Never a dull moment in Nevada politics

After the events of last week, one thing that is for certain is that there is never a dull moment when it comes to Nevada politics. Indeed, last week the state was treated to the spectacle of Republicans acting like Democrats, Democrats acting like, well Democrats, and Governor Gibbons doing a Bush-like late Friday afternoon, avoid the media document dump.

After taking grief for months for their party's inability to effectively organize and efficiently conduct party business, there must have been plenty of smiles among the state's Democratic brain trust as the normally well-managed Nevada GOP saw its state convention descend into a chaotic mess compliments of the Ron Paul-fueled insurgency.

Paul's followers turned the tables on the party establishment and pushed through a rule change that destroyed the typical Republican top-down management of the party rank and file. While on its face, the rule change seemed to be rather democratic in its aim (instead of selecting pre-approved, and presumably party vetted, delegates to the GOP national convention in Minneapolis, the rule change allowed convention attendees to select national convention delegates), due to the vast number of Paul supporters at the convention, they would have dominated the delegate selection process, creating a huge embarrassment for John McCain and his supporters.

The events last weekend in Reno have both short and long term implications for Nevada Republicans. In the near future, the state GOP will need to hold a convention do-over, which is good news for McCain. The McCain campaign in Nevada, to the degree that it exists, will now have ample opportunity to get its act together and develop a strategy for combating the Paul rebellion.

Of course, the Paul supporters will be none too happy having had their convention surprise short-circuited by the party establishment, but hey, controlling processes to get desired outcomes is what makes the party establishment the party establishment.

In the longer term, any lingering bad feelings stemming from the state GOP convention is likely to further the impetus this fall for Paul and his supporters to make mischief for the McCain campaign in crucial swing states such as Nevada. While it is unlikely that Paul, as he has done in the past, will bolt the GOP for the Libertarian ticket (given that Bob Barr is likely to capture that party's presidential nomination), Paul is sitting on a mountain of money and has an army of die-hard supporters who have no love lost for John McCain.

Paul is going to be under tremendous pressure to keep his campaign going through the fall. If he does run as an independent and is able to get on the ballot (no easy chore), this is likely to cost McCain votes in states like Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico and in so doing, help hand those states to the Democrats. To make this possibility a reality, crafty Democrats, following the lead of GOP donors who helped to fund Ralph Nader's 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns, should be giving all that they can to the Paul campaign.

Fortunately for state Republicans, the media attention that their convention debacle garnered waned rather quickly thanks to the exit of Robert Daskas from the congressional district three race. After months and months of searching for the right candidate to take on Jon Porter, Democrats must have been rather anguished to see their chosen candidate exit the race before it began.

And while it is unlikely that "family considerations" would have hurt Daskas in a race against the marriagely challenged Jon Porter, opening one's personal life up to the Republican sleaze machine would be enough to give anyone second thoughts about running for public office, particularly a first time candidate such as Daskas.

In the end, the emergence of Dina Titus as the Democratic candidate insures that the race for congressional district three will be much livelier, as well as much more negative (if that is possible for a race featuring Porter). Although well behind in fundraising, Titus has the experience and capabilities to put together a top-notch campaign organization and do so, in a hurry. Moreover, competing in a district that she carried in 2006 and that is now much more Democratic means that the million dollars that Porter will be spending on negative advertisements come October will find a less receptive audience than they have in the past.

And not to be outdone, we can always count on Gov. Gibbons for adding to the surrealism of Nevada politics. Perhaps hoping that the week's events would allow his decision to divorce his wife Dawn to sneak under the wire, in a classic Bush administration like move, Gibbons waited until Friday afternoon to have his lawyer file divorce papers in Carson City.

Unfortunately for the governor, his machinations did not elude the watchful eye of the Las Vegas Review Journal, which chose to use an I-do-not-know-how-big-font headline to feature the story above the fold on the front page of Saturday's edition (and in case you missed it, an abbreviated version of story was re-run under a slightly smaller headline inside the Nevada section of the Sunday paper).

In so doing, the governor managed to outwit himself (no easy task) by allowing his personal life to siphon press attention away from an actual policy initiative.

Yep, that's right, after numerous fits and starts, this week the governor's office rolled out Gibbons' newly created government efficiency panel with the first order of business apparently being the reduction in the number of occupants in the governor's mansion by half.

David Damore is a political scientist at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.