While he made a second run for the governorship (he lost in 1994), she campaigned for a seat in Congress. GOP primary voters, however, didn't buy that she could juggle Washington and Carson City.
As first lady, she pushed in vain to ban alcohol in the governor's mansion, and her news release announcing she would wear Giorgio Armani at inaugural balls was roundly mocked.
But even Jim's biggest cheerleaders admit that, in the first round of Gibbons vs. Gibbons, Dawn won.
Her lawyer, Cal Dunlap, filed a scathing brief last month requesting that the case be unsealed. It made public Dawn's allegations that a "marital intruder" was to blame for the divorce.
The other woman, it says, frequently dines and grocery shops with the governor and has allegedly "stalked the man who could give her the public persona and prestige" she desires.
Dawn is referred to as a "castaway wife" and Jim as possibly "the most scandal-ridden governor in the history of this state." It also claims the other woman resembles the cocktail waitress who accused the governor of assault.
"It's like the Clintons," says Donna Kattchee, 74, another coffee shop patron who hopes the theatrics end, "if they had gotten divorced."
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ashley.powers@latimes.com
