Hence his sagging approval ratings.
Across the way, on the right side of the ballroom, two women stewed over Bellicose Guy's fat-mouthed partisanship. "He asked me, ‘Whose side are you on?'" the older, bespectacled, schoolteacher-looking lady told the younger one, who had the textured look of a no-nonsense business executive—black pantsuit, red blouse, bounce-less hair, unsmiling mouth. "I told him it's none of your business."
When Lady No. 2 went over to get his name, she got an earful. "He told me to leave him alone. He didn't have a badge and wouldn't tell me his name. He's so rude. Somebody should tell Dina she needs to get new people." Thirty minutes later, Titus, the Las Vegas-by-way-of-Georgia, gun-owning, shoot-from-the-quip Democratic state senator and UNLV political science professor, bashed Gibbons, a nice-enough but personality-deficient Republican congressman, as a hater of Hispanics—against bilingual voting materials, driver's licenses for undocumented workers and hospitals treating undocumented immigrants—drawing hoots and spirited applause from a crowd who then gabbed and ate baked chicken and spaghetti during Gibbons' play-it-safe speech.
Against a backdrop of an election expected either to ratify or nullify Republican dominance—Democrats need six seats to retake the Senate, 15 seats to capture the House and four governorships for a majority—this was a rather Rovian experience for the second-place party. There were fanatical supporters. For-us-or-against-us ideological parsing. Cut-and-run sniping. Were we in the Gold Coast or an electoral Twilight Zone, a bizarro world where Democrats energized their base via masterful puppetry on hot-potato issues (immigration) and Republicans were politically invertebrates? I didn't think so either. But damn if Titus didn't have us fooled.
From the start of her campaign, Titus has behaved like a D.I.R.C. (Democrat in Republican's Clothing), Swift Boating Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson as a D.I.N.O. (Democrat in Name Only) and now needling Gibbons as an indistinct congressman and GOP yes man.
Where Gibbons la-dee-dah-ed about the need for sensible, compassionate immigration reform, strengthened border security, improved health care, top-notch education—tossing in tidbits of praise for Hispanic art, culture and local entrepreneurs—Titus specified how she's helped Nevada Hispanics by championing the creation in January of the Office of Minority Health and supporting laws that put Spanish interpreters in courts, target illegal notaries, ban racial profiling and require Nevada authorities to log racial data at traffic stops.
Where Gibbons stumbled—saying he's "willing to listen to the issue" of granting driver's licenses to undocumented workers, but sounding like his mind was already made up—Titus made sure he fumbled, citing his low approval rating from the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda's scorecard (he voted against Hispanic interests 94 percent of the time) and the Federation of American Immigration Reform (scored a zero.)
Where Gibbons was stiffer than a department-store mannequin and sounded like he was stumping for a Capitol Hill Cabinet post (when you run for governor, at least mention what you'd do for the state!) Titus was lively, loud (her twangy accent bullhorning across the room) and specific. But all the things she said she'd fight for—all-day kindergarten, more vocational education programs, endowing the Millennium Scholarship college tuition program, offering incentives for businesses to open in depressed areas—mean one thing: higher taxes, my fellow Nevadans, higher taxes. She even had a comeback for the Gibbons' ad caricaturing her as "Dina Taxes," dubbing him "Congressman Fibbons" for promising to help Hispanics, if elected, when his record indicates he won't.
Neither one did a great job speaking Spanish—Gibbons sounding like he was reading a TelePrompTer and Titus like Dolly Parton in a Spanish 101 class. But Titus had the foresight to recruit a Spanish-speaking supporter who had the crowd laughing. From then on, it was Titus Town. The two Latinas by the door unloaded the Titus for Governor stickers. Bellicose Guy funneled supporters to campaign literature. And Titus was the star of the moment.
So what'll all this mean come November 7?
Gibbons in a landslide, probably.