Columnist Erin Neff: On national stage, Nevada still plays a bit role

Erin Neff

Friday, Aug. 1, 2003 | 5:26 a.m.

OH TO BE relevant.

Nevada finds itself on the bottom of every social barometer, has thousands of tons of nuclear waste coming its way and continues to suffer the pains only the nation's fastest-growing state can comprehend.

And despite the issues that should help spur debate, assistance and interest nationwide, we find few willing -- or able -- to listen.

Sure, we have the Senate's assistant minority leader, an active congressional delegation, and now the added fifth electoral vote to make a difference.

But once again, as the nation's eyes look to smaller states with bigger political stakes, Nevada proves that on the national stage, it is an electoral wasteland.

Nevada has no presidential primary, and the parties pick without a full election, meaning there's no real reason to campaign here.

As a result, those who have the potential to help fix Nevada's problems don't even have a reason to explore what those might be.

The next time Nevada voters hit the polls it will be in a primary for state and local candidates next September.

By that time, President Bush will already have accepted his party's nomination for re-election and the Democratic nominee will have been known for two whole months.

California, however, has a primary, which includes presidential candidates, in March. That gives its voters a say in not just who is chosen for the November ballot but in what issues drive the debate between presidential candidates.

Sure, candidates do come for Las Vegas' money. But as Vice President Dick Cheney proved last week, you can haul out $300,000 without showing your face in public.

It's time to give serious consideration to changing the sytem and moving up the election dates.

Clark County Registrar Larry Lomax probably will spit out his coffee in disgust at the procedural changes, technology needs and massive education campaign needed to pull it off.

Critics say Nevada's five electoral votes wouldn't even matter much. They say that if we moved up the date of what is now just a state primary to add the presidential portion, we'd be linking our primary with other Western states. We would lose candidate stops to bigger California, they argue.

Indeed, the 1999 Legislature shelved a plan to move up the date of our primary because of election official and grumbling by political parties.

But just look at what other states are able to do with their primaries.

New Hampshire (four electoral votes) will cast ballots Jan. 27 and already has the attention of all nine of the officially recognized Democratic candidates.

Iowa has staked its place in political history by being the first state with a glimpse of voter input. Its Jan. 19 caucus will dominate post-holiday news for weeks, and you can bet, will shine a light on the Hawkeye State's needs.

For weeks Iowans will expound on the economy, health care, Social Security and terrorism. From Des Moines to Keokuk, the state will have clout.

Our neighbor, Arizona, casts ballots on Feb. 3.

Thirty-three states will be finished picking the presidential finalists by March.

The National Association of Secretaries of State recently proposed a national presidential primary calendar aimed at giving every state the chance to go first.

Under the organization's rotating primary plan, states would be grouped by region and given a set date for a presidential primary. For example, the East would vote in March, the South in April, the Midwest in May and the West in June.

The next election would rotate with the South taking the lead, and so on.

That wouldn't guarantee Nevada the spotlight, but it would give the state a better chance to be the focus of someone's campaign, or at least the president's eyes.

Republican political operatives and Larry Ruvo, the Nevada Bush-Cheney campaign's finance director, all say George Bush will visit the state before next fall's election. (If he visits, odds are he will use our constitutional definition of marriage to bolster his efforts to ban gay unions).

Yucca Mountain did its part drawing candidates to Nevada in 2000, as both Bush and Al Gore visited the state and commented on the proposed dump despite Nevada's mere four electoral votes at the time.

Now that the dump is out of the president's hands, it would be nice to talk about the state's unique challenges as the fastest-growing in the nation.

But other than our fat wallets filling campaign coffers, there's no political reason for Bush to visit us.

If we really hope to grow up on the national stage, we've got to give those with the power to help us a reason to campaign here.