By Sonya Geis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 2, 2007

As Jim Gibbons campaigned for the Nevada governorship last fall, the five-term Republican congressman ricocheted from scandal to scandal and from gaffe to gaffe. When he squeaked to a narrow victory with 48 percent of the vote, he hoped to be able to focus on his legislative agenda and put his problems behind him.

Things have not turned out that way.

Since Gibbons took office, his troubles have only increased. The FBI is investigating gifts from a friend to whom Gibbons steered business while he was in Congress. In March, Gibbons revealed he had established a legal defense fund last fall, raising questions about whether he used unreported money from his campaign. And last week the Wall Street Journal reported Gibbons's wife was a consultant to a company that Gibbons helped to get a federal contract.

Meanwhile, the local press mocks the governor's apparent ignorance about his own legislative proposals.

A recent poll put Gibbons's approval rating at 29 percent, just 10 weeks after he took office. State Democrats are buzzing quietly about a recall.

"It's a fast-motion train wreck," Jon Ralston, a columnist for the Las Vegas Sun who has raised questions about Gibbons, said in an interview. "It has been a nonstop series of missteps and dumb moves by the governor since he took office."

So far, it seems not to matter to the public that charges leveled at Gibbons repeatedly fail to stick.

For instance, during last fall's nasty gubernatorial campaign, a Las Vegas cocktail waitress accused Gibbons of sexually assaulting her in a parking garage after she drank with him in a restaurant. In February the district attorney dropped the case for lack of evidence.

Gibbons has not been charged in any of the other scandals.

"If I want to be completely naive, I'd say Jim Gibbons is in the wrong place at the wrong time, again and again and again," said Eric Herzik, a political science professor at the University of Nevada at Reno and a registered Republican. "At the same time, many of these blunders then get made into these fantastic stories.

"To me, the impact is, it's distracting from his ability to govern."

Gibbons has also stumbled on policy questions large and small. The first energy policy in which he expressed interest, for example, was turning coal into liquid fuel, an experimental plan inexplicable to those who pointed out Nevada does not produce coal. Gibbons then switched gears to emphasize renewable energy sources.

Asked about his new energy chief, Gibbons told a reporter he did not know her name, but "she's from India." Hatice Gecol is originally from Turkey.

Gibbons has tried to minimize the damage by avoiding the press. He hired Washington lawyer Abbe Lowell, who represented lobbyist Jack Abramoff, to guide him through dealings with the FBI. And his staff prefers to focus on a plan to decentralize school decision making and other bills Gibbons wants to push through the legislature's biennial 120-day session.

"Regardless of the numbers in the poll, the governor remains focused on his legislative agenda," spokeswoman Melissa Subbotin said. Gibbons did not make himself available for an interview.

Some Republicans in the state hope Gibbons will bounce back before July, the earliest he could be recalled under Nevada law.

The legislature's schedule tends to result in "a mighty crescendo of decision making" when it ends in June, Nevada Sen. Bob Beers (R) said. Beers said he believes that will sway voters back to Gibbons.

On the other side of the aisle, Gibbons's opponent in the gubernatorial election, Nevada Senate Democratic leader Dina Titus, said a recall is "certainly part of the conversation out there."

The deep divisions are new to Nevada's typically centrist politics, Herzik said. The state's fast growth has widened divisions between more liberal city-dwellers and rural conservatives, which was reflected in the November race, he added.

Now "it's as if the campaign has never stopped," Herzik said.

Democrats risk a backlash from conservatives if they push too hard, Herzik said. Gibbons's "poll numbers are incredibly low. But will that be enough to get him recalled? Not unless one of these charges sticks."