The Democrats' Gamble
A new political calendar puts the spotlight on a most unusual state
The state of Nevada displayed its newfound political muscle last week, with the appearance of eight Democratic presidential hopefuls (Sen. Barack Obama was the sole exception) at a forum in Carson City. With Nevada's caucus scheduled-for now, anyway-just after the Iowa caucus and just ahead of the New Hampshire primary, this quirky state seems poised to be a crucial Democratic battlefield for the '08 elections.
Seeking a much-needed foothold in the West, the Democratic National Committee, with a little lobbying from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, reshuffled the calendar in Nevada's favor. Citing the state's ethnic diversity (nearly a quarter of Nevada's residents are Hispanic), concentration of organized labor (about 14 percent of the workforce), and economic growth (consistently one of the nation's strongest performers), Democratic leaders believe the state offers an alternative to Iowa and New Hampshire's mostly white, rural populations.
Yet the move has infuriated New Hampshire's secretary of state, William Gardner, who considers his state's voting position sacrosanct and who is now threatening to reschedule his state's primary before the first of the year, if necessary. Not to be left behind, almost a dozen other states are angling to move up as well.
Aside from Nevada's potential political value, it's an unusual locale to say the least, featuring legal gambling and prostitution, a booming big city and desolate hinterlands. Nevada is a state of surrogate realities. In Las Vegas, for example, where the gaming industry can take credit for employing much of the growing Hispanic population, these new Nevadans work largely unseen, obscured by facades of New York and Paris and Venice. Beyond Las Vegas's all-night glow, in the dusty nether reaches that are the rest of the state, the populace is little more apparent.
If it's possible for a landscape to say something about its people, then Nevada says hardscrabble. And hardly visible. Some towns exist barely above desertion, a mere collection of parked cars and corrugated metal. Others really are ghost towns-abandoned relics of long-ago gold mines. Dominating the Nevada landscape are not humans but highways, the loneliest in the lower 48, draped like filaments across great swaths of sand and rock. Just when that nothingness seems absolute, there appears a trace of habitation: a makeshift grave, a bullet-riddled car, or, near the ghost town of Rhyolite, a life-size plaster sculpture of the Last Supper.
In this peculiar place, the Democratic candidates are already converging, as are the press, the political consultants, the policy wonks. And they'll be around awhile. More presidential debates are scheduled: Reno in August, Las Vegas in November. Should the DNC's gamble prove sagacious, the people of Nevada will help deliver the party a sustainable nominee and perhaps even turn their state from red to blue. Should it prove ill-conceived, the DNC won't be the first bettor to watch his hopes evaporate in Nevada's dry desert wind.
This story appears in the March 5, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
advertisement
