Sunday, Oct. 22, 2006 | 8:05 a.m.
I doubt we will ever really know what happened between Jim Gibbons and Chrissy Mazzeo in the parking garage on a rainy Friday night. The hubbub has been great, as befits a possible scandal involving the presumptive heir to the throne of Nevada, the governorship.
Most amazing about the situation is that Gibbons has based his run on character issues. He has said time and again that he is the most qualified to hold the highest office in the state because of what he has learned in his many roles. Even in the most recent gubernatorial faux debate, and I say that because the candidates don't really get to debate one another, Gibbons trotted out his resume as a closing argument. He told the public that we could trust his judgment and that was reason enough to vote for him.
In vino veritas, the saying goes. But in wine is also trouble and confusion. It is hard to blame a guy for sitting out a rainstorm with a glass of wine or two, but from that point on, Gibbons' judgment, the very characteristic he touts as his primary qualification for the office he seeks, comes into serious question.
In our day, public life can only be lived by one standard: How would any behavior look on the evening news? Where there is smoke, there is fire, a distrustful public is bound to think, along with the truly dangerous supposition for Gibbons: Is he really who he says he is?
Gibbons' biggest problem is that while he can rightly claim that he represents all 17 counties in Nevada, he only has a sliver of the most important. Clark County has two other congressional representatives. Most of us simply don't know Gibbons very well. And when two-thirds of the voting public barely knows your name, drinking with strangers isn't the fastest way to have them see you in a positive light.
Worse for the candidate, his response smacks of the capricious use of power. Despite uberconsultant and political kingmaker par excellence Sig Rogich's assertion that Mazzeo recanted her charges, the police report indicates that she didn't want to face off against the mass of power Gibbons had at his fingertips.
You can't lay that decision off on him, but she clearly miscalculated. Gibbons' news conference Thursday afternoon demonstrated how uninspired and inept the man and his campaign are. I was stunned at the weak response that brought nothing of substance to the situation.
Even more, Gibbons runs the risk of being tarred by the Foley brush. Another Republican congressman has behaved badly or at least given the appearance of doing so. It may try the patience of an already skeptical public. Again this comes back to the congressman's self-proclaimed strength and new Achilles' heel, his judgment.
I can't tell whether Gibbons will survive this incident. His campaign can only be described as lackluster, and I am afraid that is a generous assessment. There is no good response to such charges in postmodern America. An older America reserved the libel suit for those who felt unjustly accused of something that damaged their public standing, but those days are forever gone. Besides, who could Gibbons sue? No one has filed charges against him or otherwise done anything to him since the evening's fateful events, whatever they were, transpired.
Gibbons is in the unenviable position of having friends, who are trying to exonerate him from negative public perception, keeping the story alive. With friends like these, who needs to stop in the bar for a drink?
In the end, this is a garden variety scandal that happened at a particularly inopportune moment to a candidate who had been coasting since the race began. Whether injustice personified or accurate characterization, it challenges a candidate who had seen fit to run on his personal traits, not his legislative accomplishments or his plans for the future of the state. Those who live by character issues in politics alone always run the risk of being bitten. Public opinion is always fickle and it loves even a whiff of scandal. Jim Gibbons inadvertently gave the public that when he ducked in out of the rain.
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