Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Political memo:

Republicans honing economic message

Nevada’s problems may shape fiscal conservatives’ outlook

Iowa is emerging as the early primary state where Republican contenders will prove their social conservative chops, but the path through Nevada winds through an economically devastated state where the fiscal issues of jobs and government spending drive voters.

That realization was evident in the rhetoric of three potential candidates who traveled to Nevada in the past two weeks.

But for Republicans, who traditionally preach personal responsibility over government reliance, it’s a fine line to walk as they face a Nevada electorate experiencing the highest unemployment rate in the nation, an epidemic of underwater homes and few signs of recovery.

That reality didn’t dissuade former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., from the personal responsibility line when he swung through Reno last week.

A caller to a talk radio show said his condo in North Sparks had lost more than half its value in the past few years.

“What do we do?” the caller said. “Do we give up? Do we punt? What would you do?”

Santorum’s response: “My feeling is the responsible thing to do is do your best to pay your bills and try to gut it out.”

Not the most sympathetic response, but emblematic of the pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mentality that has typified the Western libertarian mentality.

That philosophy is being tested by the severity of the recession.

So although candidates are talking about abortion, same-sex marriage and similar issues in Iowa, Nevada may emerge as the proving ground for the economic message.

Republican consultant Ryan Erwin, who worked for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s Nevada campaign in 2008, said it may not be that difficult of a message to hone, given that Republicans deeply believe government spending is out of control.

“The economy is bad enough, and federal spending is so out of control that if everybody doesn’t recognize they have an individual responsibility to keep their own fiscal issues in order and that it will require a sacrifice from everybody, then I think we’re in trouble,” Erwin said.

Not all of the potential contenders to visit Nevada are preaching individual responsibility. Romney and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour both sought to hang the bad economy on President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress.

“His domestic policies have cost us jobs and I’ve met the men and women who could be working, but are not working,” Romney said during a speech last week in Las Vegas. “It’s causing the breakup of families, it causes people to lose their faith, it causes kids to not go to college. I will take him on, head on, and aggressively.”

When Barbour traveled to Carson City last month, he was quick with a well-practiced tirade against Obama’s economic policies.

“All of these policies are making it harder to do the most important thing, which is to grow the economy and create jobs,” Barbour said, ticking off spending, energy and health care. “That’s what the election needs to be about. If that’s what it’s about, we’ll elect a Republican president.”

That’s a message that will play well across the country, as well as in Nevada.

But Republicans who hail from the East Coast and the South also will have to discover the unusual rhythms of Nevada.

And that may prove the more difficult task, as Santorum, an Easterner who grew up with a coal-mining grandfather, demonstrated last week when he took an awkward stab at finding a connection.

“I always like to come out West and talk about the ‘one thing,’ you know (from) ‘City Slickers,’ ” he said, referring to the 1991 film featuring Billy Crystal as an Easterner searching for the meaning of life on a Wild West vacation.

When the character played by Crystal asks a wise old cowboy what that one thing is, the grizzled Westerner tells him, “That’s what you gotta figure out.”

Same seems to go for the Republicans campaigning here.

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