Hold the presses! It turns out the Henderson Chamber of Commerce endorses Clark County Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald after all!

You remember last week, when the Henderson Chamber first announced, then retracted, then said it was still mulling whether to endorse Boggs McDonald. (She was enduring one of her worst political weeks ever, with allegations that she didn’t live in the district, revelations from her divorce file and charges that she misused campaign cash.)

But, fear no more, commissioner: Your good friends at the Henderson Chamber are there for you after all. (We’re sure she’s relieved, since her district includes … not a single square inch of Henderson.)

Let’s check out what the chamber said:

” ‘The Henderson Chamber of Commerce endorses Lynette Boggs-McDonald for Clark County Commission based on both her proven record of supporting local business and helping to sustain a strong economy and her understanding of the issues and challenges facing the Clark County Commission,’ said David Dahan, chairman of [chamber political arm] IMPAC. ‘We fully understand and recognize the severity of the allegations that have been made against Commissioner Boggs-McDonald and we do not condone these types of actions from our elected officials. However, we also understand these are only allegations. We support Lynette Boggs-McDonald for Clark County Commission (District F) because of her track-record of supporting business.’

” ‘I applaud the prudent actions of the committee and the willingness to act in the best interest of the members of the Henderson Chamber,’ Dahan said. ‘We were challenged by the timing of the endorsement process and we made the right decision in further discussing the endorsement.’ “

There are no winners here: Boggs McDonald probably feels as if the chamber has been a fair-weather friend (the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce never wavered from its endorsement of the commissioner). The Henderson chamber looks silly for the way it handled the situation. (Nothing has changed, after all, since last week. The allegations were only allegations then, too. So why not stick by the endorsement in the first place?) And since few, if any, actual human people will decide how to vote based on this endorsement, it doesn’t really matter in the long run anyway.

Hey, why are we even writing about it? That’s it. We’re out!

Tired of debate talk? How about some palate-cleansing Quick Hit Sorbet? Here we go!

• No sex at work? The next thing you know, they won’t let us bring booze, firearms and cigars! Fascists.

• Speaking of smoking, it appears that Question 4 (hereinafter known as the Non-Fascist Anti-Smoking Initiative) is beating Question 5 (hereinafter known as the Fascist Anti-Smoking Initiative). No, according to the R-J poll, they’re both going to pass. But the lesser of two evils is passing by a higher margin (thanks to a more clever name and the luck of being placed on the ballot first).

If they both pass, the one with the highest number of votes becomes law! So, go Non-Fascist Anti-Smoking Initiative, go!

• Still speaking of smoking, things aren’t looking good for Question 7, the initiative that would legalize (read — “tightly regulate the [marijuana] market, safeguard it and tax it”) an ounce of marijuana. A majority say they’re opposed, says the R-J poll.

If only this were true legalization (i.e. the system we have now for alcohol and tobacco) these results would upset us. But because this initiative contains some rather draconian penalties for abuse and sales to minors, better it die now.

• The Town Board of Pahrump weighs in where Congress fears to tread, with an ordinance making it illegal to hire, give money to, rent property to, or otherwise be nice to an illegal immigrant. Oh, it would make English the official language of Pahrump, too.

C’mon, people! We all know that Cash is the official language of Pahrump, and the rest of Nevada, too! These town boards and their crazy ideas!

On a day when everybody expected U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons to screw up, it was his opponent, state Sen. Dina Titus, who made the faux pas of the evening. In her opening statement no less!

As Titus launched into her opening comments, she thanked the students of UNLV for sponsoring the debate. The problem? She was standing on the campus of UNR, the archrival of UNLV. (Not to mention the fact that the debate had really been sponsored by Youth Voice Inc., the College Republicans and the Young Democrats.)

As if the hourlong Southwest plane ride to Reno wasn’t enough of a clue, Titus was greeted with instant and sustained boos, and immediately realized her mistake.

So she kept talking, saying that she’s been in the classroom for so long, students all seem the same to her, whether they are from the north or the south.

More boos. A lot more.

Now, it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. She didn’t insult the Wolfpack, Wolf Pack, UNR’s football team athletic teams. She didn’t repeat her infamous “sponge” or “rascal” comments about the north.

But in a campaign where Gibbons has done his best to portray Titus as an outsider — especially in the north, which has a well-developed paranoia about Las Vegas or anyone therefrom — the mistake was a disastrous way to start her first debate. Even Titus recognized it, apologizing at the end of the proceedings for mixing up the name of the schools.

Gibbons, for his part, only got flustered a few times during the heated hourlong exchange, like when he was asked about what Nevada can do to better serve the gay and lesbian community. (His answer was a loosely strung together skein of clichés that would have embarrassed even former for Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt.)

Let’s look at some highlights:

• Gibbons stuck to his campaign theme like Superglue: Titus will raise taxes.

Sure, it’s the oldest, most careworn line in the Republican Bag o’ Campaign Trail Scripts, but it’s been in there since Ronald Reagan for a reason. It works. And we learned that reason Monday, as Gibbons sought to emulate his political hero in rhetoric if not in gravitas.

– “Over the next four years, I will save you money. She will cost you money.”

– “Ask yourself: Who do you want leading our state into the future: A fiscal conservative with a solid record on limiting spending, or a record liberal spender?”

– “She has a pattern of voting for every tax increase that comes along. … I intend for the state of Nevada to live within our [sic] means.”

– “I’m a saver. She’s a spender.”

– “Ask yourself: Who’s more likely to raise your taxes?”

– “I want to protect our future. I don’t want to mortgage it.”

– And, commenting about Titus’s five Es platform, Gibbons actually got off a pretty good line: “You left one out, Dina. You’re expensive.”

Hmmmm. We’re getting the impression that Gibbons is against taxes and Titus is for them. Aren’t you? (We’ll have more to say about this theme in our column in CityLife this week. It should be on the website by Thursday.)

But the fact is, the issue of raising taxes is not likely to be a major part of the governor’s job, no matter who gets elected. Consider these factors:

Factor One: The state has been swimming in surpluses since the 2003 Legislature. More recent debates have been about how much to give back, and how to give it back.

Factor Two: Thanks to an earlier Gibbons initiative, the Legislature still has to muster a two-thirds vote to raise taxes, a high bar that took a dramatic state Supreme Court decision to overcome last time. And the court, in its “wisdom,” overturned that part of its ruling this year.

Factor Three: Even Gov. Kenny Guinn, who advocated raising taxes, waited until his second and final term to do it. No first-term governor will likely embrace a tax increase, except perhaps for a dire emergency. While Titus has not sworn she will not raise taxes (then again, neither has Gibbons; he’s only said he doesn’t “intend” to raise taxes) she’s smart enough to know it could be a political death sentence.

Factor Four: At least one tax raised by the 2003 Legislature has been lowered since. This does not portend a tax-raising trend.

On top of all that, Gibbons had to moderate his tax attacks on the woman he likes to call “Dina Taxes,” after it was revealed that Gibbons himself voted for some of the same taxes he slammed Titus for approving in one of his recent ads.

For her part, Titus shot back that Gibbons had, indeed, “mortgaged” the future by voting to increase the national debt limit. And Titus noted that she voted for balanced budgets in the Legislature (then again, everybody did; it’s a constitutional requirement) while Gibbons voted for out-of-balance budgets in Washington, D.C.

• Education: Priority One. Or something.

Gibbons said education was his top priority, and that’s why he was circulating his Education First initiative, which would require the education budget to be funded before any of the other budgets. Gibbons also wants to pay teachers more, and to make sure Nevada’s universities are “second to none.”

(We always love hearing that last one. Really, second to none? So people will consider UNLV and UNR superior to Harvard, Stanford, Princeton and Yale? U.S. News and World Report will rank our schools higher than Cornell, Duke, U.C. Berkeley, Notre Dame, Northwestern and Purdue? We can’t wait!)

But, according to the Review-Journal, when Gibbons was asked about funding full-day kindergarten, he balked, saying it was too expensive.

Well, hold on there, congressman! If education really is your No. 1 priority, you’d find a way to pay for it, right? After all, what is a budget but a numerical representation of an organization’s priorities? (We were told that once by a UCLA management professor, Joseph Carrabino, and we always thought it made sense.)

That must have been what Titus was getting at when she said that Education First was meaningless: It doesn’t matter when the education budget is approved. It only matters how much is in it. And while Gibbons maintains full-day kindergarten would cost $100 million, Titus says it can be done for $40 million. Either way, studies show it helps kids do better in school later on. That might help Gibbons reach one of his stated goals, which is to help kids do better in K-12 so they’re more prepared for college work.

• Although Gibbons accused Titus of being the most wined and dined lawmaker in Nevada, it’s simply not true. The lobbyist activity report for the 2005 session shows Titus as the recipient of $168.27 in lobbyist largesse. That puts her behind six other state senators, including top recipient Maggie Carlton, who had $502.01 spent on her. In the Assembly, 15 lawmakers took more than Titus in the 2005 session, including top recipient William Horne, who had $599.85 spent on him.

Ditto for the 2003 session, when Titus came in 14th overall among the 63 lawmakers.