New Hampshire Pushing Nevada Boycott
At least four Republican presidential candidates will pledge to boycott the Nevada presidential caucuses if the Silver State GOP goes ahead with plans to hold the contests on January 14.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, former Sen. Rick Santorum and Rep. Michele Bachmann have all agreed to sign a pledge to boycott Nevada, a pledge pushed by senior New Hampshire Republicans aimed at helping the Granite State maintain its status as the host of the nation's first presidential primary.
New Hampshire Senate President Peter Bragdon and House Speaker Bill O'Brien asked all the candidates to sign the pledge, according to Mike Dennehy, a New Hampshire Republican strategist who helped organize the boycott. It's similar to a pledge candidates made during the 2000 primary campaign, when Delaware moved its caucuses up to the beginning of the primary season.
The pledge comes after Nevada Republican Party officials set their 2012 caucuses for January 14, a date that puts New Hampshire in an awkward position and that has the arbiter of the primary calendar raising the prospect of a primary election during Christmas shopping season.
State law requires New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner to hold the first-in-the-nation primary seven days before any "similar" contest; by tradition, New Hampshire does not consider Iowa's caucuses a "similar" contest, because actual delegates aren't awarded. But Nevada's, Gardner has said, represent a fundamental threat to New Hampshire's supremacy.
Most party strategists hoped Gardner could find a way to hold the primary on January 10, a week after Iowa's caucuses and 11 days before South Carolina's primary. But in a three-page statement posted on Gardner's website Thursday, he threatened to hold his state's primary as early as December 6.
Republicans in Concord and Washington have been working behind the scenes to come to a solution that would keep the primary in January. The boycott just may prove to be that solution.
Huntsman was the first to pledge to skip Nevada if they held their contest early. So far, only Rep. Ron Paul has refused, though state Republicans expect Mitt Romney, who won Nevada during the 2008 primary, and Rick Perry, who has support from Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, to join the boycott. The New Hampshire Republicans have not heard back from Herman Cain's campaign.
The candidates' threat to spurn the caucuses represents yet another blow to the Nevada Republican Party, which has struggled to get its presidential contest on the map as an important milestone on the way to the GOP presidential nomination. Few contenders have visited or campaigned in the state, and local elected officials have mourned a wasted opportunity.
Republican candidates will meet at the Western Republican Leadership Conference for a debate this Tuesday, to be broadcast on CNN. But most assume that Romney -- who won more than half the vote in the 2008 caucuses -- is so far ahead in the state that it's not worth campaigning there.
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