Jackrabbits, sagebrush and loyal Republicans

Thursday, Aug. 10, 2006 | 7:33 a.m.

Republican candidates for governor are hunting for votes in places with few people. Places such as Eureka County (population 1,428).

Because in rural Nevada, unlike in Democratic but politically comatose Clark County, many people vote and most are Republicans.

Sure, there may be more voters in Las Vegas - a majority of the state's - but just try to find them. Less than 12 percent of the voting age population in Clark County bothered to in the 2002 primary. Maybe 1-in-20 people in the county will end up voting in the Republican primary. So, if you'd like to see Jim Gibbons, Bob Beers or Lorraine Hunt in the next few days, best that you leave town.

Try Winnemucca. Humboldt County is a good place to go candidate-spotting: where every other person is a Republican and one in four of them vote in primaries. Beers was there Wednesday. Gibbons will be there Saturday. And not just because they're driving from Las Vegas to Reno.

"In the time we have with the congressman back in the state," says Robert Uithoven, Gibbons campaign manager, "we try to put him in front of people who are likely to actually vote."

Look at it this way: Candidates have two resources, time and money. Let's say a Republican candidate meets 50 people an hour. In the valley, two of those people will be likely to vote in his primary (three if he were a Democrat). In Winnemucca, he'll meet seven voters (four if he were a Democrat).

"You've got finite time," says Dave Damore, a UNLV political science professor. "If you spend it in Clark County, where people have shown they won't turn out to vote, then you're wasting your time."

Money is a different story. It buys billboard, radio and television advertising, reaching thousands of voters in Clark County. Uithoven guesses that two-thirds of his advertising budget is being spent in Southern Nevada, trying to reach the 50,000 likely Republican voters hiding among nearly 2 million people.

"It's tough, especially in an August primary, to do much of a door-to-door, traditional campaign," Uithoven says. "There are just so many houses now, it's grown so fast, that it's a very time consuming way to campaign."

But if he spends those ad bucks in the sticks, a candidate risks annoying or at least boring voters, Damore says. In the land of few people, they like the personal touch.

"You're not going to win votes in rural Nevada on a media campaign," Uithoven says. "You show up and ask for the votes everywhere you can."

Voters in rural Nevada - or rural anywhere, because this is a nationwide trend - expect personal attention, Damore says. Their high turnout rate makes them, like voters in Iowa or New Hampshire, very attractive to politicians. Like anyone with many suitors, they demand to be wooed.

"These voters want to be courted. They know they hold the power in the Republican primary, so they're going to expect more retail politics," Damore says. "They respond to the personal touch."

The added advantage to campaigning in rural areas is that people tend to know their neighbors more than they do in the rapidly replicating subdivisions of Clark County. In such towns, says Andy Matthews, campaign manager for Bob Beers, voters are more likely to tell each other about the nice man they met who's running for governor (don't worry dear, he's a Republican).

"There's no doubt that when Bob goes out in the rural counties, it's a very productive time," Matthews says. "In a county as big as Clark, that word-of-mouth effect doesn't really exist."

There are two other factors this year that are likely to make Nevada's hinterlands more important for Republicans . It's the first time Nevada has held an August primary and, between the heat and people's vacations, very few people are likely to vote, and those who do will count more this year than in others. Second, depending on what polls you believe, the top two candidates, Beers and Gibbons, may be running neck and neck.

In a close primary, every voter is a kingmaker, Matthews says. "It could be 20 people out in Lovelock who end up picking the winner."

And Gibbons will be there Saturday, three days after Beers.