Alan Greenblatt is a GOVERNING correspondent.
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The Las Vegas Sun reports on how support for Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons is weakening among state Republicans in the midst of his divorce fight.
Wednesday's filing by Dawn Gibbons' attorney Cal Dunlap, a former district attorney who is said to love a public fight, is ostensibly an argument to open the now-sealed divorce filing. In fact, however, it's clearly part of an aggressive media strategy to paint the governor as a cold, philandering liar.
"Despite his disingenuous, shallow, and transparent protestations that his relationship with another man's wife is a mere friendship, his infatuation and involvement with the other woman is the real, concealed and undisclosed reason for his voluntary departure from the marriage," the court filing states.
The filing comes after an editorial in the Elko Daily Press alleged that Gibbons was having an affair with an unidentified woman. (Gibbons responded to the item with a strongly worded letter to the editor saying the woman is just a friend.)
Dawn Gibbons, meanwhile, has shown up in a few sympathetic media profiles.
The court documents do not name Gibbons' alleged mistress, calling her a frequent "bar, lunch, dinner, and even grocery store companion" with a "striking resemblance" to Chrissy Mazzeo, the woman who accused then-Congressman Gibbons in 2006 of getting drunk and making a pass at her in a Las Vegas parking garage during the final weeks of his race for governor.
Republicans fear the spectacle will become even more public.
"The toothpaste is out of the tube," Wark said.
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