GOP presidential campaigns give Nevada short shrift

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Nevada Republicans quietly moved up the date of their presidential caucus, hoping to gain a share of the national spotlight.

Apparently they were too quiet.

Little notice has been paid to the event, now scheduled for Jan. 19 in the coveted second-in-the-nation spot only five days after Iowa's caucuses. The presidential candidates whom state GOP leaders hoped to attract to Nevada have largely found more pressing matters to occupy their time.

The snub to the Nevada GOP has been especially conspicuous because Democratic presidential candidates have paid close attention to the state. Nearly all major Democratic campaigns have Nevada staff or local offices. Candidate appearances are steady, albeit brief. John Edwards alone has made six campaign trips to the state.


Read more: http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2835&u_sid=10073024

[bluestateguy]

1. Wouldn't that be Romney territory?

I would think that many Nevada Republicans are Mormons?

[Miss Chybil]

2. ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada#Religion

Religion

The religious affiliations of the people of Nevada are:
Christian – 78%
Protestant – 34%
Baptist – 15%
Methodist – 6%
Lutheran – 3%
Other Protestant – 11%
Roman Catholic – 44%
Latter-day Saint – 12%
Other Christian – 1%
Jewish – 1%
Other Religions – 1%
Non-Religious – 20%

More Baptists than Mormons. More "non-religious" than Baptists. Lots of Catholics. Now, which Republican do you think needs to go there?

[bluestateguy]

3. Perhaps

But we are talking about the Republican primary here, not the general electorate. Those are not the same things. If we assume that the vast majority of the non-religious and "other religious" folks are not Republican primary voters, and the Jewish voters are overwhelmingly Democratic, and probably at least half of the Roman Catholics (in Nevada I suspect that demographic is made up of a lot of Hispanics) are Democrats. The Baptists are probably majority Republican, while Mormons are almost unanimously Republican, you end up with a Republican primary electorate that is going to be much more than 12% Mormon. If the Mormons vote for Romney, and the other Protestants scatter their votes among the whole candidate field, Romney should be able to win.

[LiberalFighter]

4. Utah is Mormon dominated

[CK_John]

5. A caucus is a several hours affair and a dream for Robert's Rules of Order geeks or

more usually a small click of savvy insiders to push the flavor of the day, while pretending to be all inclusive. Especially in Nevada, if you don't have one arm bandits and bingo at the caucus who you going to get to go. I assume the candidates have already made the deals with the local control groups so why waste good time or money on campaigning for a likely turnout of 5% of voters.