief of staff, none of this would have happened. If only he had listened to his outside political advisers, none of this would have happened. If only he had cashiered his chief executive, Mike Dayton, and his chief operating officer, Dianne Cornwall, who despise each other, none of this would have happened.

How about this: If only the GOP elite had not foisted on the state a patently flawed candidate, bereft of a vision or basic leadership skills, perhaps none of this would have happened.

A Republican insider mused privately this week that he wonders when some major political or business figure, having had enough of the nonstop embarrassment, will publicly declare, “Enough is enough. It’s time for him to go.”

I think it’s going to happen soon — as soon as that hypothetical person or persons realize the bell is tolling and it must be answered. When that occurs, Jim Gibbons, if he does not already, is going to find himself very much alone.