Nevada Democrats beam in new spotlight

LAS VEGAS -- The Democratic Party's decision last month to thrust Nevada ahead of New Hampshire as the host of the second contest in their 2008 presidential nomination campaign has unleashed a wave of national attention on politicians, as presidential hopefuls line up to court potential supporters.

Sitting in her strip mall campaign headquarters surrounded by telephones and signs, state Senator Dina Titus ticked off names of likely presidential candidates who called her after she won the Democratic nomination for governor two weeks ago.

``They've all called -- Warner, Kerry, Hillary, Vilsack, Edwards, Feingold," Titus said. ``Who else? Bayh. I haven't heard from Biden. Biden didn't call."

The callers offered their congratulations and help in fund-raising, Titus said. ``They want to help me in '06 so that I can help them in '08."

If advisers to Senator Joe Biden of Delaware want to catch-up, they might eye a $2,500 gold table at the annual Clark County Democratic Party fund-raising dinner later this month. One party official said there has been ``much more interest" this year, and aides to former Virginia Governor Mark Warner and former Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards have inquired about buying tables.

The decision to hold Nevada's contest in January 2008 -- five days after the Iowa caucuses and three days before the New Hampshire primary -- sprang from DNC chairman Howard Dean 's push to front-load the Democrats' calendar with states representing a more diverse swath of the country.

Fast-growing Nevada is 20 percent Hispanic, 7 percent black, and 4 percent Asian. Voters want to talk about water scarcity, immigration, urban sprawl, the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, and federal land-use policy: 87 percent of the state is owned by the federal government. Many longtime Nevada Democrats own guns, although they are increasingly joined by a deluge of retired former Californians who don't.

Both local and national party supporters of holding the early Nevada caucuses say the candidate who appeals to voters here will have a better chance of winning the general election, in part because many Western states share the same issues, and the region is closely divided between Republicans and Democrats.

In 2004, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado -- holding 29 electoral votes together --were battlegrounds. George W. Bush beat John F. Kerry for Nevada's five electoral votes by three percentage points, and locals are still talking about Kerry's failure to pronounce the state's name correctly -- it's Nev-ah-da, not Nev-aw-da. The early caucuses, party leaders say, will forge a stronger connection between the 2008 nominee and Western states.

But the move has infuriated New Hampshire Democrats, who see the Nevada caucuses as a threat to their historical importance in shaping presidential politics through retail politics. They say that front-loading the calendar with a third contest in a nine-day period will mean that only candidates with money to spend on endless television advertisements will prevail.

Kathy Sullivan , the chairwoman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, predicts that the Nevada caucuses will be a flop -- sidelined by the media, since Republicans have shown no signs that they will move their caucus date to the same time, and skipped by some of the major Democratic candidates.

``I think this new calendar is all hat and no cattle," she said. ``It's not real. It's not really adding [to the race] what it's being sold as doing."

Nonetheless, New Hampshire Democrats have threatened to move up their primary's date in defiance of party rules in order to stay ahead of Nevada. National Democratic party leaders, in turn, have threatened to bar the state's delegates from voting at the 2008 national convention. Any decision in the impasse is months away.

In the meantime, Nevada Democrats are relishing their new role in the limelight.

For Titus -- who later in her conversation with a reporter remembered that New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson also called to congratulate her -- the national attention has been a welcome but distracting sideshow amid her campaigning.

But Senate minority leader Harry Reid , a Nevada Democrat, has had plenty of time to think strategically about the early caucuses he helped bring here.

In his eighth-story office atop Las Vegas's gleaming new federal building, Reid flips through a booklet about Nevada's mining operations and points with pride at the billions of dollars in gold that is extracted here each year. His point is clear: Reid ardently believes that Democrats, too, will find riches by asking candidates to go prospecting for votes in his home state.

``I believe Nevada is a gold mine -- not just for Democrats, but for our country," Reid said. ``I've been terribly distressed for many years about how we pick our presidential nominees. Go to Iowa -- no diversity, two percent diversity. Then you jump right off to New Hampshire -- no diversity and no people. . . . Nevada is a perfect state to test [candidates]."

Political analysts have already begun war-gaming how the caucuses may play out.

Chuck Todd of Hotline, a daily political newsletter, said that the candidate who can least afford to lose in Nevada is Richardson, whose potential campaign is predicated on the theory that he can win in the West because he is from New Mexico.

Todd also said Edwards has an early advantage in Nevada because he has visited the state to stump for a ballot initiative to raise the state's minimum wage, forging ties with service industry unions whose support could be critical.

But union leaders say the race remains wide open.

``I don't think it's a lock for Edwards or anyone else," said Danny Thompson , the head of the AFL-CIO in Nevada. ``You have to come and do the retail politics for support."

New Hampshire Democrats aren't the only skeptics about whether presidential-style retail politics -- stumping at numerous small rallies and meeting voters personally -- can be done in Nevada.

The state's economy does not slow down in the winter, and its rank-and-file voters have no history of participating in early presidential politics.

Reading the sports section at the Omelet House, a Las Vegas favorite in a mall far from the Strip and its ring of pawn shops and wedding chapels, Democrat Ed Smith said he works on Saturdays, driving a coach bus for tourists, so he doubts he'll take part in the caucus.

``I heard about it but I'm not planning to participate because I'm too busy," Smith said. ``I'll probably pay attention through the news media, but Las Vegas is a 24-hour town and people work all kinds of hours. A lot of people are going to have that problem."

Moreover, some analysts are skeptical about whether Nevada's diversity and moderate politics will be a factor in who wins. Hispanics have been a far smaller percentage of voter turnout than they are of the population.

And because the vote is in a caucus, requiring participants to sacrifice much of their Saturday, only committed liberal activists may show up.

``The people who are going to be active in those caucuses are similar to the ones that will be active in Iowa and New Hampshire," said commentator Jon Ralston , who has covered Nevada politics for two decades. ``They are the ideologues and the partisans."

But supporters of the early Nevada caucus argue that the excitement of having a say in who the nominee will be will drive casual Democrats, not just committed activists, to take part.

The last time, when the Kerry nomination was a foregone conclusion by the time of the late February 2004 caucus, about 9,000 activists showed up, local party members say. In January 2008, they predict, the turnout will exceed 100,000.

``This is Nevada," said Steven Horsford , a state senator and member of the Democratic National Committee. ``We put on a lot of great events in this state, so we know we're capable of doing this one right."