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February 12, 2012

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jon ralston:

The governor’s belief that a slogan is the same as a philosophy

By Jon Ralston (contact)

Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2010 | 2:08 a.m.

Gov. Jim Gibbons’ campaign kickoff speech Monday night — aka the State of the State address — was remarkable mostly for what it did not contain: A peroration asking for a contribution.

That pitch came via e-mail less than two hours after he finished speaking, complete with typos and shameless exploitation of what was supposed to be a somber recitation of the state’s problems. The breathless “get your cash to me by 5 p.m. Tuesday” (because of a statutory cutoff 15 days before a special session) money pitch diminished whatever seriousness Gibbons expected to convey and clumsily exposed his speech as a naked political ploy.

For what Gibbons wanted to accomplish, the speech was nearly perfect. It hit all the right notes: The “I told you so” section assailing lawmakers for raising taxes and exacerbating the recession. The I WILL NOT RAISE YOUR TAXES (yes, it was all-caps in the prepared remarks) section to remind people of what they need not be reminded. The “education establishment and teachers unions are the root of most evils” section. And after a thoroughly bellicose tone, the dissonant “We are one Nevada” section.

As the great philosopher Bob Dylan once posited: “When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.”

I have long argued that this epitome of Ø — no respect, no poll numbers, no campaign cash, no new ideas — would try to revivify his political fortunes by running against the Legislature and to the conservative base that will dominate the June 3 GOP electorate. Mission accomplished.

But what about the mission of saving the state?

Oh, that can wait for the bleeding hearts over in the Legislative Building to consider — and the dramatic cuts to social services the Interim Finance Committee absorbed less than 24 hours after the speech contrasted with the almost buoyant feeling the governor seemed to convey behind his faux somber exterior.

“We are working on solutions to turn this recession into an opportunity to reinvent our state’s government,” Gibbons said. “We may never have an opportunity like this again.”

How exciting! Gutting social services. Making class sizes larger. Reducing the education infrastructure to rubble. Where is the confetti?

Gibbons’ entire speech also was undergirded by two spectacular canards that went relatively unremarked upon afterward.

Gov. Gleeful happily reminded the audience that lawmakers had raised $1 billion after overriding his veto, thus exacerbating the recession. “They gambled on new taxes and we all lost,” Gibbons fulminated.

The problem: There is not a scintilla of evidence to back up the claim that the minuscule increases in payroll taxes (which actually were cut for small businesses) or sales taxes have done anything to worsen the recession, fueled in Nevada by external, global factors.

The only line sillier than that in the speech was this one: “ ‘No new taxes’ is not a cliché. To me it means more than that. It is a plan.” (The emphasis is his.)

Therein lies the cruel inanity of Gibbonsworld. He actually believes that a cliché is not a cliché, that a slogan is a philosophy, that three words comprise a plan.

And what’s more — and here is the second monumental dissimulation — it’s not even true. Let me remind everyone of an inescapable fact: In his budget last year, Gibbons included what would have been the third largest tax increase in state history — a projected $300 million room tax increase.

The only provocative part of the speech was what the governor said — or didn’t say — about education. He said nary a word about higher ed — the word “university” was not in his speech, perhaps because his campaign is meant for the LCDs and not Ph.Ds.

His radical education reform — tearing apart the current structure and telling unions and Democrats to “stop whining” — is worth discussing. Whatever has been tried so far hasn’t worked — witness the putrid rankings of the state’s lower ed system. Of course it would never occur to Gibbons that funding — or lack thereof — had anything to do with it.

But the Democrats who control the Legislature, if they really believe in class-size reduction and all-day kindergarten and think vouchers will cause the public education world to end as we know it, should welcome the chance to make their case.

I hear many Democrats (and some Republicans, too) lamenting the governor’s myopia or wailing about the cuts. But did anyone think he would change and put politics aside now?

On this Gibbons is right: Stop whining. And show some leadership.

If they simply roll over for Gibbons at the special session, everything they do is only for their campaigns, too. And that makes them no better than Ø.

Jon Ralston’s column appears Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.

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