Nevada fades in the fray of caucuses

Michael J. Mishak

Saturday, Sept. 22, 2007 | 7:42 a.m.

After a promising start, the Nevada caucuses have all but dropped from the national media agenda.

From "Meet the Press" to The New York Times, political reporters and pundits are still buzzing about the early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

The crowds! The steak fries! The town halls!

Nevada, however, appears to have been written off , four months before it hosts the second-in-the-nation Democratic caucus es . The reasons are complex, but really boil down to chicken-or-egg.

Chicken: The media might be reacting to a declining interest in Nevada on the part of the campaigns. If so, the state's voters, who have greeted the campaigns enthusiastically so far, are in for a disappointment. They will see far less of the candidates than expected.

Egg: The media might be wrong, ratcheting back interest in Nevada based on false assumptions. Even so, given that media perceptions influence candidates, the lack of media interest could cause the campaigns to cut back in the state.

If so, voters are again in for disappointment.

New York Times coverage is typical of the declining media interest. Based on interviews during Labor Day weekend, the newspaper wrote that voters in Iowa and New Hampshire are more engaged and informed than their counterparts in other states.

Nevada voters were prone to ask "generic if not overly taxing" questions, the story said.

"Of the four early states, Nevada is probably in fourth place" in terms of attention, said Ronald Brownstein, longtime political correspondent for the Los Angeles Times and new political director of Atlantic Media.

Reporters, editors and news producers in New York and Washington give several reasons.

First, they cite the uncertainty about the primary calendar. Nevada is now scheduled as the second state to vote. But New Hampshire is expected to jump in front of Nevada , and Florida and Michigan are moving contests to January.

South Carolina Republicans have complicated matters by pushing their primary to Jan. 19, the day of Nevada 's caucuses . Forced to choose between the two states, the media's pick is clear: South Carolina, whose primary has been decisive for Republicans. Since 1980, every primary winner has gone on to become the party's nominee.

Roger Simon, chief political columnist for The Politico, said Nevada also suffers because it is new to the early primary season. "It's hard to create a tradition overnight," said Simon, who has been to Nevada several times this election cycle.

Or as CNN political director Sam Feist put it: "The entire media is looking at it as a little mystery."

It's not that Nevada is bereft of relevance or issues. The state's large Hispanic population, the strength of its labor unions and its status as a Western bellwether should make for compelling copy, Brownstein said.

But the campaigns and the national media are skittish about voter turnout in a state that has never conducted first-rate caucus es , he said.

Then there is Nevada's political culture, which the Washington media see as turf-centric and machine heavy, unlike the grass - roots atmosphere of Iowa and New Hampshire, said Chuck Todd, political director for NBC News.

"There's a growing perception in Washington that Nevada is not competitive anymore," Todd said. "The political establishment is locked in by Clinton. Obama waited too long to get in , and Edwards pulled staff out because of resource issues."

On that point, the Politico's Simon disagreed. If Clinton's lead in Nevada is hurting coverage, then news organizations should be cutting back in New Hampshire, he said. Clinton has percentage point leads in the high teens in both states.

A more practical concern is that candidates come to Nevada comparatively little and usually for short stops, not four-day bus tours as in Iowa and New Hampshire. News organizations find it hard to justify the expense of a trip West for such a brief visit.

On the positive side, CNN has listed Nevada on its Web site as one of five states to watch. Feist said the network plans to ramp up its coverage when CNN hosts , in Las Vegas, one of the six national debates sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee .

The Los Angeles Times has devoted the most ink to the Nevada caucuses.

"It's in our back yard," said Mark Barabak, a Los Angeles Times political reporter who has been to Nevada five times this year. "People in the New York-Washington media corridor tend to see the world revolving around that corridor."

The Nevada Democratic Party expects coverage to increase this fall, said Bill Buck, a Washington-based political consultant the party has hired to promote the Nevada caucus es .

"You see these stories every four years," Buck said. "Reporters go back to the same coffee shops, the same house parties. What we're gearing up to do is put Nevada in a place where , four years from now, we'll have run a successful caucus, and the media will be gearing up to do the same types of things here."

Nevada might take some comfort in South Carolina's early primary history.

The state's Republican primary now serves as a critical test for a candidate's viability in the South and with evangelical voters. But in 1980, when Republicans started holding an early primary in that state, the national media was skeptical, said Lee Bandy, columnist with The State, a South Carolina newspaper.

Sun reporters David McGrath Schwartz and J. Patrick Coolican contributed to this report.