New website, old problems for Gov. Gibbons

Gov. Jim Gibbons is touting a new website he hopes will improve his chances for re-election, just as Time magazine is drudging up his old problems as a reason to put him on their list of "least influential" people.

Gibbons highlighted the new website in a recent fund raising e-mail that urges supporters to stick with him despite a low favorable rating from voters, a litany of distracting scandals and a state that's mired in a deep and painful economic recession.

The e-mail takes shots at President Barack Obama and says Gibbons is the only candidate to lead Nevada back to prosperity. The incumbent governor who is facing challenges from within his own party by former federal judge Brian Sandoval and former North Las Vegas mayor Mike Montandon, warns voters to stick with the candidate they know.

"The first instinct some have is to change those in leadership, hoping that the change will magically give them answers," Gibbons states in the missive. "But it won’t. It never has. We are experiencing that right now more than ever in Washington D.C. Electing a candidate who promised us 'instant change' has only driven us deeper into national debt and driven our country into near socialism."

The new website Gibbons mentions is visually cleaner than his original re-election site, which featured a large photo of Gibbons standing in a field of wildflowers.

Makers of the new site cut the picture of Gibbons out from the wildflower field, shrunk it and put it in front of a backdrop of Red Rock National Conservation Area.

They also included social media features and pages for issues, Gibbons' biography and many photos.

The slogan on the site is "A Real Governor for a Real Nevada".

Still, even as Gibbons is ramping up his re-election campaign, he is dogged by old problems. He was recently identified on a list of America's worst governor's published by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. And the Time magazine list, which also includes Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., occasional Las Vegas night club party host Tila Tequila, and Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, ruler of Dubai, which through private investment entity Dubai World, owns 50 percent of CityCenter and part of MGM Mirage.

Time justified Gibbons' inclusion by saying "He had too many scandals for Nevada to handle."