MUTH’S TRUTHS

Just this past Wednesday evening, Nevada GOP Sen. John Ensign told the state Legislature “that he may try to secure an early Republican primary caucus for Nevada like the Democratic caucus scheduled for next Jan. 19.”

This was followed up by a statement from high-powered GOP lobbyist Pete Ernaut, who said of the Democrat caucuses: “I’m absolutely green with jealousy that we Republicans haven’t followed suit. But we’re working hard at remedying that, and I’m very confident Republicans will have caucuses organized for 2008 as well.”

And indeed I’m told that part of the “working hard” part is a phone conference with a number of the state’s highest-ranking Republicans which is scheduled for later this week to explore the possibility of piggy-backing somehow on the Democrats’ scheduled caucuses.

But two days after Sen. Ensign’s remarks…and before the conference call is even conducted…the Nevada GOP’s executive director, Zach Moyle, told the New Hampshire Union-Leader that the Nevada GOP has decided “not to follow their Democratic counterparts by moving up their Presidential caucus to near the front of the pack of nominating contests.”

“Our executive board has made the decision that we can’t move up and we don’t want to violate the RNC’s bylaws,” Zachary Moyle said in a telephone interview. “There has been zero talk about moving into January,” Moyle said. “That has been 100 percent decided. We can’t feel compelled to move our thing just because the Democrats have.”

Zero talk? A United States senator, the state’s highest-ranking elected official, just said two days earlier the exact opposite. Zero talk?

As my liberal blogging cohort Hugh Jackson over at the Las Vegas Gleaner notes…

“Obviously, at some point between Ensign’s utterances and the reporting by the Union Leader, this Zachary Moyle person single-handedly seized control of the Nevada Republican Party in a bloodless coup.

“Well…somebody had to step up — not only to pretend that the Nevada Republican Party is an organized institution with a functioning executive board, but to tell the rest of the world that high-paid GOP apparatchik Pete Ernaut doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and that (John Ensign’s) credibility does not extend much beyond how to properly address a downhill lie. You go, Zach.”

Do you think maybe there’s a “failure to communicate” problem here somewhere? Did Moyle miss a memo? And why is a party staffer and not the acting chairman talking to the press about something this important with national implications in the first place?

But, no. The party can just continue on without a permanent chairman, right? Heck, we don’t need to bring Sue Lowden onboard until late April, right? Who cares if the Nevada GOP looks like a bad episode of “Reno 911,” right?

Posted on February 25th, 2007 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: Nevada