Primary Politics: The Great GOP Nevada Pander

The Grand Nevada Pander | Swampland | TIME.com /* */ Home TIME Magazine Photos Videos Specials Topics Subscribe Mobile AppsNewslettersRSS @TIME NewsFeed U.S. Politics World Business Money Tech Health Science Entertainment Opinion SEARCH TIME.COM Full Archive Covers Videos 2012 ElectionDebatesDemocratic PartyPollsRepublican PartyMichele BachmannMitt RomneyRick PerryWhite HouseBarack ObamaJoe BidenCongressBudgetsHouseSenateLobbyingJohn BoehnerMitch McConnellNancy PelosiHarry ReidDomestic PolicyAbortionAgricultureDebtEconomyEducationHealth CareHousingForeign PolicyAfghanistanChinaDiplomacyHillary ClintonIranIraqPhotosSpecialsVideos PrimariesThe Grand Nevada PanderBy Alex Altman | @aaltman82 | October 14, 2011 | View CommentsTweetRobert Laberge / Getty ImagesLights illuminate Las Vegas Boulevard on Oct. 13, 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Four second-tier Republican presidential hopefuls — Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum — are threatening to bypass the Nevada caucuses if they take place Jan. 14, as presently planned. This is not, as you might surmise, because they’re sticklers for following RNC guidelines (which the Silver State skirted by bumping up its date in response to similar maneuvers by Florida and South Carolina) or deeply invested in preserving the sanctity of the GOP’s primary calendar. It’s a simple pander.

None of the four candidates are real contenders in Nevada, where Mitt Romney coasted four years ago and is favored to repeat. Each wants to showcase their fealty to the voters and kingmakers of New Hampshire, whose critical first-in-the-nation primary could choke off their presidential aspirations.

This is particularly true of Huntsman, the first to make noise about a Nevada boycott. The former Utah governor doubled down on his call Friday morning by bowing out of next week’s GOP debate in Las Vegas. Huntsman called the move “an effort to preserve New Hampshire’s historic first-in-the-nation primary status.” But that status isn’t in doubt. New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner, who has the power to set the date of the primary, has said it will take place sometime in December or early January. The only question is whether New Hampshire will have the same week-long buffer before the next contest that it has enjoyed in the past. “Your primary is critically important,” Huntsman told a New Hampshire Rotary Club on Thursday. That is doubly true for the candidate, who has staked his presidential hopes on a strong showing in the state and therefore has every reason to kowtow to its residents.

The calculus isn’t much more complicated for the likes of Bachmann and Santorum, who have made Iowa the centerpiece of their primary calendars. If public displays of solidarity with New Hampshire tradition can boost their lowly poll numbers, great. If not, a mass boycott partially illegitimizes Nevada, allowing them to skip the state and zip straight to South Carolina, where their brand on conservatism will find greater favor with the state’s legions of Evangelical voters. Gingrich, meanwhile, has been gaining ground in the Granite State and may opt to concentrate his campaign’s early-state resources there if the trend continues.

And what of the candidates who are resisting the boycott cry? Romney is the Nevada frontrunner. Rick Perry has the resources to compete and received a key early endorsement from Nevada’s Republican governor, Brian Sandoval. Ron Paul plans to make a play for the state, whose libertarian bent matches his own. “Dr. Paul is in this to win, and our campaign will compete for delegates everywhere we think we can win them,” said Jesse Benton, Paul’s campaign chairman. And the never-conventional Herman Cain has adopted an inscrutable early state-strategy that today took his surging campaign to Tennessee, of all places. (Update: According to New Hampshire’s WMUR, Cain’s camp said Friday afternoon that he will join the boycott.)

It takes courage to boycott a state you might win. This is naked self-interest.

Updated, 4:10 PM

Related Topics: Bill Gardner, boycott, caucuses, herman cain, iowa, jon huntsman, Michele Bachmann, mitt romney, Nevada, newt gingrich, rick perry, rick santorum, ron paul, Primaries
emailprintshareLinkedInStumbleUponRedditDiggMixxDel.i.ciousWriteView Comments@TIMEPoliticsLatest on SwamplandMitt Romney | October 14, 2011Lessons of ’08: Romney’s Rivals Could Collude

As my colleague Michael Crowley notes, the anti-Mitt Romney vote is still a lot bigger than the pro-Romney vote. I agree with Michael that Romney doesn’t have this thing as sewn up as the inside the Beltway pundits are saying. That said, he’s smartly playing his rivals off of one another to ensure that that anti-Romney vote is never consolidated.

Looking back at the 2007/08 campaign, Romney in many ways was the man to beat. He won the Ames Straw poll, he spent tens of millions of dollars of his own money, he was the first candidate up with TV ads and by January 2, 2008, he was the front-runner in most polls. So, how did he lose the nomination? The rest of the field ganged up on him.

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