Friday, Aug. 4, 2000 | 10:33 a.m.
PHILADELPHIA -- These are good days to be Nevada's lone Republican in Congress.
Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., has reason to be cheerful this week, celebrating alongside 30,000 or so of his ideological soulmates at the Republican National Convention.
He's pleased with the likely prospects of Republicans George W. Bush becoming president and fellow Nevada Republican John Ensign winning a Senate seat. Republican House contender and state Sen. Jon Porter is behind opponent Shelley Berkley in polls, but is seen as a close contender by party leaders.
Gibbons shrugs off the partisan skirmishes he sometimes battles through alone.
"We do stand together as a delegation, whether it is on nuclear waste, or gaming or public lands issues, we have to represent the state of Nevada first," Gibbons said during a break earlier this week at a breakfast for members of the Nevada and Idaho delegations.
Gibbons has worked with Nevada's Democratic senators on several bills, but they don't work together like he and Ensign, he said.
"John and I became very close friends," said Gibbons, who served with Ensign in the House before Ensign ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 1998 against Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.
Gibbons, a former Air Force pilot, said he is hitting a stride now in his second term representing one of the largest congressional districts in the nation -- the entire state except for most of the Las Vegas area. He points to progress on veterans' issues, efforts to establish a second Las Vegas airport and public lands issues.
Gibbons won't talk about his own aspirations to serve in the Senate, saying, "I have all of these other obligations that are my focus right now."
Gibbons said Bush would make a good president for the state, stressing that the Texas governor has no qualms about gambling, although he doesn't want it in his state.
On the issue of shipping nuclear waste to Nevada now pending in Washington, "(Bush) has told us the same thing Al Gore has said. He would have vetoed the last piece of legislation that Clinton vetoed. He said that."
Gibbons and his wife, state Assemblywoman Dawn Gibbons, brought their 12-year-old son, Jimmy, and two of his friends, to the convention. At a time when most politicians are using the week to mingle with other Republicans from around the nation, Gibbons tried to spend some time with his son, who lives in Reno. They caught a few hours together sight-seeing Thursday.
Gibbons laments he only gets two days a month at home certain times of the year, so he chats with the seventh grader every day from Washington.
"He needs that assurance at this age," Gibbons said. "He needs to know that I'm concerned about his future, that I want to know what is going on in his life."
To be sure, the boy is a young Republican.
"With an R -- a big R," Gibbons said.
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