After the fall: Gibbons defeated but not finished with the job

The day after his primary defeat, a reflective Gov. Jim Gibbons didn't skirt the question about what happened.

"It's no one's fault for getting un-elected other than the candidates themselves," he said.

Brian Sandoval's landslide victory made Gibbons the first sitting governor to lose a re-election primary in Nevada

history.

Still, he said the defeat - especially the margin of two-to-one - came as a surprise because of the positive reactions he received while campaigning.

"I'm sure it was a combination of things, including the public's dislike of my private life," he said. "We're not perfect."

Since he took office, Gibbons has been dealing with allegations he was having affairs with three different women, a public divorce from his wife of 20 years as well as charges by a Las Vegas cocktail waitress he assaulted her in a garage.

Gibbons said the economy is also a major factor in his defeat.

"Especially in a crisis economy, governors get blamed for the economy in their state, for high unemployment, redirection in spending.

"I don't know how much weight to give any of it."

Even though he's a lame duck, Gibbons said he's not going to disappear. There are changes in state government he believes are crucial.

"I have six months of work here as governor of the state," he said. "I'm going to try to continue the work we've started on a lot of programs. And I no longer have to crowd a weekend of campaigning in."

Those issues include making Nevada the nation's leader in developing renewable energy, transportation and implementation of some of the SAGE Commission recommendations - including reductions to state employee benefits, which he said could save a half-billion dollars. He wants to see a sunshine law approved to make local government contract negotiations open to the public.

"Get the contract negotiations out from the back room and into daylight," he said. "Let's see what offers and extortions are taking place."

"There's a lot of work out there we started that needs to be continued," Gibbons said.

He said over the remainder of his term he will work to consolidate and prioritize state services, eliminate or combine certain boards and commissions and generally shrink the size of government.

He said he believes history's long-term view of his administration will be positive "as long as the programs in place that we started are developed and not dropped by the next administration."

Government, he said, must change.

"People and businesses getting handouts from government become more and more dependent on government and there are fewer and fewer people out there working to pay for it," he said. "Whether it's a business or a person, when the government takes a downturn, it should experience a downturn in government support."

"This has been the greatest opportunity, a perfect storm so to speak, for re-engineering Nevada. But government is such a large ship you can't turn it on a dime," he said. "We're finally getting to make the ship make that turn."

"I think the work we've done is going to create a far better Nevada, and history will reflect they were the right decisions," Gibbons said.

Gibbons said the battle between Rory Reid and Brian Sandoval to succeed him "is going to be fascinating to watch."

"The next governor is going to have bigger challenges, greater differences between revenues and spending," he said. "It's going to take a lot of courage, a lot of strength.

"What I hope is he doesn't look for the easy way out and raise taxes."

If his successor decides to raise taxes to balance the budget, "the state of Nevada will stay in this economic downturn a whole lot longer period of time and more people will be out of work."

Gibbons said the other thing his successor will have to deal with is the divisiveness in the Legislature.

"In the past we always ended up realizing that, at some point, we have to work together," said Gibbons, who served three terms in the Assembly. "We no longer have that kind of willingness in the Legislature anymore."

As for his future, the governor said that's on hold until November.

"I've learned to never say never but I have no aspirations at this time," he said of future political endeavors.

"I will work. I'd love to be involved in the resources industry. I have two decades in transportation and the aviation industries," he said.

"I'm not keen on being a lawyer," he said adding that too much has transpired since he stopped practicing and it would take a significant amount of time for him to get up to speed on current case law in any field.

"I'll have to wait and see what kind of work I can find out there," he said.

He said he has confidence in the state's future.

"I think we're going to head into better days, a better future."