When this is all over, I'd like to know why they passed on this one
The moment has come and gone for the Edwards campaign (John, Elizabeth, David Medina (PD), David Bonior (NCM), Joe Trippi, ...) to use a Nevada venue to make a distinguishing statement on Yucca Mountain. Oh well, perhaps they have considered and discarded the issue on its political merits.
The Reno Gazette-Journal ran a poll of likely voters (which isn't at all the same thing as likely presidential preference caucus participants, and as Nevada has never had an "early contest" primary, that difference is wicked significant, see MB's piece on the eve of Iowa on our experience in Maine and Iowa caucuses) eight weeks ago.
21% of the registered dems in the sample used the "very important" answer to the does Yucca Mountain determine your presidential preference.
That's more than the 15% needed simply to accumulate delegates. A candidate could drool on three cylinders, as Ron Paul does on the RNC side of the early contests, yet make the delegate accumulation threshold firing on only one cylinder, in Ron Paul's case, the Bi-Partisan Wars of 2003-2009. The Edwards campaign is easily firing on three out of four cylinders, its just missing fire on this, the fourth, which is the deciding issue for a fifth of all voting dems, and could, if used effectively, have disproportionate effect on Nevada's first early contest presidential preference caucus.
53% of the registered dems in the sample used the "important" answer to the does Yucca Mountain determine your presidential preference.
That's a lot more dems who will have to decide if their "most important" issue, perhaps something to do with symbolisms external to Nevada, really does trump Nevada's being used, since November, 1951, as the place where Washington carelessly scatters its atomic trash.
42% of the registered dems in the sample used the "strongly oppose" answer to the Yucca Mountain question.
40% of the registered dems in the sample used the "oppose" answer to the Yucca Mountain question.
The earned delegate count this far is 25 Obama, 24 Clinton, 18 Edwards, and at least one national polling firm announced it is dropping Edwards from the candidates listed questions.
Given a choice between a base of 21%, more if executed correctly, which should have been part of the Nevada field plan, plus anything in the three-way competition for "important" issues, and rasing $7,000,000, I'd go for base-plus.
When this is all over, I'd like to know why they passed on this one. I mailed Political Fiction with a "for Nevada" headnote to Trippi on the 15th, just in case they didn't have an Auntie Nukes message and plan at hand. Of course, who reads email?
On the bright (and glowing side), this issue will be around in the next cycle, and the cycle after that, and the cycle after that, and the cycle after that, and ...
