Jon Ralston pulls no punches on the race for governor, guilt by association and the Walters mess

Friday, March 3, 2006 | 7:46 a.m.

Of polls, pitfalls and poltroons ...

Master of the Democratic domain? Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson, whom I have lampooned at times for being invisible so far, apparently doesn't have to do much because he is all but even in a poll conducted for his campaign.

The polling firm Garin-Hart-Yang surveyed 1,100 statewide voters last month and found Gibson in a dead heat with state Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, who led 36-34.

"Like the 'Seinfeld' show, doing nothing actually works," joked Fred Yang, who conducted the poll.

Yang pointed to the high undecided count - 30 percent - and that Gibson does better the more people turn out.

That is, Titus has the hard-core partisans. "The bigger the electorate is, the better we do," he said in analyzing the numbers.

A potential problem for Gibson: You can't gin up turnout by being invisible.

Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. News that ex-Assemblywoman Dawn Gibbons is being feted at a fundraiser hosted by a lobbying firm that has represented the trade group most intent on building a dump at Yucca Mountain is beautiful serendipity for her opponents, Secretary of State Dean Heller and Assemblywoman Sharron Angle.

The event later this month is hosted by The Capitol Hill Consulting Group, which has advocated for the Edison Electric Institute, which wants Yucca Mountain as much as anything.

So what's the explanation? No response as of this writing from the Gibbons campaign, but what can she say?

I didn't know? That won't look too swift.

Who cares? That won't look too swift.

What fundraiser? That won't look too swift.

So what can her opponents say? A lot. And my guess is they will. I wonder how her husband, Rep. Jim Gibbons, who is running for governor, would feel about his wife being honored by a Yucca Mountain lobbying outfit? Ah, that would be so unfair to ask, wouldn't it?

No wonder they were worried. After perusing those city documents released in the Bill Walters probe by the City Council, you can see why the city attorney's office didn't want to hand them over. The documents reflect the same characteristics the council and upper management have shown vis-a-vis this murky deed restriction deal with the developer aka The Eighth City Councilman - a veritable montage of mendacity and cowardice, with only whistleblowers Lori Wohletz and John Redlein willing to stand up to juiced deals.

It's worth repeating just a couple of the excerpts from the documents stretching back to the late 1990s that show how the past was prologue:

"The negotiations as currently proposed did not confer any benefit to the City, and, therefore, there is substantial argument that such a transaction would violate the public purpose doctrine." That is, it would not benefit the citizens, but would benefit Walters. The beginning of a pattern, perhaps?

Sound familiar?

What is happening now - a thorough, meticulous probe by real estate and criminal law experts - will truly synthesize a relationship over the years between the city and Walters that could be called symbiotic - that is, if the city obtained the same benefit as the developer. Whether or not criminal acts have occurred is still unclear. But this probe will once and for all document what many of us have followed over the years, which is the incomparable way Walters has wined and dined and schmoozed public officials and then had his way with them.

That's his job. The question the investigators need to answer is how badly were the elected and appointed officials doing theirs.

Jon Ralston hosts the news discussion program "Face to Face With Jon Ralston" on Las Vegas ONE and publishes the daily e-mail newsletter "RalstonFlash.com." His column for the Las Vegas Sun appears Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 870-7997 or ralston@vegas.com.