LAS VEGAS
Today, Nevadans go to the polls to take part in their presidential caucuses, a political tradition so historic that nobody had ever heard of it before.
As a headline in The Las Vegas Review-Journal understated: “Format creates state of confusion.”
You will remember these caucuses from Iowa. People gather at a local meeting place, where Republicans take a straw poll and Democrats divide into groups according to their candidate of choice. The only difference is that in Nevada:
1. Workers on the Las Vegas Strip can vote in the casinos. This is a boon to the powerful Culinary Workers Union, which supports Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton blew up at a television reporter over the unfairness of it all. (The former president appears to be on a schedule of one meltdown per state.)
2. The caucuses have been conveniently scheduled to take place on the Saturday morning of a three-day weekend.
3. The number of people in the state who have ever attended a caucus before is probably smaller than the number of people in the state who make their living as Elvis impersonators.
Despite all this, the Democratic contest is being billed as the great tiebreaker between Obama (Iowa’s Choice) and Hillary Clinton (Saved by New Hampshire.)
It would have made as much sense to decide who gets the delegates by a roll of the dice — and think of the great publicity for the state’s premier industry. (Wayne Newton could emcee!)
Under normal circumstances, Nevada goes out of its way to make it easy for people to vote. You can do it anytime within two weeks of the election, at the local mall or the corner store. Voting locations are as ubiquitous as slot machines. Very few people seem to be able to get their minds around the idea of showing up at one specific place at exactly 11 a.m. on a Saturday.
“I’ve tried to get my friends involved,” said Andrea Hinojosa, a 33-year-old mother of three, who admitted that she hasn’t had any luck. “They want to know why they can’t vote at the grocery store.”
Why, you may be asking yourself, can’t the state just organize a normal primary? Excellent question, and here’s Shelley Berkley, a Congresswoman from Las Vegas, with the answer: “If you have a primary, the state pays. If you have a caucus, the party pays.”
Last time around, 9,000 people went to the Democratic caucuses, and spent most of their time trying to dragoon each other into being delegates to the state convention. Then, in deference to Nevada’s Harry Reid, the semipowerful Senate majority leader, the caucuses were moved to January, creating a sense of excitement and New Hampshire-like entitlement on the part of the local population.
“You won’t even be here on the day of the caucus,” complained a radio reporter to John Edwards. “Should we read anything into that?” Poor Edwards has been trudging around here for weeks, giving the same speech over and over, answering the same questions and assuring his audiences that that unlike some people who he could name, he cares about their needs in his gut. Little did he know that they were also going to expect him to stick around for the weekend.
The Republican caucuses have been overshadowed by the weirdness in the South Carolina G.O.P. primary. Remember John McCain’s joke about playing Will Smith in the movie where everybody else turns into a zombie? Even McCain probably did not envision an empty-eyed Mike Huckabee lurching around South Carolina, yowling about telling people who don’t like the Confederate flag where they can stick their flagpole.
“I care very much about the people of Nevada, and I care very much about those delegates,” said Mitt Romney as he arrived in Las Vegas, looking a little like an evacuee from a civil war. Mitt has figured out that, given the unpredictability of this election season, he can be the least popular guy in the class and still amass enough delegates to win the nomination.
This clearly makes him sad. “I’m not looking for gold stars on my forehead,” he says over and over, in a tone that makes it clear he is exactly the kind of person who obsesses over gold stars.
Romney is probably going to do well in Nevada. One of his sons has been organizing here — the Romneys have scattered their progeny around the country like Hansel and Gretel, dropping bread crumbs. And this may finally be a state where his religion will be a help rather than an invitation for the religious right to mutter about the anti-Christ. While Mormons make up only 6 percent of the Nevada population, they do seem like the kind of folks who would be willing to participate in a political ritual that takes place at 9 a.m. on a Saturday. (To add to the excitement, the two parties have different starting times. It figures the Republicans would take the early bird special.)
Really, there’s got to be a better way. It’s only a matter of time before some state party decides to pick its presidential delegates by counting the number of voters who paint themselves blue and howl at the full moon.
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