GOP candidates haven’t caught caucus fever

When Republicans saw the floodgates open in January for Nevada's first Democratic presidential candidate forum, the fear of losing the Silver State in 2008 made them immediately try to play catch up with their own early caucus.

After a little wrangling in what remains of the state's GOP network, they settled on the same date as the Democrats -- Jan. 19, 2008 -- to be one of the nation's first arbiters in the race for the presidential nominations.

But beyond having an official date, the destiny of the Republicans here is still largely up in the air.

Democratic candidates have made frequent trips to court voters and the endorsements of elected officials and community activists. Republicans have largely overlooked Nevada unless, of course, they came for our money.

Rep. Ron Paul is the first GOP candidate in more than two months to even consider the strength of the state's Republican Party. Sen. John McCain spoke to the Clark County GOP back in April while Paul, who had other national business in town last week, thought enough of the early caucus date to include a brief fundraiser for the Nevada party in his itinerary.

Beyond a Rudy Giuliani trip to Nevada back in March, Republicans have seen little of their candidates. The Democratic candidates, on the other hand, see Nevada as the great equalizer in a race traditionally pared down by Iowa and New Hampshire.

But the Fourth of July showed why Republicans shouldn't be taking such a casual view of the Silver State. Democrats Chris Dodd, John Edwards and Bill Richardson each had a float entered in the Boulder City Damboree parade. Representatives for Joe Biden were also on hand.

Boulder City is, by and large, a conservative little town, with Republicans outnumbering Democrats by about 1,800 voters out of 10,000.

While Republican Rep. Jon Porter and state and local GOP officials were in the parade, no Republican presidential candidates even bothered.

Up in Summerlin, none of the candidates in either party fielded an official entry in the parade -- perhaps opting to send resources to the more traditional Boulder City affair. But representatives for Biden and Edwards worked the parade route, handing out stickers and brochures.

Summerlin is a mixed bag in terms of voters, with Sun City tending to be more conservative. But the voters along the parade route got a bigger dose of Democrats than Republicans.

Rep. Shelley Berkley rode in the parade. Porter was busy in Boulder City, but sent a banner that was carried along by family and friends of state Sen. Bob Beers, who walked the parade route in a Porter shirt.

Jerry Jones watched as young Democrats walking alongside Berkley fanned out with candy for the kids. "They seem really energized," said Jones, a registered Republican who walked a few blocks from his home to the parade route. "I have been handed stuff for Biden and Edwards. I'm not going to vote for either of them, but I'm sure there are Republicans here who might have a real open mind to the Democrats right now.

"And our guys are nowhere," he added.

They may not have been wearing their patriotism on their sleeves in Nevada on Independence Day, but there are several months to catch up.

There's always Nevada Day.

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My bank phoned me several weeks ago to ask if I had tried to make a $2,000 purchase online for arena tickets to an event in Massachusetts.

I hadn't, and thankfully, Nevada State Bank didn't think it fit my pattern of debit card use.

The short of the saga is that someone swiped my debit card numbers somewhere, and even though the card was right there in my wallet when the bank called, it had essentially been stolen.

Identity theft can be as simple as my experience, which basically required me to get a new ATM card, or as complicated as the financial crimes waged primarily against seniors.

Assemblywoman Kathy McClain, who works with seniors in her day job at Clark County, proposed a bill this session to create a specific unit within the attorney general's office to investigate and prosecute crimes against seniors. In testimony, McClain, D-Las Vegas, said the bill envisioned this unit comprising an attorney, an investigator and someone to conduct outreach. The price tag listed with the bill was $454,000 over two years.

And while Assembly Bill 226 did take effect July 1, it did so without a penny of that funding.

Like so much else the Legislature does, the efforts to get more seniors to report crimes against them and to get meaningful prosecutions will likely fall woefully short. AB226 establishes a bank account with hopes the attorney general's office can get some grants to fund the positions.

In an interview, Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, said most of this legislative session was spent trying to address policy issues without fully funding them.

Thus with education, she said, re-establishing money Gov. Jim Gibbons had cut from the budget and still finding new monies to add to programs was something of a miracle.

"We were able to do as much for education as we could," Buckley said. "Without fully funding these things, we are able to at least get them started or help them progress."

Assembly Bill 2 passed in the special session and took effect July 1.

It grants $800,000 for gifted and talented education programs statewide. Then it turns right around and takes $130,000 of that to pay for a parental involvement coordinator in the state Department of Education.

The bill spends more money, $915,000, for programs for disruptive students, proving once again it's more beneficial to be a problem kid than a good one.

There's $700,000 apiece for three other programs. The bill also has money for training and signing bonuses for teachers of deaf students, funds to set up a magnet school for the deaf and $200,000 for the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Reno in 2009.

That's $4.6 million in new stuff that's spread so thin, it'll be hard to see a difference.

Erin Neff's column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at (702) 387-2906, or by e-mail at eneff@reviewjournal.com