Trials and tribulations

By Jon Ralston

Friday, May 28, 2010 | 2:01 a.m.

One week left in early voting, 11 days until Primary Day and time for your Friday Flash of the week’s events:

• Catch me now I’m falling (apologies to Ray Davies): Desperate to stop her free fall before she is looking up at Sharron Angle, Sue Lowden has raised questions about her opponent and tried to portray her as The Kooky Non-Conservative. Good, solid strategy.

But after Wednesday’s “Face to Face,” I say: Kooky Conservative, heal thyself.

Lowden refused to answer — for the second time in two days — whether the Civil Rights Act should apply to private business, calling it a “gotcha” question. Apparently aware of the Random damage this could do, her campaign put out a statement before I had arrived home from the studio expressing her civil rights devotion.

All it would have taken to avoid such a gaffe was a simple: “Of course I support the Civil Rights Act. What a silly question.” And I would have moved on.

Déjà vu?

If only: “Of course, I meant bargain. Some people have to bargain — or yes, barter — for health care. But that’s no solution.” Next case?

Or: “Of course I didn’t mean “donate.” The bus is on a lease and that was a mistake I ever got put on the title.” Not under the bus, but over it.

“Keeping it simple” is not the Lowden campaign slogan, and explains why she went from sure thing to panicked front-runner.

On the same program, Lowden claimed climate change is “exaggerated,” but when asked to provide evidence, she chided me, said she needed “time to prepare” to show me why global warming is overblown. “If you wanted me to have that debate with you now, I would have brought all the backup,” she said. And: “You catch me off guard. You have all your notes.”

Indeed, another “gotcha” question from the evil interlocutor.

So who is The Kooky Conservative in this race? The Prohibition-is-good, Scientology-saunas-for-prisoners-is-better candidate or the Civil-Rights-Act-is-a-gotcha-question, I-need-to-study-up-on-global-warming contender?

As someone they both know, someone presumed to be the gaffemeister in the race, might say of that battle over who is the lesser of two candidates, or even of the GOP primary itself: “The war is lost.”

• With a whimper: It’s almost like watching a Super Bowl blowout. I speak of Gov. Jim Gibbons’ near-invisibility on the campaign trail — and nonexistence on TV — as ex-Judge Brian Sandoval threatens to win the GOP gubernatorial primary by a landslide.

A Republican Governors Association poll this week showed Gibbons losing to Sandoval 50 percent to 27 percent, with former North Las Vegas Mayor Mike Montandon at 11 percent. So not only is Gibbons going to be the first Nevada governor to lose in a primary, he is going to lose by a huge margin.

A sitting governor who can’t raise money, thus can’t afford any paid media and is relegated to feeble news releases about endorsements from groups that will not matter. This week, the Nevada State Law Enforcement Officers’ Association embraced the incumbent, writing without any hint of irony: “Our endorsement is based on your dedication to law enforcement, homeland security, law and order and your distinguished career in public service.”

My goodness.

Gibbons also crowed about Thursday’s endorsement from the Tea Party group Action Is Brewing. But this is like putting a balm on a chest wound from a .357-caliber Magnum. You are still going to die.

Gibbons was so damaged from the events of his tenure that even a campaign by Democrats to pummel Sandoval couldn’t lift him beyond his high 20s or low 30s in polls. It’s almost, well, sad. He may even finish close to third in Clark County, from what I have heard, which would be even sadder.

And now we will have an extraordinarily long lame-duck period from now until January. Question: Will Gibbons take the opportunity to try to redeem himself or create even more fodder for ridiculing historians?

Anyone taking bets?

• I voted for Dennis! Every year, my column admonishing those who vote early draws strong reactions — and this year was no different. And for many years, the evidence to back my case arrives soon afterward — remember the Gibbons scandal trifecta in 2006?

This year, more than 4,600 people had voted in Senate District 9 through Wednesday. I wonder how many voted for state Sen. Dennis Nolan, only to find out that he had called offering what sounds like a bribe to the sister of a woman whose convicted attacker he stood up for in a trial?

Buyer’s remorse, anyone?

So don’t vote. At least not yet.