Date for caucuses might shift one week

Nevada's presidential caucuses seem likely to take place a week earlier than originally planned, moving to Jan. 12 from Jan. 19, insiders said last week.

On Friday, the Nevada Democratic Party sent a "caucus update" e-mail to supporters. "Today, it appears that Nevada's interests and significance in the nominating process may be best served by holding our precinct caucuses on January 12th, 2008," the e-mail, which has not been made public, stated.

"As such, our staff will begin making the necessary logistic arrangements that will enable us to easily move our date to January 12th should that be necessary to preserve our position in the calendar."

Working with Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, Nevada Democrats have agreed in principle to a tentative calendar that would put Iowa on Jan. 5, New Hampshire Jan. 8, Nevada on the 12th and South Carolina on Jan. 19, state Democratic insiders and national campaign operatives confirmed. The hypothetical schedule was reported last week by Marc Ambinder on TheAtlantic.com.

Those dates are seen as standing the best chance of pleasing everybody. They put Iowa and New Hampshire first without pushing either into December; they put Nevada ahead of Michigan's scheduled Jan. 15 primary; and they put South Carolina's Democrats and Republicans on the same date.

Another advantage for Nevada: Jan. 19 is the Saturday before Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which is a three-day weekend that attracts visitors to Las Vegas and might tie up Strip workers.

Previously, South Carolina Republicans planned to hold a primary on Jan. 19 and Democrats on the 29th. But not wanting to pay for two separate elections, the state was pushing the Democrats to move their contest to the 19th, sources said.

The Associated Press reported Friday that Iowa party leaders want to avoid a December caucus and are looking at Jan. 3, 4 and 5 as possible dates.

However, Iowans are waiting for New Hampshire to make a move.

Nevada Democrats are willing to be the third contest, instead of the second as originally planned by the Democratic National Committee, but they don't want to be pushed any further back than that, sources said.

The tentative schedule has disadvantages. It might require changes in Iowa and New Hampshire state law to hold contests so close together.

Asked whether a move is being considered, Nevada Democratic Party Deputy Executive Director Kirsten Searer said the party is "nimble."

"We've always said our priority is ensuring that Nevada has a strong voice in the process," she said. "We will do what we have to to protect the caucus."

She said it would cost the party very little to change the date; the biggest challenges would be making people aware of a date change and having one less week to prepare.

Nevada Republicans would move in tandem with Democrats, it seems.

"We're still waiting for the dominoes to fall," Republican Party Executive Director Zac Moyle said. "There are a lot of dominoes left. ... If we make a move, we would want to do it in conjunction with the Democrats. We're keeping in communication to do what's best for Nevada in that regard. We all feel it's important to do it on the same date."

HELLER HELPS

Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is polling his constituents on what they think of a bill he is forming to curb greenhouse gases in part by taxing industries on the carbon they produce and increasing gasoline taxes by a jaw-dropping 50 cents a gallon.

Nobody knew what Nevadans think of such a proposal, until a helpful Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., said he went ahead and asked them.

Perhaps no surprise, Nevadans don't want their gasoline taxes to be increased by a half buck to reduce global warming. Even a 3-cent annual gasoline tax increase went nowhere in the state Legislature last session.

"Roughly 82 percent of Nevadans asked about this proposal are not in support of this tax increase," Heller told Dingell in a letter on Friday.

Heller said he conducted his poll during a series of telephone town meetings from July through September that reached more than 100,000 households in his Northern Nevada district.

"The results of this exercise strike me as very obvious -- your tax increase proposal clearly does not have the support of the American people," Heller told Dingell.

There was no immediate reply from Dingell.

HSU FLY

State Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, did not realize she had taken money from disgraced financier Norman Hsu until last week, when the contribution to her gubernatorial campaign last year was mentioned in the Boston Globe.

Hsu sent Titus, the Democratic nominee for governor, a check for $5,000 on the eve of the election, Nov. 3, campaign finance filings show. Titus was the only Nevada candidate to get money from Hsu.

"I didn't even realize it was in there," Titus said. "I had to look back at the records, because it was right before the election and my finance director would have handled it."

The Globe story was about candidates for state office around the country to whom Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., steered money from Hsu. Clinton herself has returned $850,000 in donations linked to Hsu since it was discovered he faced fraud charges.

Titus said her check from Hsu came in the mail and she didn't know it may have come at Clinton's behest. She said there was absolutely no quid pro quo in her subsequent endorsement of Clinton's presidential bid.

"We had a lot of people supporting us nationally," Titus said of her gubernatorial campaign. "Almost all the presidential candidates raised money for me."

Titus plans to get rid of the money but isn't sure what she'll do with it. She received a letter from lawyers representing investors who are suing Hsu, she said, asking her to keep the money in case a court rules that the investors deserve to be repaid.

Otherwise, she plans to give the money to charity, probably Habitat for Humanity, Titus said.

DAM CANDIDATE

They've been to Pahrump, Henderson and North Las Vegas. But on Tuesday, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson will be the first 2008 presidential candidate to visit Boulder City.

Richardson is scheduled to hold a meet-and-greet at the Historic Boulder Dam Hotel at 5 p.m. The hotel is located at 1305 Arizona St., and the event is open to the public.

Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault contributed to this report. Contact political reporter Molly Ball at 387-2919 or MBall@reviewjournal.com.