Jon Ralston wonders if Nevada’s top three pols have time to rebound

By Jon Ralston

Friday, Jan. 22, 2010 | 2 a.m.

With 102 days until the primary and 284 days until the general election, an unusual amount of activity is occurring in the only state with its three highest-ranking politicians possessing upside-down approval ratings, with the most-watched U.S. Senate race in the country still attracting possible candidates and with Democrats whom voters swooned over in 2008 wondering where the love went.

Catching up with the Friday Flash of the week’s events:

• Harry Reid (No. 1 Nevada pol with those horrific approval numbers) was as dead as a doornail ... and that was before the Massachusetts balloting Tuesday, raising the specters of elections past, present and future. So is Harry Reid the Jacob Marley of this cycle, a cranky old man rattling around aimlessly and ready to finally be put into the ground?

The post-Massachusetts punditry was predictable: Forecasts that the Democrats could be down as low as 52 seats — with some breathless Republicans musing about a majority. Candidates here were tying themselves to Scott Brown — although the only one I know actively looking for a truck is John Chachas. And then the news that Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, in a story line more fit for Dumas than Dickens, is looking to gain revenge on the man he held responsible for his now-evaporated indictment by musing again about the U.S. Senate race.

Even if national Republicans are “not crazy” about the GOP field here, as NBC’s Chuck Todd put it Thursday, almost any Republican would be winning a matchup today against Reid. The majority leader’s only solace: See above — he has 284 days to prove that as another cranky old man named Ebenezer learned, you can change the future.

• Can John Ensign (No. 2 Nevada pol with the near-fatal ratings) survive now that the FBI is sniffing around? If you assume the Justice Department will do anything to avoid another Ted Stevens debacle, news this week that the G-men are out interviewing potential witnesses in a criminal case against Nevada’s junior senator should fill GOP folks here with a real sense of foreboding. With conservative megaphone Chuck Muth using the latest development to once again call for Ensign to get out of the way of other GOP candidates, even the isolated senator must be feeling the pressure.

Ensign and his sycophants may believe Doug Hampton is the Dennis Montgomery of this tale — the man who made those fizzling bribery allegations against Gibbons, the last major Nevada pol to face an FBI probe. But nothing Hampton has alleged has yet been disproved.

This becomes fairly simple. If anyone in Ensign’s office — e.g., ex-Chief of Staff John Lopez, who, ironically, had to accept Hampton as his equal in the D.C. hierarchy — can provide the Justice Department with evidence Ensign conspired to help the cuckolded husband violate the cooling-off law, it’s sayonara, Senator.

And let me say this about Lopez: He has an impeccable reputation, including among Democrats, so if he has anything to share, it will be devastating. Only question Lopez might find uncomfortable is why he stayed so long in Ensign’s employ if, indeed, his boss was enabling Hampton’s admitted violations of federal law.

Tick, tick, tick.

• Can the proverbial bully pulpit make up for Gibbons (the third Dead Man Walking in state political ranks) raising less than any governor in recent history? The tragicomedy that is the Gibbons governorship continued this week with news that he had raised a pathetic $165,000 and spent almost all of it.

Gibbons now has no money, no campaign manager and almost no friends. And, yet, I get the sense that the anointed choice, Brian Sandoval, is taking him seriously because ipso facto the governor can get attention — albeit, the incumbent seems to hurt himself quite often when he does. Gibbons must believe he can still get enough of the Tea Party vote to defeat Sandoval, whom he surely will portray as too liberal for the GOP. Problem: If he has no campaign cash, who will hear him? (Free media can help, but is no match for paid media.)

Meanwhile, back on Planet Wishful Thinking, ex-North Las Vegas Mayor Mike Montandon hyped a Clark County Republican Central Committee straw poll result this week that showed him with a narrow lead as some kind of harbinger that the faithful adore him best. Central committees rarely reflect the electorate — these are the real partisans (generous) or the crazies (often), so I am not sure a straw poll of 200 means much. But if they are more representative than usual of the GOP electorate in June’s low-turnout primary, that could make this contest much more unpredictable.