Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Politics:

Can Nevada Republicans rebuild before 2016 presidential contenders arrive?

The election is still more than two years away, but the Republican presidential hopefuls are already spinning through Nevada, paying homage to the state’s largest political donor, testing the waters with voters and working the local media.

Nevada is one of four states with a special dispensation from the national party to hold a primary contest in January 2016.

But will the GOP capture the 2016 opportunity to rebuild itself — the way Democrats did in 2008 — or will it wind up being the national laughingstock it became when it botched the 2012 presidential caucuses?

Political operatives and observers are split about the prospects.

“Right now it’s like having shingles: You know eventually it’s going to go away, but you’re still in the middle of the pain and the oozing,” one Republican operative said of the state of the Republican Party apparatus in Nevada. “It’s just going to take a while to root all of that out. Hopefully it happens by 2016.”

Last year, Republicans had hoped the competitive presidential primary race would give the party the chance to boost voter registration, build a strong network of volunteers and emerge with an organized force strong enough to take on the Democrats’ formidable ground game.

Instead, the Feb. 4 caucuses were fraught with problems: Each county started at a different hour, a last-minute “evening caucus” was organized to give observant Jews the chance to participate, and the count in Clark County was so botched it wound up taking more than a day to determine a winner — all while the country watched.

At the time, national political scholar Larry Sabato summed it up this way: "The turnout dropped dramatically. That in itself is a tremendous embarrassment. Then the differing (start) hours, that was ridiculous. And the Saturday evening caucus? Really, the entire political community in the country was laughing. That is not the way you want to leave the country."

The party couldn’t quite pull itself out of that morass last year, and a “shadow Republican Party” was formed to operate outside of the state and county organizations.

But signs are emerging that the Republican establishment wants to turn that around.

Last month, the Clark County Republican Party ousted its chairwoman — who represented the faction of Republicans who had supported 2012 presidential contender Ron Paul.

Gov. Brian Sandoval and U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, Nevada’s top two Republican elected officials, are taking an active role in winnowing the party’s 2014 field of candidates, throwing early support to state Sen. Mark Hutchison’s bid for lieutenant governor.

And state party officials are working with Republican National Committee officials on making an official bid for Las Vegas to host the 2016 national convention.

“There is an effort to get the national convention in Las Vegas,” said Nevada’s Republican National Committeeman James Smack. “Personally, I’d like to see an RNC meeting in Vegas first, to really let the membership see what we can offer.

“I can guarantee won’t have to cross a bay to get to the convention; however, a hotel on the beach is highly unlikely,” he added, referring to the hurricane-beset 2012 convention in Tampa, Fla.

Republican operatives have long held that the party needs one of its top elected officials to shepherd the GOP back to health, the way Sen. Harry Reid did for Democrats starting in 2006.

Reid’s effort was aided tremendously by the 2008 caucuses, when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton brought skilled, professional party builders to the state as they battled for the nomination.

“We really need an elected official’s job to be the figurehead leader of the party, and we don’t have one,” Republican consultant Robert Uithoven said. “Nobody wants to touch it.”

That may be changing as the party heads in to the 2014 election, seen as an important test run to the presidential election in 2016.

A source close to Heller said the senator is intent on rebuilding the Republican apparatus in Nevada and is teaming with Sandoval to do it.

“Heller is working very closely with Sandoval to do whatever they can to make the party great again,” the operative said. “Heller and Sandoval really like each other. They’re friends. If the Republican Party ever were to come back, I can’t think of two better guys to do it under.”

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