We’ve done the big race, now it’s time to bat some cleanup in post-primary Quick Hits!

• Security breach? What was up with Metro Police showing up at state Sen. Dina Titus’ campaign headquarters during her victory party last night? KTNV Channel 13 (where we were on hand to provide a little color commentary) reported a threat had been phoned in, and Titus was seen on camera being escorted by university Regent Steve Sisolak.

Sisolak, a bodyguard? We can’t buy that. How about Stavros Anthony? At least the Metro Police captain can carry a gun. Oh, wait, that’s right. Titus doesn’t need a bodyguard at all, since she herself owns a .32-caliber Smith & Wesson snubnose revolver.

Watch out, threat makers. Dirty Dina shoots to kill. Or so we hear from campaign staffers spotted walking into Gibson headquarters.

• Debt retirement. Now that several candidates have been eliminated in the primary, it looks like they owe some folks some money.

See, maximum donations in Nevada politics are $5,000 per election (the primary and the general count as separate elections). But donors pony up $10,000, betting that their candidate makes it into the general election, too.

If you don’t make it to the general, you’ve got to repay the extra $5,000, lest you be in violation of campaign finance laws.

Something tells us we’ll be hearing about debt retirement parties very soon. A lot of them.

• Las Vegas, brought to its knees by a lack of water? Say it isn’t so? (Actually, the Las Vegas Sun quotes water czar Pat Mulroy saying it is so in today’s edition.)

• And finally today, we’ve gotten to wondering if Republican Failure King™ George Harris has been taking yoga classes. In an e-mail missive today, Harris switches sides to embrace U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons’ candidacy faster than Erin Kenny hitting her knees in Mike Galardi’s office.

For weeks, Harris has been promoting the candidacy of state Sen., Bob Beers in his advertising vehicle Liberty Watch: The Magazine. (In fact, Harris sent out an election-day link to a video e-mail of Beers making a final pitch for votes.) Harris and his magazine have also been bashing Gibbons, whose campaign manager Robert Uithoven, smelling a hit piece, refused to allow Gibbons to submit to questions from Liberty Watch Editor Mike Zigler. (Full disclosure: Zigler is a former news editor at CityLife.)

It’s that kind of intellectual flexibility that allows Harris to explain what’s obviously a pay-to-play scheme thusly: “First, I’ve never clamed to be a journalist, and of course I will promote any like-minded person out there. I’m also going to earn money doing it. After all, I’m a businessman.

“[Political columnist Jon] Ralston never points how he pimps out his Ralston Report, which is an insiders look into how a liberal journalist views politics in Nevada. But Ralston is right. I’ll write a ‘True’ favorable story about any Republican candidate and I’ll ask for their help to pay the postage into the district they are running in because Republicans will never ever have the truth told about them by the liberal media.”

We’ve tried for several days to get Zigler to tell us whether or not Liberty Watch accepts money for favorable coverage, but he’s refused to return our e-mails. Today’s admission from Harris, while not quite a full confession, is a tacit acknowledgment that the magazine is unconcerned with truth (even Harris puts the word in quotes!) and perfectly willing to “promote” people, rather than honestly profile them. (Click here for a recent example.)

One thing Harris said is true, however. He is in no way a journalist, nor is anyone whose name appears in his magazine. If he were one, he’d know to identify advertising content with a label that let readers know what they’re reading isn’t honest or even fair. It’s just ad copy, and not very good ad copy at that.

If the Democrats were doctrinaire, the Republicans were pragmatic on Tuesday, nominating U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons by a decisive, 19-point margin. They rejected state Sen. Bob Beers, author of the Tax and Spending Control initiative, even while (according to polls) they embrace the initiative itself. (Gibbons pulled 47.8 percent to Beers’ 28.8 percent.)

That’s nothing new in Nevada politics: Richard Ziser, now head of Nevada Concerned Citizens, shepherded the anti-gay marriage Question 2 initiative to victory, but when he ran for U.S. Senate himself in 2004, he lost to “none of these candidates” in several rural counties.

Republican voters also rejected Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt’s candidacy (she got only 17.7 percent of the vote). To be fair, however, no Republican voter even knew what Hunt’s campaign was about, save for being a close working partner with Gov. Kenny Guinn on everything except for the gross receipts tax. Seriously, we have never seen anybody talk more while saying nothing than we did watching Hunt.

But let’s remember something: Beers still wins. First, he’ll be back in the state Senate, serving as either chairman or vice-chairman of the Finance Committee. That puts him in a key role to exert influence on spending and taxes. Second, TASC will likely appear on the November ballot. If it’s approved, Beers true goal — saving Nevada from a government that grows faster than “we the people” — will be accomplished, even if Beers himself will come to the governor’s mansion only as a visitor.

Besides, Beers is relatively young (and good looking, too!) and a maverick. Should state Sen. Dina Titus win in November, or even if Gibbons takes the job, Beers can run again in four years. With better funding, it’s not inconceivable that he could have done much better against the well-funded Gibbons machine.

And that brings us to the Democrats.

If there was such a thing as the “Jim Gibson machine,” it was an Edsel, beloved by its designers, but rejected by the public. Despite spending a whole heck of a lot of money, Gibson managed but a paltry 35.6 percent, which cannot be explained simply by his taciturn personality. Titus took a commanding 53 percent of the vote, a margin of about 17 points.

There’s a name for that: Landslide.

In part, Gibson’s loss can be explained by Titus’ aggressive posture. She attacked the Henderson mayor early on, but before she uttered a single word, Gibson badly flubbed a relatively easy abortion question posed by my colleague Jon Ralston on his television show Face to Face. Gibson spent the rest of the campaign explaining himself, and Titus made sure he had no shortage of subjects to explain himself on, ranging from the monorail to Nevada Power to pay-to-play politics to personal ethics. At times, it seemed, Gibson seemed to wonder how much of that shit he had to put up with.

None, anymore, mayor.

A message has clearly been sent, and that message is this: Democrats prefer Democrats to vote for in Democratic primary elections. They want a fighter, and Titus gave them one. They want somebody who will advocate their agenda, and, while Gibson boasted a host of progressive issues, he seemed to be too conciliatory for the party faithful.

It occurs that this was easily foreseen, even and perhaps especially by those fond of marveling at how “electable” Gibson was, should he make the general election. Gibson would have kept the Democrats who would never vote for Gibbons anyway, while cutting into Gibbons’ base. Who are Republicans. But it’s worth asking if a Democrat appeals so strongly to Republicans, how good of a Democrat can he really be?

The thought was brought full-circle by the most unintentionally funny quote of the night, from Titus. Asked at her victory party how she’ll shift her campaign strategy from dealing with Jim Gibson to dealing with Jim Gibbons, Titus said she wouldn’t be making many changes at all.

One size fits all? Or fits all Republicans?