By STEVE FRIESS

LAS VEGAS: Jim Gibson's candidacy for Nevada governor needed a pick-me-up. The Democrat is well-liked, but he's got a sonorous style that's dull compared with his tart-talkin', Southern-twanged, poll-leading primary opponent.

One quick fix: A Flash-animated online cartoon inspired by Star Wars lampooning his foe for once taking a campaign donation from Enron. State Senator Dina Titus is shown as charging into the lair of a Darth Sidious-like emperor ready to slice up his evil highness with a light sabre when he offers her some money she happily snatches instead.

The cartoon showed Gibson's lighter side and drew a surge of local media interest. But it also placed his campaign at the forefront of the year's hot political advertising trend, animated pieces created only for the Web to be spread virally.

"This is going to be more and more a common practice," said David Johnson, a consultant who worked for Jeb Bush.

Gibson's spot was the brainchild of the campaign's Web hosting firm, Load.com, which had made cartoons internally for fun for years and decided to take a spin at politics. Since the launch, the ad has been downloaded by more than 14,000 users, says Load.Com owner Nick Jones, who says he's now getting calls from candidates in Pennsylvania asking for his services.

Flash-animated political ads got their start in 2004 when JibJab.Com hit it big with their parody of "This Land" starring John Kerry and George Bush. That spoofed both political parties, but strategists saw the viral spread of the cartoon via e-mail as a new avenue to voters. Last year, a group opposed to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's ballot initiatives turned him into an an Ernie-like cartoon strolling down a spoof of Sesame Street.

This year, Republican Sen. Rick Santorum's camp has created an attack cartoon against Democrat Bob Casey that wonders ”Where’s Bob?” And, in one of the more perplexing bits, an Indian-American candidate for Ohio attorney general posted a ”Simpsons”-themed toon comparing himself favorably to the show's Indian shopkeeper, Apu.

"This is a way to poke fun that doesn't turn off voters," Johnson said. "In 2006, when so many people are taping everything on TV and skipping commercials, this is a way to engage people."

State Sen. Titus isn't amused. She feels the cartoon trivializes the race and distorts her record: "The accent wasn't very accurate and it's pretty sexist. ... We're putting up the facts. They're putting up science fiction."

Consultants doubt any of this will affect the election, except to energize the base, grab a few headlines and raise money. It also creates suspense over what the campaign might do next.

"It's doubtful these animations reach undecided voters," said Michael Bassik, of the D.C.-based political consultant firm MSHC Partners. "But they can go viral within a confined geographic area and get some notice."

The best may be yet to come for Gibson; if he wins the primary, he'll most likely take on a Republican named Jim Gibbons. A Gibson-Gibbons race is comic gold to Jones: "I tell my family at dinner what I'd do with that, and they just start laughing."

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