Guess who’s hoping Gibbons runs again

By David McGrath Schwartz

Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Veteran Reno TV journalist Tad Dunbar sat across from Gov. Jim Gibbons and said this: “Several sources, three that I know of, say that the Republican National Committee has said they will not support you running for a second term.”

Unfazed, Gibbons told Dunbar he appreciated the opportunity to address what he called a “rumor.”

“The Republican Party has never, ever contacted me. They’ve never talked to me, never written to me, never communicated in any fashion just what you have said,” Gibbons said in the interview, which aired this month. “I intend to run — I intend to be the governor for the next 2 1/2 years and I intend to run for reelection.”

Publicly and privately, Gibbons has said all along that he’ll seek reelection.

But members of Nevada Republican circles, from party officials to low-level operatives, including those who have supported Gibbons in the past, are continuing to approach potential candidates for governor in 2010.

The latest names added to the list are Clark County Commissioner Bruce Woodbury and Reno Mayor Bob Cashell.

Woodbury said it is doubtful he would run for governor. But like the other individuals whose names are being bandied about — Reps. Dean Heller and Jon Porter, Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, state Sens. Bob Beers and Joe Heck — no one, so far, has ruled it out.

Incumbents up and down tickets usually get a free pass from their own party. In this case, the existence of a short list of potential Republican candidates is a sign that Gibbons may be the first one-term Nevada governor since Bob List, who lost his reelection bid in 1982.

The question now is whether Gibbons cares that his party is walking away from him. Will he run for reelection anyway, facing the likelihood of a contested primary and fewer campaign donors?

Many of those who know him say that even if the money dries up, party elders tell him it’s over and his calls stop being returned, Gibbons likely will still decide to pursue another term.

Call it the Dina Titus model. In 2006, party veterans tried to dissuade her from running for governor, arguing that she couldn’t win the general election. She ran anyway.

Like Titus, Gibbons is stubborn. Parallels have been drawn between his approach to politics and his former profession of fighter pilot — once he finds his target, he puts on the blinders, ignores obstacles and dives in.

Consider the recent episode in which Gibbons was regularly seen around Reno with married women who were not his wife. Sources say that trusted advisers had told him to lie low, to not draw attention to his personal life during his divorce. But the governor said no one could tell him who his friends should be, and he continued going out in public with them.

One prominent Republican who has watched the governor for years said, “If any Republican in this state thinks they can put an intervention group together to get him not to run, they don’t know Jim Gibbons.”

Predicting any race two years out is impossible. We won’t know how much money Gibbons has been able to raise until January, a key, early indicator of his chances.

But with the wave of scandals — his prodigious text-messaging and his Elko property tax reduction constituting the final straw for many Republicans — his own party isn’t counting on him to hold the Governor’s Mansion.

Democrats come at it differently. Many believe Gibbons on the ticket would give them their best chance at winning the state’s top elected office.

At this point, some of the biggest supporters of a Gibbons campaign might be Democrats.