Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dina Titus said Friday that she agreed with Republican Jim Gibbons that it's time to refocus the campaign from scandals to political positions.
"I think we need to quit talking about it," she said of allegations that Gibbons attacked and threatened a local woman after drinks Oct. 13.
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But Titus held a news conference because, she said, she needed to defend herself as publicly as possible from Gibbons' continued attempt to tie her to "scandals and personal problems entirely of his own making."
Gibbons has blamed Titus for focusing the campaign's final days on scandals surrounding him, most prominently the assault allegations, which police were continuing to investigate Friday. Gibbons says the candidates should be talking about issues of substance.
Titus said that's what she's been doing all along and alluded to the assault charge.
"On Friday the 13th, I was at Channel 8 doing a debate with an empty chair," she said. "I don't know where he was, but I know where he wasn't, and he wasn't there. It shows a difference in priorities. I was talking about the issues important to the voters of this state."
Gibbons was having dinner with campaign donors and adviser Sig Rogich that night. He and Rogich went back inside the restaurant for a nightcap after the donors left and met the woman who later accused Gibbons of assaulting her.
Gibbons and the state Republican Party have called the scandals surrounding him a "smear campaign" pushed forward by Titus. A new television commercial by the Gibbons camp states that Titus "will stop at nothing" with "disgusting personal attacks."
Titus talked Friday about allegations that Gibbons hired an illegal immigrant nanny in the 1980s and had acted improperly in helping a friend get secret no-bid federal contracts. But she continued to say she wasn't going to touch the assault accusation.
"He has to answer those questions himself," she said. "I think the other two things I talked about are much more legitimate political issues."
Titus said that Gibbons continues to try to blame others for his problems, but that it is his actions that are being questioned.
"You will get straight talk from me, and hard work," she said. "You will not get scandals. You will not get excuses. I will take responsibility."
Titus challenged Gibbons to appear with her on the Las Vegas public radio show State of Nevada on Monday to discuss the issues.
Gibbons' campaign manager, Robert Uithoven, said that Gibbons had a busy campaign schedule that he was determined to stick to and that Titus' chance to debate Gibbons had passed.
"Jim Gibbons agreed to an unprecedented four general election gubernatorial debates in this campaign," Uithoven said. "He beat Dina Titus in every one of them on the issues important to voters of this state. When she knew she couldn't beat him on the issues, she began trying to attack him personally and attack his wife."
