While no one has ever accused the editorial page of the Las Vegas Review Journal of being on the cutting-edge of progressive thought or for that matter, reflecting the preferences of the bulk of Clark County voters (who, after all, regularly support Democratic candidates), the paper's November 9th editorial lauding the performance of Governor Jim Gibbons' handling of the potential budget crises seemed to be laying it on a little thick, even for a page that swoons for all things Bob Beerish.

In case you missed it or thought it was simply written tongue-in-cheek, the piece entitled "A reassuring performance" praised the governor's "firm leadership" and "calming effect" for actually agreeing to meet with other state and local leaders, even though he was not constitutionally obligated to do so, to address his proposed budget cuts.

Certainly, in the short term the governor's decision to stand on principle and maintain his on-going (and for the most part, only) policy position to resist calls for any new taxes will sit well with both the RJ editorial writers and the thirty-three percent or so of Nevadan's who consider themselves rock-ribbed conservatives.  On the other hand, the governor's continued adherence to the no new taxes mantra not only ignores the state's changing political realities, but also the state's long term needs.

While conservatives in Nevada have long been able to secure favorable outcomes despite their diminishing numbers due to intensive mobilization and deep-pocket donors, recent events suggest that this influence is waning.  To wit, because of an inability to follow the rules governing the initiative process, conservatives failed to qualify their initiative to limit future government spending; conservatives have now failed twice to gather enough signatures to get a Proposition 13 style property tax limitation on the ballot; and despite spending over a million dollars, the ultra-anti-tax interest group the Club for Growth, failed to secure victory for its chosen candidate, Sharron Angle, in last years GOP primary for congressional district two. 

The net result of that miscalculation was the eventual winner, Dean Heller, was forced to drain all of his resources in an intra-party fight, which, in turn, provided Democrat Jill Derby with the opportunity to pull an upset in one of the country's most Republican friendly House districts.  And of course we cannot forget that last November, a majority of Nevada voters indicated that they did not want Jim Gibbons to be their governor. 

In short, Nevada is at the cross-roads between the Nevada of the past and the Nevada of the future.  Clearly, because of the state's unprecedented growth during the last twenty plus years, Nevada no longer resembles the idyllic Sparks of Governor Gibbons' youth that he is so fond of recalling on the stump.  Rather, the state is now experiencing the ugly side of the iron law of growth:  in the long term, growth never pays for itself, particularly growth of the sprawling type that has been the states' specialty. 

Instead, unchecked growth, by concentrating more and more people in a limited space, invariably creates the need for more roads, schools, parks, hospitals, fire and police protection, and the like.  And of course all of these demands necessitate a larger and more activist government regardless of any libertarian tradition that is so deeply ingrained in a state's mythology.  

Add to these concerns the need to invest in the university system to facilitate economic diversity, questions about securing sufficient water to meet the state's long-term needs, and the recent decision of the governor's co-partisans in Washington to sufficiently increase tax-payers resources to combat Nevada's legal challenges to Yucca Mountain.  Without sufficient resources and political will to address these problems, the outlook for the future is rather bleak.

The good news is that these concerns do not appear to be lost on all of the state's political elites.  Indeed, there appears to be the emergence of a coalition that thus far includes Republican and Democratic local and state elected officials from northern and southern Nevada and a handful of prominent business interests that recognize what the state of Nevada could be.  This vision is not one that is satisfied with being lumped in with the Mississppis and Alabamas on nearly every social indicator, that does not believe that the best way to fund the needs of an entire state is to lean exclusively upon a single industry, or that thinks the best way to make public policy is via interest groups using the ballot initiative process to push their narrow agendas.

So while the governor and his small band of sycophants may equate political leadership with a term in office that thus far is notable for poor public relations, no significant policy successes, a string of questionable appointments, and rigid adherence to an ideology that is inconsistent with the state's present and future needs, my guess is that most Nevadans see political leadership more in terms of bringing together a diverse set of interests, from both the private and public sectors, to develop long-term solutions to solve the myriad problems facing the state in such a way the costs are as fairly and equitably distributed as possible.  Anything less is simply treading water and if you have seen the water level in Lake Mead recently, you know that if business as usual continues to win the day then eventually there may be no water left to tread.