By Jon Ralston

Fri, Nov 21, 2008 (2:01 a.m.)

So how do you rebuild something that doesn’t exist?

That’s the task confronting the state Republican Party’s supposed savior, Sen. John Ensign, who nominated himself this week as Sen. Rebuild. As Ensign was busy with national things, the state GOP dissolved into nothingness, beginning with a desperate copycat of the Democratic presidential caucus and ending with horrific election results that turned Nevada blue and the state Senate and the southern congressional delegation Democratic.

The state GOP may be the only organization that had a worse year than Ensign’s National Republican Senatorial Committee. Indeed, some might wonder why a man who oversaw a political arm that had its most unsuccessful year ever — the Democrats may still be able to count to 60 after Minnesota and Georgia are finished — has the credentials to restore the Nevada Republican Party to corporeal status.

“We have a lot of work to do in my state,” Ensign told the Sun’s Lisa Mascaro. “I’m going to be spending a lot of effort over the next several years turning that around.”

It is going to take a lot of effort. And the first sign of whether Ensign is up to the job is how he deals with the elephant in the room: Gov. Jim Gibbons.

This will be the first early test for Ensign, who will need to display a toughness and, perhaps, ruthlessness that he may have picked up from his friend Harry Reid (more on that problem in a moment).

As one GOP insider put it, Ensign “needs to deal with the governor, who is the biggest impediment to the reconstruction. That said, he won’t be able to bully him out of the race ...”

Indeed, in Gibbonsworld, all is well, he has held his first fundraiser and he may be able to no-tax himself to better approval ratings. The question is whether Ensign, sometime before mid-2009, perhaps right after the legislative session, is willing to lead a delegation to visit the governor and give him the bad news:

“Jim, you can’t win. No poll shows you can win. The only place you can raise significant money from is Lake Tahoe, and that is not a bottomless well. I can’t tell you not to run. But what I will tell you is that my concern, and the concern of other Republicans, has to be for the state and the party. We will not support you.”

Once Ensign deals with the prime elephant in the room, Sen. Rebuild will have one more tricky problem to resolve before taking the meaningful steps to resurrect the GOP. It is almost inconceivable that someone dedicated to invigorating a state party could essentially absent himself from what will be the country’s marquee race: Reid’s reelection battle for a fifth U.S. Senate term.

So far, Ensign has invoked that nonaggression pact he and Reid signed after the Republican was elected in 2000 and has said the two had agreed not to criticize each other. But that kind of passivity will cause unrest from D.C. to Nevada.

If Ensign takes a laissez faire role in the campaign national Republicans will be most focused on in 2010, he will find himself kneecapped by his own faithful. I wonder if he will ever take a look at that fine print of the Reid-Ensign peace accord — how far can he go?

If Ensign can deal with Gibbons and at least pretend he is trying to defeat Reid, he can get down to the real business of party rebuilding.

First, he will need to bring in political pros and real mechanics, not rely on the hacks and hangers-on that have influenced the state GOP — Chairwoman Sue Lowden may be a fine spokeswoman, but she needs help to make slow, steady inroads in the Democratic registration gains.

Second, Ensign needs to stick to the message he has been harping on for years, which is that the GOP needs to be the party of fiscal discipline and accountability. As head of the national GOP Policy Committee, he also can carry the big-tent message that Reagan communicated so well.

So is this just a fantasy? Perhaps.

But the possibilities are there if Sen. Rebuild makes the right moves: Remove Gibbons, get Rep. Dean Heller in that race, hope Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki can do what it takes against Reid, erect a real party organization and bring in pros, cut into the registration gains, hope Obama goes too far left, and then pray the Democrats inflict damage on themselves with a bloody gubernatorial primary.

Sounds easy enough, but Ensign might need one more tool: Can someone lend Sen. Rebuild a magic wand?