First week of Election ’10 marked by heavy politicking

By Jon Ralston

Friday, Jan. 8, 2010 | 2 a.m.

The first few days of Campaign 2010 were busy — can they keep up this pace? — so here’s the Friday Flash of the week’s events:

• The Gibbons lack of restraint initiative, take one: As Gov. Jim Gibbons does his best Bob Dylan — “When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose” — I am bemused at the administration’s defensiveness on one item.

The Gibbonsites seem quite distressed that I described the proposal as the abolishment of class-size reduction and full-day kindergarten. (This characterization is not only mine — both local newspapers used a form of the verb “eliminate” to describe the proposals.) But in Gibbonsworld, apparently, removing legislative mandate for programs is different from eliminating or abolishing the programs.

Paging George Orwell ...

• The Gibbons lack of restraint initiative, take two: Response to the Gibbons bombshell, which also would impose vouchers, erase collective bargaining statutes and restructure the state education board, was all too predictable and unimaginative. Democratic lawmakers acted as if the apocalypse were nigh, while the Nevada Policy Research Institute folks behaved as if they had arrived at the Elysian fields.

Here’s the sad truth, folks: The Democrats can’t argue that the status quo is fine because we are, in the now-oft-repeated Dina Titus formulation, at the top of the bad lists and bottom of the good lists. Yes, the Gibbons initiative is unworkable, dead-on-arrival, ill-suited for a special session environment and at least partly proposed for the governor’s political benefit. But it is at least a new idea, which is a lot more than can be said for what we have heard from Democratic legislators who, while being in thrall to the teachers union, have rejected any real serious reforms.

As for NPRI and the like, they always talk about not just throwing money at the problem and would prefer to advocate for vouchers and other masked emasculations of the public school system. But Nevada has never thrown money at education, so maybe we should try a little of that too, along with whatever reforms could actually be enacted.

• The Gibbons lack of restraint initiative, take three: The reactions of Gibbons’ opponents were telling. North Las Vegas Mayor Mike Montandon, who has wanted to be seen as the alternative for the right to the battered incumbent, immediately embraced the Gibbons plan.

Ex-Judge Brian Sandoval, who is a known moderate but must at least tack to the right in the primary, stuck to his less-than-voluble campaign ways: “While I’m an advocate of school choice, expanding empowerment schools and increased parental involvement, I believe it is an extremely bad idea to be laying off hundreds of teachers in a time of record unemployment in Nevada.” Translation: “I like what you’ve done here, governor, or at least will pretend to, but I can’t really say that, so I will use the layoff angle to try to sound reasonably conservative and make you look kooky conservative.”

The Democratic anointee, County Commission Chairman Rory Reid, had the least to lose by attacking the plan, so he provided the most words, including a zinger: “Clearly he hasn’t spoken to any experts or looked for any new ideas — he’s using ideologically-driven talking points from a day gone by.” He stood up for class-size reduction (teachers) and collective bargaining (labor), which would also seem to be ideologically driven and quite hoary, too.

• A Heller of a friend for Ensign: Rep. Dean Heller’s remarkable comments about fellow Republican John Ensign cannot have gone unnoticed by the rest of the GOP mutes here and on Capitol Hill. On “Nevada Newsmakers” this week, Heller speculated about Ensign being indicted, said he had cast a pall over delegation meetings, was hurting GOP candidates for Senate and governor and declared, “I am not asking Sen. Ensign to resign, at least on this show.”

It would be too cynical of me to speculate that Heller actually wants Ensign to resign so he can be appointed to his seat. But Heller clearly thinks Ensign is an albatross for the state and national GOP on the cusp of a year in which Republicans see widespread pickups.

• What, you don’t have a DVR? The new, improved, statewide “Face to Face” on three NBC affiliates will begin evening rebroadcasts soon, and we are working on posting programs to the Web. Be patient. All good so far, with no drooling or expletives during the first week of live broadcasts. Setting bar higher soon ...

• Francisco Franco is still dead: Another weekly update — Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman is still not running for governor.