LAT: Road to the White House: Nevada is game for '08 caucuses

[DeepModem Mom]

ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE
Nevada is game for '08 caucuses
The state's Democrats have unique concerns that 2008 candidates ignore at their peril.
By Mark Z. Barabak, Times Staff Writer
January 15, 2007



....When Democratic presidential hopefuls come calling on Nevada, the real challenge will be the party faithful they find in this independent-minded state, which will host the West's first nominating contest in a little over a year.

Democrats here like guns, loathe taxes and see nature as a source of fun and profit, not a place that some Washington bureaucrat should lock away. And skip the Rust Belt rhetoric about all those manufacturing jobs fleeing to China and Mexico. Economic issues require a different approach in a state that has boomed for the last 40 years....

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Nevada represents the leading edge in a political shift, as the Rocky Mountain West becomes the new battleground in presidential politics. Democrats, hoping to bring a fresh voice to their nominating process and give candidates a head start on the fall campaign, have set Nevada's caucuses for Jan. 19, 2008.

It is the first time any Western state has had so much influence so early: Nevada will go second, after the Iowa caucuses begin the presidential balloting a few days earlier. And if the state's leading Democrats have their way, what happens in Vegas won't stay in Vegas.

"This is seen as a very, very unique opportunity to get the presidential candidates on the record on Western issues and put them in the national arena early," said Billy Vassiliadis, one of Nevada's political power brokers and the impresario behind Las Vegas' sly marketing slogan. "Instead of talking about manufacturing jobs and farm subsidies, we'll be discussing public lands, infrastructure needs, ranching, mining and water, water, water."...

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-nevada15jan15,0,1523769.story?coll=la-home-headlines