Stay the course

As of this writing, Jim Gibbons is still Nevada's governor.

And he'll continue to be governor through Election Day -- if Democrats are lucky.

The Republican governor is, as Dawn his wife (and her lawyers) put it, a "disingenuous" and "shallow" person out to "mislead the public" and "one of the most if not the most scandal ridden governor in the history of this state."

Even if the governor is telling the truth -- an uncharacteristic break from form -- when he says he did not have sexual relations with that woman, that fact in and of itself would not undermine the overall assessment of his character as leveled by Dawn and her attorneys.

Whatever Republican Party voters and insiders thought they were getting -- a kneejerk conservative, a malleable tool, a serviceable figurehead -- when they supported Gibbons for governor in 2006, they have ultimately found themselves with a pathetic, occasionally nauseating object of scorn, mockery and ridicule, an incompetent joke, a magnificent farce, a clown.

Which is pretty darned cool if you're a Democrat running for something around here. Coupled with the last days in power of the worst president in the history of the United States, the Democrats should be looking at electoral gold.

Meantime, the madcap hilarity that is Jim Gibbons is almost certain to become even more tawdry and entertaining. Good. It's about time he gave something back to the state. And it sets up all manner of amusing scenarios that could play out between now and November.

Topping the list, or the ballot, anyway ... Democrats can only hope that Gibbons attends the Republican National Convention that will be nominating John McCain as the party's presidential candidate in St. Paul, Minn., in September.

True, Gibbons is but a minor embarrassment to the national Republican Party. He would have to commit more than mere consenting, unprofessional adultery with someone from the opposite sex to rank with true GOP traditional values icons like the toe-tapping Larry Craig, the whoremongering David Vitter and the congressional page-infatuated Mark Foley. Even as a fool, Gibbons remains rather pedestrian and mostly obscure.

But he would still be newsworthy enough for a media, bored by a convention where the conclusions are foregone, to seek him out, you know, for fun. They could ask him, oh, if it's hard to govern while a humiliated disgrace, or who else if anyone in the Republican Party still talks to him, or if he brought a date to the convention, stuff like that. To which Gibbons of course would respond that he isn't there to talk about those "distractions," but to show his support for John McCain.

And then the magic would start: video footage of Jim Gibbons on the convention floor, glassy eyes locked in that thousand-yard stare, jaw clenched in grim determination to make some words come out of his mouth no matter how meaningless as he renders a sputtering yet hyperbolic profusion of vacuous wingnut nonsense -- which is to say Jim Gibbons holding forth as only Jim Gibbons can -- all in support of his fellow War Party Westerner and warmonger, John McCain.

Another media moment that hopefully will come to pass would involve Gibbons, McCain and local image polisher, political-industrial complex brainiac, one-time ambassador to Iceland and Sig Rogich promoter Sig Rogich. Alert, or just sentient, readers will recall that when Gibbons was accused of slamming cocktail waitress Chrissy Mazzeo up against a wall and telling her to put out or else, Rogich was in charge of the cover-up, er, campaign.

What with Gibbons being an ostracized, broken shell of a political figure it's not unreasonable to ask, Where's Sig now?

When last spotted, doing media strategy for his old, fine and much-beloved friend, John McCain, that's where.

But if we're lucky, Rogich will take a break from his busy schedule and reemerge from the bowels of high-level War Party campaign skullduggery long enough to publicly draw some powerful comparisons between Gibbons and McCain, and describe the fine, shared Republican qualities such as integrity, rectitude and honor that have attracted Rogich to both scandal-ridden hypocrites.

Not that Rogich hasn't openly expressed his admiration and regard for Gibbons. In the immediate days after the Mazzeo story broke, Rogich testified to the upstanding personal character of his client. Gibbons "never goes out without a coat and tie because he takes his position seriously," Rogich told the Review-Journal. Gibbons (who has spent much of 2008 wearing turtlenecks) has "been married to the same woman for 20 years," Rogich continued, "and he tells people they have a great marriage."

Strikingly, maybe even bizarrely, that same R-J story also contained a direct comparison of Gibbons and McCain. Attempting to describe Gibbons' image as a congressman in Washington, a curiously unnamed former Republican congressional aide said, "He was definitely a maverick, like the John McCain of Nevada, off doing his own thing."

Jim Gibbons is the John McCain of Nevada. That actually sounds like something Sig himself might have said.

Once.

Anyway, lucky, lucky Nevada Democrats. Not only do they get to run against Bush-McCain. They also get to run against McCain-Gibbons. And Gibbons-Porter. And Gibbons-Beers. And Bush-Gibbons-Porter. And Bush-Gibbons-Heller. And Bush-McCain-Adelson-Rogich-Gibbons-Porter-Beers-Heller. And Gibbons-Insert Republican's Name.

So here's hoping, sincerely, that Gibbons hunkers down and insists on continuing to be the nation's worst governor until he is forcibly removed from his bunker.

If he does, the Democrats won't just deliver Nevada in the presidential race and unseat U.S. Rep. Jon Porter. Democrats also could win a veto-proof state Assembly, a majority in the state Senate or -- gasp! -- even knock off U.S. Rep. Dean Heller in the up-to-now blood-red congressional district formerly held by Gibbons himself.

Agreed, those are lofty expectations. But the longer Gibbons stays in office, the higher the chance that even the seemingly most unattainable goals will be within the Democratic Party's grasp.

Hugh Jackson is a longtime local journalist, former senior editor of CityLife and the proprietor of the Las Vegas Gleaner (www.lasvegasgleaner.com), where he blogs.