Democrats in Elko

Next week was to be a nationally televised presidential debate from Reno, featuring the Democratic candidates on Fox News.

Instead we slog into the height of summer vacation with attempts by Democrats to prove their conservative bonafides in a real parochial manner.

The liberal group MoveOn.org killed the attempts by Nevada Democrats to reach the nation's largest cable news audience in a move that not only hurt Nevada Democrats but the party's candidates as a whole.

In the vacuum comes the alternate universe where Elko has become the geocenter of the presidential caucus in Nevada.

While it's perfectly sensible for a candidate with a high National Rifle Association rating to trot into the rurals with promises that shotguns are safe, it remains to be seen whether having an office in Elko makes financial sense.

Barack Obama visited the cow county seat Sunday promising to listen to rural Nevada, as he does in small conservative places everywhere. The coverage in the Elko Daily Free Press couldn't have been more fawning. Apparently the good people of Elko like simple things and elected officials who appear to be honest.

Jared DuBach, lifestyles editor of the Free Press, interviewed "young voters" at the event. Two of them were happy Obama said he wouldn't change things overnight if elected president.

The paper's main article, by associate editor Doug McMurdo, seemed to help Obama by ignoring issues important to the rest of the nation. McMurdo placed proposed reform of the Mining Law of 1872 higher in his article than health care, education and the war or energy. He didn't even write about the controversy over Obama's recent statement on foreign policy despite the candidate serving up even more fodder.

Obama told the crowd of about 800 that he made no mistake last week when he said he would use military force in Pakistan if it were necessary to capture terrorists hiding there.

Some of the uproar from both parties over his comment seems odd in a country that loves to mock France, another supposed ally in the war on terror. They burn Old Glory in Parisian suburbs, but it only seems newsworthy when it happens in Islamabad and upsets a government that is incapable of stopping the flow of terrorists across its border with Afghanistan.

But back to Elko -- even free media will get you only so far.

For Democratic hopefuls Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards or Bill Richardson (who has also visited the burg) to do well, the campaign will have to control the activists, not independent-minded Republicans who are going to be caucusing for Mitt Romney or John McCain, or maybe even Ron Paul.

Elko now has only 1.7 times more Republicans than Democrats. But as recently as November, Democratic blood there was still redder than Elko County itself. Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons got 7,938 votes in Elko County, compared with 2,873 for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dina Titus. That turned a 2-to-1 GOP edge into a 4-to-1 advantage.

Even successful statewide Democratic candidates Catherine Cortez Masto, Ross Miller, Kate Marshall and Kim Wallin took a beating in Elko. The difference is that Miller and Marshall each broke 3,000 votes and Cortez Masto broke 4,000.

The real caucus strategy for a Democratic presidential candidate would appear to be winning over voters in Goldfield or Eureka. Those Democratic votes will be worth the same as 10 Clark Democrats during the Jan. 19 Nevada Democratic caucus.

But Obama is showing Nevada he hasn't been wasting all that time at round barns in Nowhere, Iowa. While the stop in Elko is all about appearances, Obama will be able to say he hasn't just focused on Las Vegas, even if his trip was just a hop, skip and a $500-a-person fundraiser in Park City, Utah.

Still, a trip to Elko sets a new bar for Clinton and Edwards to cross if they're to be seen as credible statewide. Where next? Winnemucca? I hear the Paradise Valley Beef Rib & Chili Cookoff in early September is quite the happening.

In a general election context, Romney's scheduled trip to Elko next Monday should easily outdo any headway Obama made there, especially if Romney repeats the criticism he delivered during Sunday's GOP debate regarding Obama's foreign policy comments.

Still it'll be Romney's first trip to Nevada (after 69 to Iowa). He plans to follow his event in Elko with a fundraiser Aug. 21 in Las Vegas, apparently realizing the Republicans here are also having an early caucus. He's been to New Hampshire 44 times and South Carolina 20 times this year, according to Washingtonpost.com.

McCain has already visited Elko this year, perhaps hoping that the red results of the 2006 governor's race paint an equally rosy picture for his unpopular follow-the-course policy in Iraq.

Maybe we should all care a bit more about reforming the Mining Law of 1872. But most voters I talk with are concerned about health care and education. And despite the cool rural dateline, the campaigns know where most voters are, too.

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.