Nevada’s GOP delegates look forward to convention

Suzanne Struglinski

Friday, Aug. 27, 2004 | 11:18 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Nevada's GOP leaders head to New York this weekend for the 2004 Republican National Convention, which starts Monday.

The four-day convention is part business and part pep rally as the party prepares for the remaining days before the November election.

The state's 33 delegates will cast their votes to nominate President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to run for re-election. There are 2,509 delegates and 2,344 alternate delegates along with other elected officials and politicians, their guests and thousands of journalists that cover the event.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev.; Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev.; Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev.; and Gov. Kenny Guinn will join delegates Attorney General Brian Sandoval, Secretary of State Dean Heller and State Treasurer Brian Krolicki at the convention. Guinn and Sandoval are co-chairmen of Bush's re-election campaign in Nevada.

Brian Scroggins, chairman of the Clark County Republican Party, also a convention delegate, looks forward to "bonding" with the state's Republicans and learning from those in other states.

"You get to network and meet with like-minded people," said Scroggins. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime type of experience."

This will be his first national convention.

"It helps excite the base," Scroggins said. "Our premise all along has been that John Kerry and John Edwards are too liberal for Nevada."

Alternate delegate Radha Chanderraj said she wants to learn how she can help President Bush's re-election effort.

"What can we do in the coming months? We need to do everything we can," said Chanderraj, a Las Vegas lawyer and accountant who serves on the Nevada Gaming Commission. It is also her first convention.

"I want to be able to come back with renewed energy."

Security in New York has been a concern, but Chanderraj said she thinks everyone will be prepared.

"That is one of the reasons I want to see this administration back in office," she said, noting its emphasis on security.

The convention is not all business. Scroggins said he has received about 50 invitations to different parties, lunches, meetings and mixers during the four-day convention. He hopes to fit some sightseeing in, too. A self-described "classic movie buff," he wants to see the Empire State Building -- featured in "An Affair to Remember" -- and places from scenes in "Breakfast at Tiffany's."

Clark County Commissioner Bruce Woodbury will attend his fourth national convention and is excited to be part of Bush's nomination.

He is eager to hear the "main event" -- Bush's acceptance speech -- and he also wants to support Porter when he addresses the crowd.

Porter will make brief remarks from the convention stage on Monday, and Sandoval will give a speech on Wednesday. Guinn, who is vice chairman of the Republican Governors Association, will be meeting with other Republican governors during the event.

Bush campaign chairman Marc Racicot said the convention will give the party the opportunity, like the Democrats have already had, to present their candidates. He said he did not expect a "seismic shift" among voters right after the convention.

"You just don't see, with 24-hour news cycles, the same volcanic changes with one spectacular event like a convention, I don't believe, any longer," Racicot said in a meeting with reporters this week. "As a consequence of that we anticipate the race will be very, very close even after our convention, and it will remain that way all the way to Election Day."

Racicot said the convention is not as much of as display as it was decades ago and the effect on a candidate is different.

"If we were up five points, I think I'd be delighted, but we don't expect, we are certainly not planning, that it is going to be anything other than where it has been over these last weeks," Racicot said.

The Democratic National Committee also believes the race will be tight and started running an ad in Nevada this week about Yucca Mountain.

"It's going to be a close election and every electoral vote counts," said Ellen Moran, a DNC official who coordinates party ads such as the Yucca Mountain spot, not spots for Kerry's presidential campaign that would be covered by federal campaign spending limits.