After speech, Krolicki got nod

Forget his personal scandals or 21 percent approval rating. The real reason Gov. Jim Gibbons was passed over to chair John McCain's campaign in Nevada was a speech.

McCain campaign officials were peeved by Gibbons' speech at the state Republican convention, which they saw as insufficiently supportive of the GOP presidential candidate, according to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

McCain's campaign selected Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki to be the Nevada campaign chairman instead, a move that struck many as a snub of Gibbons. During a visit to Las Vegas last week, McCain denied that, saying he and Krolicki go way back.

At the April 26 convention, Gibbons' speech focused on state issues and his determination not to increase taxes in the face of budget challenges. Near the end, he did mention the party's presidential candidate, saying, "I believe we have a strong ticket for this November, headed by Senator John McCain, the next president of the United States."

The source said that was seen as too tepid by the Arizona senator's campaign, especially after Gibbons' admission at a previous Republican convention that he hadn't voted for McCain at the Nevada caucus.

When McCain visited Reno on May 28, Gibbons originally had been designated as the official who would meet him at the airport and introduce him at the fundraiser at the Eldorado Hotel Casino, but the invitation was withdrawn, the source said.

In a deliberate slap to Gibbons, his estranged wife, Dawn, was asked to meet McCain at the airport instead.

Asked about the matter, Gibbons spokesman Ben Kieckhefer said he knew of no disinvitation or dissatisfaction with the speech, which Kieckhefer said he wrote.

Meeting McCain at the airport, he said, "was never on the schedule." Gibbons attended the fundraiser, Kieckhefer noted. "That's all that was ever on his schedule."

As for the speech, he said, "I think it was a pretty strong endorsement of Senator McCain. I wrote it to be that."

EL PRESIDENTE?

McCain has been making a play for the Hispanic vote in Nevada, airing ads on Spanish-language radio. In Las Vegas, he has picked up at least one influential Hispanic supporter.

Fernando Romero, president of Hispanics in Politics, came out to see McCain as the candidate met with volunteers Wednesday at his new office in Henderson. A Democrat, Romero said he is crossing party lines to support McCain. (He noted that he was speaking only for himself, not Hispanics in Politics, which is nonpartisan and has yet to make an endorsement.)

"He is a proven entity. He has been there for us," Romero said. "He has a track record with the Hispanic community, not just this campaign but the whole time."

Romero worked on the Democratic primary campaign of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who dropped out before the Nevada caucuses. After that, Romero supported Hillary Clinton.

After Clinton ended her campaign, Romero said he considered supporting Barack Obama, the Democrats' presumptive nominee, but Obama's campaign made no effort to reach out to him and didn't return his phone calls.

"Many of us in the Hispanic community are Democrats, but the Obama campaign is not reaching out to us at all," he said. "They seem to expect us to come to them."

Romero said he had an easy time deciding to support McCain partly because of McCain's past support for comprehensive immigration reform, although McCain has backed off that stance.

Romero said he also was impressed by McCain's work building ties with Latin America.

"His views are not as conservative as most Republicans would want," Romero said of McCain. "But he fits, in my opinion, right into Nevada's philosophy."

AT THE RODEO

The Nevada Appeal on Friday published photos of Gov. Jim Gibbons at the Reno rodeo with another woman he says is just a friend.

In one of the photos, Gibbons and the woman, Leslie Durant, can be seen embracing in a dark parking lot. Durant is the ex-wife of former Reno Mayor Pete Sferrazza and appeared in Playboy magazine in 1989. She is not the woman with whom Gibbons used a state phone to exchange more than 800 text messages.

The Appeal was there to cover the rodeo, according to an editorial by Editor Barry Ginter that ran with the photos. In its previous report on the rodeo, the paper had noted that the governor and his companion were holding hands, but stopped when they saw they were being photographed.

Gibbons told the Appeal that his friend was "upset" and he was comforting her. On Friday, when the photos were the buzz of the Legislature's special session, the Las Vegas Sun published on its Web site a previously conducted interview in which Gibbons said he had to get close to his friend because it was noisy.

Gibbons told the Sun it's hard to be romantic about someone you've seen go through childbirth, and "I held her hand when her child was born."

Ginter, in the Appeal editorial, opined that Gibbons' many pleas for privacy in the face of such revelations ring hollow when he seems to insist on flaunting his private affairs in front of his constituents.

"There were probably few other places in Northern Nevada that night where more people could be found than where he chose to hold hands with his friend," Ginter wrote. "... The only conclusion that makes sense to me is that the governor wanted to be seen with his companion. I don't know why he decided that was wise."

ENERGY APPEAL

McCain continues to mix it up in his Nevada television advertising.

Last week, he started airing a new commercial, this one reinforcing the message about energy security that he brought to Las Vegas.

"American technology protected the world," a male announcer intones in the new 30-second commercial as the camera pans across a grid of images, starting with black-and-white shots of the moon landing and moving on to a gas station, pumping oil rigs, wind turbines and solar panels.

"We went to the moon not because it was easy, but because it was hard," the ad says. "John McCain will call America to our next national purpose, energy security."

The ad is McCain's third message to a handful of swing states including Nevada. Previous ads were about war and global warming. The new commercial illustrates the mileage the campaign hopes to get out of the energy issue, a major topic of late.

Unlike the global warming ad, which was flashy and dramatic, the energy security ad has the slicker feel of a corporate presentation and shows the candidate speaking at a lectern in a suit and tie, rather than surveying the outdoors in an untucked shirt and ball cap.

The ad touts McCain's plan to drill for oil domestically and pursue alternative sources of energy. It ends with a new slogan: "Putting country first."

Barack Obama also has included Nevada on his early roster of swing-state advertising, with a single spot that focuses on his family, values and devotion to his country.

Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball @reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919.