Jon Ralston follows the political game of chess being played through television, with the Democratic bid for governor going to the winner

Sunday, May 28, 2006 | 7:40 a.m.

Everything until now has been the overture, a medley of the sounds and themes that will be heard for the rest of the Democratic primary for governor.

When Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson commences his media campaign this week, though, the symphony - or cacophony - will begin playing, heralding a strategic ballet with state Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus in which any misstep can result in a crippling fall.

Forget the Gibson-can't-win-the-primary and Titus-can't-win-the-general chatter. Or the Gibson-is-a-stiff-but-sounds-gubernatorial or Titus-is-more-dynamic-but-more-mercurial conventional wisdom. Or even the Titus-is-ahead-in-the-polls or Gibson-is-even-in-the-polls spin that's out there.

None of that matters much because it has not resonated outside the insiders' echo chamber. Real people, as opposed to political junkies, are going to start paying attention any day now, perhaps when those Gibson ads begin this week. The two contenders remain relative unknowns to the state's nearly 372,000 Democratic voters - and it would be a miracle if 150,000 of them showed up to vote this summer.

Gibson's first pair of ads accomplish a couple of strategic purposes - they begin to define him as he would like to be defined, and they force Titus to make a decision about her media campaign.

Titus says she will spend $1 million on television but Gibson may spend twice that much.

The first commercial is designed to cast Gibson as a mayor who has focused on beautifying his city by overseeing the approval of "443 acres of parks, playgrounds and athletic fields." He is not the mayor who approves projects his contributors want, as Titus has insinuated; he is the open spaces mayor.

The second spot focuses on the most important issue in every poll - education. It points out that Nevada is at the bottom in per-pupil funding and high school graduates who receive college degrees and says Gibson has a plan to fix that: full-day kindergarten, "meaningful" raises for teachers (whatever that means) and innovative programs (whatever that means).

The vagueness aside, that's just what the Democratic primary electorate wants to hear. And the spot has a clever kicker, with Gibson saying being last in the nation is unacceptable "because if we're last, where does that leave them?" - a reference, of course, to the schoolchildren in the spot.

Both of the commercials use the same description of Gibson, which appears to be the signature the campaign hopes will activate voters, that he is "an independent leader for all Nevada."

Here's my guess: The Gibson campaign believes that being "independent" is something voters really like. And it also may be helpful when he begins pummeling Titus outside Clark County, exhuming some anti-Northern comments from the drawling senator. He's for all Nevada; she only cares about the South.

The buy is substantial and statewide, and the Gibson campaign insists it will not go dark for the rest of the primary season. Titus says she will not be pulled off her game by Gibson's early TV ads and believes the mayor has no choice because he is an underdog.

Perhaps. But he's also doing it because - he can. He will have more money than Titus, and he is now executing a classic campaign chess move by a candidate with a larger war chest. Gibson hopes to give Titus a painful choice - match his TV buy and use up her money or let him go on the air unchallenged and burnish his image in the voters' consciousness.

Titus may not overreact and decide she's not quite ready to dance with Gibson on television. She may stay on her course to start ads later, defining herself before unleashing some attacks on Gibson that surely will focus on his fat consulting contract for Nevada Power - just as voters get their summer power bills.

That's the music she thinks voters want to hear, and she just may be patient enough to wait a few more weeks to begin playing it. But Gibson's early TV campaign has forced her to make that choice, just under three months before voters will make theirs.