*    The mistake confirms or contradicts the candidate's professed or assigned persona.
*    The mistake illustrates a flaw generally believed but hard to prove or talk about.
*    The mistake is a convenient container for larger stories in the campaign.
*    The mistake reveals hypocrisy for character or policy.

In her opening remarks Titus thanked "UNLV" students for attending, quickly realized the error, apologized, and added in a joking/professorial tone "All you students seem the same to me."  The 600 person audience composed of mostly UNR students snickered and hissed but the debate went on, with occasional references to the misstatement later in the encounter. A classic "slip of the tongue" seems understandable from a candidate who spent 30 years teaching at UNLV and was probably interpreted as innocent by most.  So the Gaffe was yet to be born.  

Enter the columnist and media coverage. After all, it takes amplification to reach the status of "Gaffe."

J. Patrick Coolican, a reporter with the Las Vegas Sun, wrote today about the nature of the candidate's debate gaffe. And you are about to see what sparked my interest in this debate and writing about "when is a gaffe a gaffe."

Although it's hard to imagine many voters switching sides because of an innocent error, it captured a chunk of the post-debate narrative.

Allan Loudon, a professor of political communication at Wake Forest University, said debates in local elections can matter because they frame the rest of the campaign: "Why does it matter that she said the wrong school? Not because she said the wrong school, but because a local columnist writes about her problems up in Northern Nevada. It fits with the narrative. It becomes a shorthand for this other issue."

Indeed, Sun columnist Jon Ralston wrote: "Monday night's spectacular few seconds will reinforce Titus' image as a Southern partisan to the core."

Actually Jon Ralston host the news discussion program "Face to Face With Jon Ralston" on Las Vegas ONE also writes columns for the Las Vegas Sun) offers much more about the misstatement ("Jon Ralston dissects the highs and lows of the first Titus, Gibbons debate.")

Maybe Jim Gibbons slipped mercury into her pre-debate iced tea. Maybe Jim Gibson paid someone to play a cruel joke on her by altering her script. Or maybe, just maybe, Dina Titus can't be nice in the North.

In the first gubernatorial debate of the general election at UNR on Monday evening, state Sen. Titus had more fun (she said so), more specifics (she gave a lot) and more spark (by default, but she had plenty). Yet, she also had one of the most memorable and unexpected gaffes in Nevada debate annals - referring to UNR students as their Southern counterparts and then further infuriating the crowd by saying, "All you students seem the same to me."

No, this wasn't as egregious as a geopolitically impaired Gerald Ford freeing Eastern Europe or an ennui-afflicted Bush 41 looking at his watch. But this embarrassing moment, especially coming as it did among the first few words that left her mouth, could do to Titus what those other precious debate moments did to Ford and Bush.

Just as they cemented the perception of Ford as a clueless caretaker of the presidency and of Bush as a bored aristocrat for whom debating was a nuisance, Monday night's spectacular few seconds will reinforce Titus' image as a Southern partisan to the core.

How ironic that Rep. Gibbons, who has been pilloried as gaffe-prone (he was 10-to-1 more likely to commit a verbal misstep on the underground line, I understand), would have had a generally clean performance and his glib, witty opponent would begin with a clunker and spend the night digging out of the hole.

Erin Neff in the on-line Las Vegas Review Journal pined:

An hour later, as the debate wrapped, Titus, D-Las Vegas, apologized and thanked the UNR kids. Moderator Joe Hart smiled and asked her who she'd be rooting for in this weekend's UNR-UNLV football game. I was watching 400 miles away in Las Vegas, but I could still hear the boos.

Why, then, is this "Freudian slip" worthy of being the centerpiece for several debate stories?  It could be as simple as, a college professor for 30 years knows better than to mix-up the state's rival institutions. And this is minimally ironic since one pillar of her campaign is education.  The statement also serves a syndoche function for the reporter's musing about up-state and down-state political fortunes. For some it might also reveal the speaker's lack of genuine concern for Northern Nevada. Who know for sure?  

Likely none of the above explanations fully capture the reason for the mistake. As likely it simply nerves kicked in ast the debate commenced.  Nonetheless this Gaffe, in part, defined a political debate, and perhaps an entire campaign(obvioulsy the jury is out on long term impact).  

The conditions that allow a Gaffe to surface seem to have currency with the Nevada example. Individually and in combinations, they fit the explicit and often implicit arguments being floated as to the meaning of when UNR become UNLV.

*    The mistake confirms or contradicts the candidate's professed or assigned persona.
*    The mistake illustrates a flaw generally believed but hard to prove or talk about.
*    The mistake is a convenient container for larger stories in the campaign.
*    The mistake reveals hypocrisy for character or policy.