Democratic candidate for governor Dina Titus wasn’t seriously considered for endorsement on the paper’s editorial page. Review-Journal photo
Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Gibbons got the endorsement of the Review-Journal's editorial page a week late. Photo courtesy of Jim Gibbons.
Republican activist Chuck Muth says Dina Titus’ campaign keeps him busy watching for political missteps.
Shelley Berkley
Democratic legislator says she doesn’t buy drinks for anybody she doesn’t know
Harry Reid
Democratic senator says he’s too boring to go out drinking
Given the Review-Journal editorial page's well-known conservative leanings, the paper's endorsement ought to have been a given for Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Gibbons. But he almost didn't get it.
The newspaper had planned to run its endorsement for governor on Oct. 22, a Sunday and just after the start of early voting. But at that time, there were so many unanswered questions swirling around Gibbons that members of the newspaper's editorial board decided to wait a week and see whether anything became clearer, Review-Journal Publisher Sherman Frederick said in an interview.
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At the time, 32-year-old Las Vegan Chrissy Mazzeo's allegation that Gibbons assaulted her in a parking garage after they met over drinks in a bar was hanging unresolved in the air. That's still basically the case today, with police continuing to investigate Mazzeo's reopened case.
"We would have liked to have gotten it (the endorsement) out earlier, but the events of Friday the 13th required us to wait for the story to advance a few more steps before we could make a decision," Frederick said.
The editorial page is separate from news coverage to preserve reporters' objectivity, and this reporter was in no way involved in the editorial board's endorsement, deliberations or decisions. Editorial writers, it is often said in the newspaper business, get paid to have an opinion, while news reporters get paid not to.
The paper didn't seriously consider endorsing Democrat Dina Titus, but it considered offering no endorsement for governor, Frederick said. The board decided, however, that voters couldn't wait for guidance until all the questions are resolved, which might not be until after the election. The Gibbons endorsement was published on Oct. 29.
"At the end of the day, it was just impossible to define who was right and who was wrong," Frederick said. "Our recommendation to voters was to simply make your decision in this race based on the issues. Philosophically, Jim Gibbons' approach to state government was much more in line with where the R-J thinks the state needs to go."
The endorsement didn't avoid the topic of Mazzeo. It recapped the story, then stated, "Against this backdrop, voters must still decide on Nov. 7 whether Rep. Gibbons or Sen. Titus would make a better governor."
But, the editorial said, with the Mazzeo matter unresolved, a choice would have to be made based on political philosophy, and the Review-Journal preferred Gibbons' views on government over those of Titus.
EYE FOR DETAILS
When conservative activist Chuck Muth's eagle eye spots a potential transgression by Democrat Dina Titus, he pounces.
Last week, Muth sent a letter to Titus' campaign complaining about her use of the state seal as the letterhead for a campaign e-mail. The Oct. 22 e-mail thanked Titus' supporters "for everything you have done for my campaign."
Nevada statutes prohibit use of the seal for political purposes to avoid the appearance that a campaign is conducting official government business.
"Boy, how I wish you hadn't made ethics such a pivotal part of your gubernatorial campaign," Muth wrote in his letter to Titus. "Trying to keep up with all your transgressions this year has caused me an awful lot of additional work."
Titus spokeswoman Hilarie Grey said the use of the seal was a technical error.
"In our e-mail system, the (campaign letterhead) banner has a very similar file title to the seal. A staff person hit the wrong button," she said. "It was an inadvertent, little mistake."
In recent weeks, Titus also has acknowledged she mistakenly took a campaign contribution during the time legislators are not allowed to do so, then mistakenly maintained she hadn't done that until paperwork proved she had.
Gibbons' campaign also has made "mistakes" in its campaign finances, including taking $11,000 in contributions that had to be returned because they exceeded legal limits.
Muth said Titus' use of the state seal was a misdemeanor offense.
"It's a minor, petty thing, but when you're in the Legislature and you vote for these goofy laws, you should have to follow them," he said of Titus.
ADDING UP SCANDALS
For those counting at home, Gibbons faces three totally separate scandals, none of them likely to be resolved by Tuesday's final poll. There's the Mazzeo allegations; the charge that he hired an illegal immigrant household worker in the 1980s; and accusations that he acted improperly by helping a friend get tens of millions of dollars in secret, no-bid federal contracts, then taking his family on a star-studded Caribbean cruise at the friend's invitation.
Gibbons never asked permission from the House of Representatives' Ethics Committee or disclosed the trip, valued at more than $12,000, on his financial reports. He now says that was just a clerical error and has asked to retroactively fix it.
Richard Wright, Mazzeo's lawyer, has largely been a player in Scandal No. 1; but in an interesting aside to his Friday news conference on that case, he had something to say about Scandal No. 3.
Wright, who is widely considered the top criminal defense attorney in Las Vegas, noted that he was last in the spotlight as the lawyer for Mary Kincaid-Chauncey, the former Clark County commissioner who was found guilty on federal corruption charges in May.
If what Gibbons has said about the cruise is true, Wright said, "if a congressman greased the skids for a constituent, he materially assisted to get secret contracts worth millions of dollars, and he thereafter received $15,000, $20,000 worth of free vacation and then didn't disclose it when the matters came before him, didn't disclose it on his financial records -- we just had a case like that. I was in it for two months. It's called honest services fraud. It's called depriving the electorate of what they have a right to know."
Gibbons' request, in a letter to the Ethics Committee, to go back and change his filings isn't good enough, in Wright's opinion.
" 'Oh, I'd like to go back and amend my disclosure statement and now tell the public about it,' " Wright paraphrased Gibbons' position. "Well, my client, Mary Kincaid-Chauncey, would like to go back and amend hers and say, 'I did get a contribution for my grandson's ski school.' It doesn't work that way."
Kincaid-Chauncey told the federal jury that she accepted money from former strip club owner Mike Galardi, including $4,000 to send her grandson to ski school, but the funds were not for her.
Kincaid-Chauncey testified her daughter had solicited money from Galardi for her son's Olympic ski school.
NO LAST CALL FOR DEMOCRATS
The two Democrats in Nevada's congressional delegation said last week they were reasonably certain they wouldn't have gotten caught in Gibbons' admitted situation of drinking at a bar with strange members of the opposite sex.
"I don't buy drinks for anybody I don't know," a cautious, if perhaps ungenerous, Rep. Shelley Berkley said when asked about the Gibbons allegations.
Berkley also expressed skepticism at the testimonials of the people at the table that only decent conversation about politics was had at the table, not dirty jokes and flirtatious comments, as Mazzeo told police.
"It stretches the imagination to think that these women were invited over to the table to talk about -- the Patriot Act? World hunger? Is waterboarding torture?"
Sen. Harry Reid said he was too much of a stick-in-the-mud to ever find himself in a similar situation.
"I don't go out drinking with anyone," he said. "I'm kind of a dull guy."
