What is Lorraine Hunt-Bono’s deadline? January 5, 2011. That’s the date by which she would need to establish residence in Las Vegas in order to run for mayor. At present, she lives just a few blocks outside the city limits.
Informed sources confirm that Hunt-Bono…a former Republican lieutenant governor who currently serves as a commissioner on the Nevada Commission on Tourism…has indeed looked seriously at the race and has a strong interest in the position. Not only that, but she’d be great at it, combining both substance and style with a side order of experience.
As a former Clark County Commissioner, Hunt-Bono knows a LOT about downtown redevelopment. And as a business owner (The Bootlegger Bistro, one of Playboy’s “Greatest Bars” in the country), she certainly knows what it means to “sign the front of the check, not just the back.” As a former Strip entertainer, she certainly has a “personality” that all the other present mayor wannabes lack. And as a 50-year resident of Nevada….well, she sure knows Nevada.
You’d be hard pressed to find a better-qualified, more suited candidate from either party. But while it appears the interest is there, I’m betting it’s gonna take some pretty serious wooing to get her to give up a pretty darned good life with her family these days for a return to knock-‘em-down-drag-‘em out politics. Anyone wishing to entice her back into the arena better do so fast; the residency clock is ticking.
