By Del Tartikoff

Two years ago, in this column, I described how betrayal is the always-recurring leit motif of Kenny Guinn’s political career.

The column recounted Guinn’s record at Southwest Gas, where he had betrayed his mentor, Bill Laub, for money and power. It noted how simpatico Guinn found himself with the increasingly notorious weasel of northern Nevada politics, Pete Ernaut. And the column reported on Guinn’s long history of betraying the Republican party—both the party professionals, and especially the party faithful.

Well, today I’m back to say that this legislative session has confirmed that all the wishful thinking in the world by Nevada Republicans did not change Guinn’s spots. I’d also like to immodestly suggest that readers might review that entire 1999 column. It said a lot of impolitic truths that even I hoped would turn out to be wrong.

In 1999 I wrote, “Because of Guinn’s longtime service for Democratic Party causes -- like raising taxes and getting Democrats like Boob Miller in control of the state government -- many sectors of the GOP in Nevada seriously questioned Guinn’s Republican bona fides on his way to the gubernatorial nomination. So Guinn and Ernaut ran a "reassurance" campaign in 1998 -- embracing in the primary just about every Republican cause that wouldn’t make the Democrats in the state loose their patented "rightwing extremist" fusillades. Once elected, however, and past the 1999 legislature, Guinn appears to be reverting to form. Not only are his machinations to hike Nevadans’ taxes rolling along at full steam -- a folly that could easily drive great multitudes of the party’s faithful away -- but Guinn decisions on two other fronts could also seriously hurt the GOP.

“First is Guinn’s failure to keep his pledge to raise money to make up a $350,000 debt the state GOP is faced with. By now, one has to wonder whether Guinn is letting the state party twist slowly in the wind because Guinn’s gaming overlords do not want a healthy GOP going into the next election. The Nevada Resort Association, after all, is increasingly dominated by Democrat Party allies and activists like Steve Wynn and Mike Sloan. And if the party historically most resistant to tax hikes, the GOP, should be empowered, where does that leave the casino industry’s campaign for ‘broader’ taxes?”

Well, today we have our answers. Guinn is no Republican. This session he took a play out of the Boob Miller playbook and – rather than cut government costs -- shafted Nevada’s rental car industry with a hefty tax hike. He helped corrupt Bill Raggio throw Assembly Republicans to the Democratic wolves. None of this is surprising, really, given Guinn’s top political advisor—Democratic strategist Billy Vasilliades—and given Guinn’s chief legislative operative—Pete “Quisling” Ernaut.

As feared, Guinn has turned out to be just another Las Vegas phony, posturing before the TV cameras when not running errands for the gamers.

Chuck Muth once generously wrote -- as he was finally going public about the doubts that many Republicans have long held about Guinn -- that the governor, personally, is an extremely nice guy. The fact is, however, that nice is as nice does. Pleasant manners do not make a good man. In the final analysis the only way one can take a sounding of a man’s heart is by looking at his actions.

On that basis, unfortunately, Guinn today, as throughout his career, fits Napoleon’s description of the elegant French diplomat Talleyrand:

Shit in a silk stocking.