Interesting tidbit from the Las Vegas Review-Journal report on Wednesday's decision by the Nevada Republican Party's decision to move its caucuses to an earlier date, Jan. 14 to be exact. Mitt Romney's campaign urged the move.
According to the Review-Journal:
In fact, Mitt Romney's campaign had pressed Nevada Republicans to move the caucuses into January so that he could maintain momentum coming out of New Hampshire, a state he expects to win. Romney also is counting on winning Nevada, where he finished first in 2008.
"We moved the date for the good of Nevada, not the Romney campaign," said former Gov. Robert List, the GOP national committeeman on the board. "But Romney's people were pushing for us to move into January so that he could get some momentum and have a rising tide going into Florida."
Ah, the ever important momentum.
Nevada and South Carolina, two of the four states that by tradition hold their presidential preference primaries and caucuses earlier than other states, have announced they were moving up their contests to stay ahead of Florida. South Carolina has advanced its primary to Jan. 21.
This all was caused, of course, by the Sunshine State announcing last week that it was moving its primary from March to January 31 to give the state a bigger role in deciding the eventual Republican nominee.
Iowa and New Hampshire, traditionally the first two states and in that order, haven't announced their new dates. But there's some thinking that now that Nevada has picked Jan. 14, New Hampshire could go a week earlier. That could force Iowa into December. Few people are pleased about that.
One of Nevada's invaluable benefits for Romney is its large Mormon population. Romney won 95 percent of that vote in 2008 although fellow Mormon, Jon Huntsman Jr., former governor of neighboring Utah, presumably can lay claim to the support of some of those co-religionists.