Paulites do a number on GOP convention

Last Wednesday, an anonymous letter arrived from an apartment dweller in Henderson pointing out the requirements the state Republican Party had specified for those seeking to be national delegates.

"Who are they trying to exclude?" the writer scrawled on the top of the page.

It sure looked to me as if the party were trying to create a slate of national delegate candidates who had a proven record of work for Republicans. They asked for two political references and information about candidates or campaigns for which the person had worked.

A trip to a national convention is one of the ultimate rewards for party activists, and there's rarely a lack of interest in those willing to pony up the thousands of dollars required to take part.

But in hindsight, the letter should have tipped me off to the crafty strategy being plied by the youthful members of the Ron Paul Revolution. And had state Republican Party officials actually looked at the delegate list for Saturday's state convention in Reno, they might have also been tipped to the potential muckraking.

From the start, Rep. Paul's presidential campaign has been long on ideas and short on political reality. While he placed second in Nevada and is still receiving double-digit percentages in primary voting, the Texas congressman cannot mathematically catch up to Arizona Sen. John McCain.

But McCain's early calendar strategy -- which won him the nomination even as it lost him Nevada -- had serious ramifications for so-called party unity on Saturday.

Paul campaigned in Nevada. He bought radio, television and newspaper ads. His supporters put up their handmade signs around town and used the Internet to meet up.

Paul wasn't just the anti-candidate, he was the "change" candidate on the GOP side. Not only did he reach new voters, he eventually became the candidate of choice for those who had problems with McCain in particular, and the direction of the Republican Party in general.

State Republican Chairwoman Sue Lowden said she is the only party chair in the country to give Paul a speaking slot at a state convention.

Prior to the event, the "big tent" talk was out in force, with officials hyping the speeches by Paul and Nevada caucus winner Mitt Romney as a means to bring supporters of all candidates into the party. But Paul supporters don't necessarily want to come into the tent as much as they want it to blow away.

Paul ran for president on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1988, and despite this current movement, was the third choice for president in his own congressional district during the Texas primary. A significant portion of the Paul constituency would not even want to be called a constituency. Many believe both parties to be corrupt and their officials to be stool pigeons.

That's a strange place for state Sen. Bob Beers to be. A former libertarian who's achieved rock star status among fiscal conservatives is now just The Man.

Beers has been antagonized on his blog by what he termed "harm-casters" who "tend to be from outside Nevada, rarely give their name ... or use civil language."

But it was Beers who had the dubious distinction of being the one to tell the unhappy hordes he was shutting down the convention Saturday night before delegates could be elected to the national convention.

And while Beers has had small run-ins with some in the party at past conventions when he's had some type of official role, he has enjoyed hero status for the past five years as an advocate for tax restraint. In many party circles, he's more popular than Gov. Jim Gibbons and has been suggested by some as a candidate who could beat the unpopular governor in the 2010 GOP primary.

Beers is also up for re-election this year, and Democratic voters have been flooding his district.

Beers has also been working well with Gibbons ever since the 2006 GOP gubernatorial primary ended. But Saturday's convention took some of the sheen off of Beers in a place he's rarely been muddied.

Back when Republicans were mocking the Democrats for their failed Clark County convention, the conventional wisdom was that Democrats were too disorganized to mount a successful challenge in a red state.

When Democrats screwed up, it was the county party that was to blame, not the campaigns of Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

The seizing of the GOP convention is really the McCain campaign's fault. The only way you get out-worked at the state convention is by not being organized.

In theory, you need the presidential nominee's campaign to work well with the party efforts -- to coordinate, to complement. In reality, the Republicans proved Saturday they're as unprepared as the Democrats to build that well-oiled machine.

All things being equal, the Republicans typically find a way to figure it out. But things aren't equal anymore. Even without a nominee, Democrats have 56,000 more voters statewide.

Color Ron Paul's movement purple. It may just be helping Nevada move that way.

Contact Erin Neff at eneff@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2906.