America’s worst governor has now been discovered by NBC News “Senior investigative correspondent” Lisa Myers. Why this late? Probably because the corruption of Republican politicians only get interesting for the media nowadays when you have something saucy, like, say, photos of a drunk politician dressing up as a pseudo pirate and allegations by an FBI witness of bribes in the form of casino chips.
Here’s an exerpt of what Lisa Myers reported on the “Today Show” this morning:
The new governor of Nevada, Jim Gibbons, is being investigated by the FBI because of alleged gifts and payments from Warren Trepp, a defense contractor whose Nevada firm received tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts.
That’s the main allegation in a nutshell. Now for the juicy part.
According to software designer Dennis Montgomery, Trepp’s former business partner and a Republican, Gibbons accepted “close to $100,000” in casino chips and cash on a cruise ship.
Honestly, where to start? A Nevada politicians accepting bribes in form of casino chips? This wouldn’t even make for a Hollywood B-movie.
Of course, this is the same Jim Gibbons who claimed that there was a conspiracy between the Wall Street Journal and Democrats to bring him down and who’s scandals make up about half of his Wikipedia profile.
Anyhow, there is already talk about a recall of Gibbons. And we only have to wait about 7 more weeks because a recall can only be started six months after the governor takes office. In the meantime, you can sign an online petition here.
Hopefully, the Gibbons scandals will get enough attention for Lisa Myers and other DC journalists to learn how to correctly pronounce Nevada…
More on all things Gibbons over at the fabulous Vote Gibbons Out!
Video and photos over at MSNBC.
Cross posted from Turn Tahoe Blue.
Do democrats have any chance in a state that elects a guy like Gibbons AFTER he beats up a cocktail waitress?
Of course they do. Let me elaborate.
Democrats won 4 out of six constitutional offices last year: Attorney General, Treasurer, Controller, Secretary of State. Prior to that all offices were controlled by Republicans.
Why did Gibbons still win? Several factors: you can’t win a statewide race by winning Clark County (Las Vegas and suburbs) alone. Gibbons won with only 47% of the vote. While he lost Clark County by more than 20,000 votes, he did win in all the rural counties and he won Washoe County (Reno and suburbs) by more than 15,000 votes. The four Democrats who won statewide all won Clark AND Washoe Counties.
Why did Gibbons win in Washoe County? It’s his home. He represented the 2nd district (which is all of Nevada except most of Clark County) for 10 years in Congress. During his time in Congress, Democrats never nominated a serious challenger because the district was deemed a safe Republican one. The problem on the Democratic side was a bitter primary fight between Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus and Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson. Gibson could possibly have won statewide but he had no chance in the Democratic primary as he’s practically a DINO (voted and contributed to Republican candidates in the past). Gibson refused to endorse Titus in the general, Titus was hit hard for some not so nice things she said about northern Nevada in the past and, as trivial as it sounds, a lot of people apparently didn’t like her Georgia accent.
Democrats made one final strategic mistake: knowing that Gibbons could win the gubernatorial race they did not have a decent candidate for Lt. Gov. It’s pretty obvious that Gibbons will have to resign sooner or later (or get recalled). If he resigns the Republican Lt.Gov takes over.
Finally, Gibbons old congressional district isn’t that Republican anymore. Dean Heller won the district against Democrat Jill Derby by just 50 to 45 percent. He’s in a vulnerable position being a pro war freshman in the minority without any influence. Plus, he’s already said he wants to be Governor some day, so he doesn’t really want to be in Congress.
For all these reasons Nevada bloggers have recently joined up and created Helluva Heller (http://helluvaheller.blogspot.com), a blog with the aim of replacing Heller with a Democrat in 2008.