Columnist Jon Ralston: Not an anointment any more

Friday, July 8, 2005 | 4:51 a.m.

Jon Ralston hosts the news discussion program Face to Face on Las Vegas ONE and publishes the Ralston Report. He can be reached at (702) 870-7997 or at ralston@vegas.com.

WEEKEND EDITION

July 9-10, 2005

As journalists and Democrats (yes, there is a distinction) celebrate the dramatic entrance of state Sen. Bob Beers into the race to succeed Kenny Guinn, the real question is whether a Nevada oxymoron is about to be subverted.

Governor's race? Not in this state, where the last contest decided by less than 10 percentage points occurred three and a half decades ago when Mike O'Callaghan defeated Ed Fike. Since that 1970 election, a ruthless anointment process has proven inexorable, with those favored by the moneyed interests prevailing by large margins, with the most obvious anointees Bob Miller and Guinn.

When I last penned a column about the race in December, history was repeating itself as Rep. Jim Gibbons, blessed by anointer-in-chief Sig Rogich, appeared to be a prohibitive favorite. But an ensuing series of events, beginning with the congressman displaying uncharacteristic self-destructive behavior, continuing with Guinn's public anti-Gibbons campaign and culminating in Beers creating a GOP primary this week, have diminished the near-certainty of a Gibbons governorship.

Before I reset the odds in the scramble for the state's most important elected post, I mitigate my excitement with a few acknowledgements.

First, Gibbons remains the favorite to be the next governor. He has the most money, the most bedrock support and the most statewide campaigning experience of any potential contender.

Second, the plethora of polls that have been released during 2005 mean virtually nothing. Any of the possible candidates can buy the name recognition they need. The most significant perceptual development is that Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus has shown up as well or better than Speaker Richard Perkins, whose stagnation has belied his support from some of the powers who anoint.

Third, there are at least four wild cards -- Mayors Oscar Goodman, Jim Gibson and Bob Cashell and University System Chancellor Jim Rogers.

Not all of these folks will get or stay in, and some new names will surface. But few expected Titus to have the stick-to-itiveness she has shown -- many expected her to be out of the race by now -- and she is running the closest to a full-blown campaign outside of Gibbons.

So much of what happens this far out is inside baseball -- but the game is getting ready to go outdoors very soon. So let's reset everyone's chances with only 450 days until the general election, with last December's odds in parentheses:

It's so hard to mark these odds in anything but pencil because there are so many matrices here. But the plethora of possibilities is a pleasant surprise and not what you usually find in a governor's race, a phrase that has metamorphosed from oxymoron to fact.