West warns Democrats

Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2007 | 7:07 a.m.

WASHINGTON - The Democrats' 2008 presidential hopefuls played to adoring fans at the party's winter meeting over the weekend, but a sterner message was being sent from the Western states' caucus down the hall.

The states warned that the candidates must make a showing in the West - and cannot ignore the Nevada caucus - if they want to do well in 2008.

Nevada's early caucus has been losing some of its sheen now that a handful of bigger states are dangling the prospect of a voter-rich Super Tuesday less than three weeks later. But Western states said treating the region as flyover territory en route to ATMs on the coasts would be a strategy for failure.

"They need to come West if they're a serious candidate," said Aleita Huguenin, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee's Western Caucus, to a packed room. "They need to come West if they want to be real."

The Democratic mantra heading into the 2008 campaign has been that for a candidate to win the White House, he or she will have to win the West, particularly the Intermountain states. Unlike the Pacific Coast states, the Intermountain region has been Republican.

The party's choice of Nevada for the nation's No. 2 caucus on Jan. 19, 2008, seems to cement that Western-victory logic.

But if four big states - California, Illinois, Florida and New Jersey - move their contests to Feb. 5, as they are considering, the compressed calendar launches candidates on a logistical pingpong and massive spending spree. They would have to race from Iowa (Jan. 14) to Nevada five days later to New Hampshire (Jan. 22) to South Carolina (Jan. 29) to Super Tuesday.

Complicating matters is New Hampshire, which has not accepted being bumped from No. 2 to No. 3 once Nevada took the limelight. New Hampshire continues to threaten to jump the queue to what it sees as its rightful place.

Leading candidates, including Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and John Edwards, already complained to the party about having too many debates to attend, including one this month in Carson City, the Associated Press reported.

Party officials could decide not to sanction some of the early debates, giving candidates an easy out. The party is also trying to cool the early primary push by offering the big states a perk of more convention delegates if they stay put or move their nominating contests later in the calendar.

A Democratic National Committee spokeswoman said Monday that the party is considering convening a meeting of the campaigns to discuss the debate schedule.

Nevada Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, one of the state Democratic Party's main representatives to the winter meeting, said she was told in private talks with the presidential contenders that the compressed calendar was cramping their schedules.

"There was a little complaining about so many events," she said about the early caucuses and primaries. "On the other hand, they've all promised they're going to come."

Huguenin, a committee member from California whose day job is running the government affairs department for the powerful California Teachers Association, said she worries that lesser-known candidates won't have the money to stay in the race past Feb. 5 - something an early Nevada caucus was trying to prevent.

But other Westerners say Nevada will be part of a one-two punch of early events. Any candidate will need the momentum from Nevada and other small states to play well on Super Tuesday.

"With everything that's going on Feb. 5, that makes what happens in those four states very important," said Dan Slater, vice chairman of the Colorado Democratic Party. "People can't skip Nevada. You've got to show by Feb. 5 you're a real candidate."