Gov. Jim Gibbons' campaign sent out an e-mail Thursday asking supporters to join the 1864 Club, a reference to the year Nevada became a state - but someone pushed the "send" button prematurely.
The e-mail begins: "We've all seen where this 'hopey changey and now believey' kind of stuff has gotten our great Country ... to the Socialist World of Big Govern-ment and of Higher Taxes ... and to a government takeover of the Banks ... of the Insur-ance Industry ... of the Car Companies ... and now ... of the Peoples' Health Care and their right to make Personal Decisions with their doctors."
Ron Bath, Gibbons' interim campaign manager, confirmed the e-mail came from the campaign, saying it was "sent in draft to the people who were supposed to run it through spell check and clean it up."
Instead, it was sent without review to the Gibbons campaign mailing list.
"I'll take all the criticism spelled with an "s" (the release spelled it "critisism")," he said. "It was put together by some really good, dedicated volunteers and I didn't get a chance to look at it. Now I know the interim campaign manager is also the interim editor."
The e-mail references Gibbons challenger Brian Sandoval, saying "the believey stuff focuses on bs's current theme ... the feely accentuates this ploy bs is using like a song which was cool but over time gets old/boring/drops off the charges ..."
It urges supporters to join the 1864 Club by contributing $18.64 for Gibbons'
re-election.
"There are OK days, crappy days and really crappy days. This was sort of a crappy day," said Bath. "It was a faux pas, no question, on the part of the campaign."
Also Thursday, the governor's office issued a release setting up a fund to pay any costs of joining the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the health care law approved by Congress.
Gibbons said in the release he has gotten several lawyers led by Mark Hutchison of Las Vegas to handle the legal work without charge, but that there will be some legal costs to be shared with the other 14 states in the Florida lawsuit. He estimated the costs at about $3,500 and asked for donations to help cover that cost.
"The small costs to fight the health care plan are well worth it because the health care plan will cost Nevada taxpayers billions of dollars over several years," the release states.