Presidential primaries

It's a nice feeling, seeing the presidential candidates hit town. Even if the event often feels thoroughly staged, with photographers swooping in for an oh-so-unplanned shot of the Man (or Woman) "in casual conversation with a typical customer of Joe's Diner," they're still here -- as close as the protected members of our political class get, these days, to making eye contact with an actual voter who might surprise them by asking them to explain why he just got laid off, why his crippled brother can't get any help from the VA, or why the taxes keep going up but the schools just get worse.

And what makes that happen? Primaries and caucuses.

Simple math tells us the candidates can't afford to do that kind of "retail" campaigning before a general election in a nation of 300 million people. Too inefficient. But given the turnout in partisan small-state primaries, a few thousand strategically placed votes can make a huge difference in advancing another league along that yellow brick road to the White House. And a few thousand votes can actually be swayed in a day of visiting coffee shops and senior centers and shaking hands at the factory gate, whether it be in Nashua, N.H., or Elko.

To win a small-state primary or caucus also means the candidates need to court support among local "small-time" politicians who know how to fill a room. They have to learn the names of those local activists, and sometimes ask for briefings on the issues of local importance. (No, "Yucca Mountain" isn't an amusement park.)

Talk about an ego boost.

So every state-level politician wants his or her home state to host a presidential caucus or primary. And the earlier the better. Nobody's likely to head out to Palookaville asking for votes in May if the nomination was wrapped up in March.

That's how Nevada got into the current game of caucus-and-primary leapfrog.

New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation presidential preference primary used to be in March. Over the years, it's been moved back, then moved back again. Now it's scheduled for Jan. 22.

The two major parties have resisted earlier primary dates, threatening to allow fewer delegates at their summer nominating conventions from states that hold votes before Feb. 5.

But how many folding chairs each delegation gets at a largely ceremonial media show to rubber-stamp a "fait accompli" nominee just doesn't seem to carry the weight it used to.

So Nevada decided to make herself a presidential player by getting into the game with an early date -- caucuses for both major parties are scheduled for Jan. 19.

It's worked, so far. It's a rare presidential hopeful who hasn't been carefully coached on how to say "Ne-va-da" versus "Ne-vah-duh," this summer.

But last week, South Carolina responded by moving its Republican primary up to ... Jan. 19.

And Friday in Michigan, both Democratic and Republican leaders moved closer to scheduling their own closed partisan primaries on ... Jan. 15.

That could give New Hampshire more impetus to move up its primary even earlier in January, to maintain its first-in-the-nation status.

Could that lead Iowa to break the invisible Dec. 31 barrier, scheduling her own caucuses in late 2007? Possibly.

And does all this mean the candidates will be spending less time and money in Nevada? Probably.

Nevada remains a good place to hold a caucus for several reasons. It's in the fastest-growing region of the country. Issues like illegal immigration and environmentalism and water and energy policy play a bit differently here than back east. Candidates who don't "get" that could end up looking like John Kerry asking for Gruyère on his Philly steak sandwich and listing wind-sailing as his favorite contact sport.

Neither party's handlers can afford to completely write off the Southwest. A Nevada victory could cancel out a loss in Iowa, while adding Nevada to one or two other early states could help build momentum. And this is a relatively "cheap" state -- buy some broadcast time and a few print ads in Reno and Las Vegas and the job is done. In contrast, New Hampshire is a media buyer's nightmare. Residents watch TV stations and read newspapers out of Boston -- a very pricey market.

But let's be realistic. Nevada has only five Electoral College votes, to South Carolina's eight and Michigan's 17. True, New Hampshire has only four, but New Hampshire's 55-year history of contested primaries gives handicappers a lot of data to work with.

The leapfrogging has begun, and probably hasn't ended. The next test is to see how many Nevadans take the time to figure out how their caucuses work, and then to show up.