Gubernatorial debate leaves those living in reality scratching heads

In cartoons, characters sometimes smack themselves upside the head when they can't believe their ears.

Then they shake their befuddled noggins from side to side in an attempt to clear the confusion. Finally, they offer a cross-eyed expression that seems to ask, "Say, what?"

Smack. Shake. Say, what?

I found myself doing that as I watched last week's gubernatorial debate on Vegas PBS between front-runner Republican Brian Sandoval and underdog Democrat Rory Reid.

Granted, I'm no one's deep thinker. Maybe it was all those Saturday morning cartoons I watched as a kid. You can reasonably argue state budgets are beyond my cranial capacity.

But they're not beyond state Budget Director Andrew Clinger's. He is responsible for sewing up Nevada's patchwork budget, which by law must balance. He projects a $3 billion revenue chasm and says in the clearest terms cuts will have to be combined with new taxes or Nevada's government will essentially cease to exist.

"Everything else besides education," Clinger told the Nevada News Bureau in August. "So that's all of Health and Human Services, all of taxation, all of gaming, all of the constitutional officers, the Legislature, the Supreme Court. You could eliminate everything and have nothing but K-12 and higher ed, and you'd have a balanced budget."

At that point, we could change the state's motto from "Battle Born" to "Still Born."

Clinger told the truth. He isn't running for governor. Reid and Sandoval are.

Clinger only has to deal with reality. Reid and Sandoval must navigate in the creepy cartoon world of politics, where admitting taxes will be necessary is the equivalent of strapping an Acme Jet Pack on your back and rocketing off a cliff like Wile E. Coyote.

In a world in which the slightest utterance can be almost instantly transformed into an animated attack ad, candor is a sin.

As naïve as it sounds, at a time like this I think the pole-axed electorate hopes for more from their gubernatorial suitors.

Instead, debate viewers watched time after time as Reid weaved in the fact he's published an economic plan while his opponent neglected to do the same. Although Reid's plan appears to include about $600 million in what's being characterized as fantasy funding, there's no truth to the rumor his economic vision includes the timely planting of magic beans.

Does Rory Reid have a plan?

Does Bayer have aspirin?

By the end of the debate, I needed a fistful.

The only thing worse was watching Sandoval stare earnestly into the camera and promise he will always be straight with Nevadans, then immediately deny the undeniable. He managed to sound serious in a manner that said, "I'll always level with you -- except when I'm not leveling with you on the no-new-taxes pledge."

Smack. Shake. Say, what?

The plan-free Sandoval accused Reid of being unrealistic.

To recap: You have a candidate who won't take a strong stand criticizing a guy who has taken an unrealistic stand on the issue of whether the state government will have to combine deep cuts with new taxes to continue to function.

Around they went like Chip and Dale circling a hollow oak tree while the acorns inside were rolling away.

Speaking of nuts, for the life of me I can't determine who is sillier: Mr. Every Plan, or Mr. Nowhere Plan.

At the risk of playing the Saturday morning sap, Reid and Sandoval appear to be intelligent, decent men with historically centrist political views. But their debate performances made them look downright Smurfy in the face of Nevada's vicious economic challenges.

It's apparently too much to ask, but can't someone give it to us straight?

Unlike some animated candidates with cartoon campaign strategies, the rest of us are stuck here in Reality Land.

John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295. He also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/smith.