Newly energized governor ready to hit campaign trail

By David McGrath Schwartz

Friday, March 12, 2010 | 2:01 a.m.

Gov. Jim Gibbons strode purposefully down the hall of the Capitol on Thursday, his black cowboy boots clicking on the marble floor. He was preparing to do what a more conventional, maybe more realistic, politician wouldn’t: file for re-election.

He was defying the political establishment, his former supporters and some of his remaining friends, who had all urged him not to run.

He spat at a low approval rating, a campaign fund emptier than a foreclosed home and a re-election staff consisting of an old military buddy — a Democrat no less — working his first race.

No other elected official was there to support him. No family, big donors or supporters to cheer as he signed the paperwork launching his re-election bid.

The only person from the campaign was an older woman who took pictures with a digital camera as he filled out the forms.

Yet he seemed relaxed as he handed over a $300 check and took questions from reporters. His approach and attitude were a departure from the Gibbons whom members of the media and politicians have known during his three-plus years as governor.

This is a new Jim Gibbons. He is less defensive and seems more interested in his job.

During last month’s special session he engaged with legislators, sitting in meetings for hours and surprising his staff with his attention span.

He compromised with his enemies, reluctantly agreeing to some fee increases on mining and banking to balance the state budget and get the deal done.

He was, dare we say, effective.

It was a far cry from 2009, when Gibbons’ most public act during the legislative session was to stand with a group of renegade Republican lawmakers as he became the first Nevada governor to veto a budget. It was interesting theater — he donated the veto stamp to the state museum — but ineffective, as his opponents had the votes to override the veto.

By contrast, the rhetoric from Gibbons of late has been tempered. Even when he blamed the 2009 Legislature’s tax increases for the sour economy, as he did Thursday, he didn’t have the same vitriol.

He signed a bill this week to extend a sales tax approved in 2002 by Clark County voters that will create jobs and another budget bill that will raise fees on mining and gaming.

Why the shift?

On Thursday, a reporter asked Gibbons which governor would show up at the 2011 Legislature if he were to win re-election — the largely absent governor of 2009 or the engaged governor of the 2010 special session?

Gibbons said, “There’s no difference in the individual.” The dynamics of the one-week special session were different from the 120-day legislative session, he said.

But serious Gibbons watchers have plenty of theories for the shift. Insiders point to a change in staff, his divorce wrapping up and the incentive to step up his game before he faces voters.

His current staff members say his engagement comes from a change in the makeup of his senior administration. Lynn Hettrick, his deputy chief of staff, was a former Republican speaker of the Assembly and GOP leader.

Robert Uithoven, Gibbons’ chief of staff when he was in Congress and his campaign manager in 2006, praised Gibbons’ prior gubernatorial chiefs of staff but said the current staff “is a better fit for the governor.”

Dan Burns, Gibbons’ spokesman, said that during the 2009 session, legislators “poisoned the debate” with attacks on the governor’s budget and when Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford called Gibbons a coward for allowing a room tax increase to become law without his signature.

Others pointed to his divorce, which was finalized at the end of last year — a point conceded by the governor’s spokesman.

“It’s a personal issue for the governor that he likes to keep private,” Burns said. “It’s not good. It’s tragic. But when you’re through it, past it, I would believe a huge weight gets lifted from your shoulders. Any of your readers that go through a divorce would agree.”

Uithoven did. “I don’t think you can dismiss the fact he had a tremendous personal distraction through most of his first term,” he said. “You have more time to focus on business of the state.”

He added, “I think every politician tries to step it up, when they get into an election cycle or re-election cycle ... I think a lot of politicians adjust for the ballot.”

But is Gibbons’ change in attitude enough to win him re-election?

He faces an uphill climb, most notably because he trails his opponents in the money race. In 2009, former Judge Brian Sandoval raised $900,000. Gibbons raised $165,000 and spent most of it on consultants.

Gibbons, because of the special session, is prevented from raising money until Wednesday.

Sandoval said Thursday that Gibbons “did what he did” during the special session. “But you’ve got to look at the whole book of experience. In the past two sessions before, there was a great amount of criticism with the nonparticipation by the governor.”

Sandoval also noted that in his compromise with lawmakers, “something needs to be made perfectly clear: Jim Gibbons raised taxes.” He pointed to fee increases on mining and banking, and hikes in business filing fees and state park admissions.

“I wouldn’t have supported any fee or tax increases,” Sandoval said.

Neither Gibbons nor his opponents will talk about raising taxes in 2011, when the state faces a $3 billion deficit in a $6 billion budget.

Still, Uithoven said, it will be tough for any of his opponents to run to Gibbons’ right on taxes.

Gibbons’ biggest hurdle, he said, will be to reassure Republican primary voters that he can defeat Rory Reid, the likely Democratic nominee, in November.

“The governor’s not one to look back at what might have been,” Uithoven said. “But I don’t think anyone can count him out of this race. He will put up as much of a fight as he can muster. But the only way he can win this primary is if he can convince Republicans he can beat Reid.”