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A poker player helped rent a billboard, a Mormon spreads the word at root beer socials and prostitutes at a famous brothel turn tricks and donate their customers’ tips — all for Ron Paul.
The 76-year-old, 12-term Texas Republican congressman is banking on a big showing at the Feb. 4 Nevada caucuses to boost his third presidential primary bid. His message of personal liberty, states’ rights and low taxes resonates with voters in the state, where prostitution is legal, gambling is widespread and the foreclosure rate has been the highest in the nation for five years, according to RealtyTrac.
“Go to the Romney campaign and ask ‘How many of your lives have been changed by the philosophy of Mitt Romney?’” Julie Benincasa, 52, of Las Vegas said in an interview as she volunteered in Paul’s Henderson, Nevada, campaign office this week. “People will go, ‘what?’”
“My entire life — just about every spare moment, in one way or another — is promoting Ron Paul’s message of liberty, limited government and sound money,” she said, adding that she sold $1,600 worth of jewelry to donate to the campaign.
Benincasa’s commitment to Paul is matched by a legion of followers who see it as their duty to spread the word, including Arin Hopkins, 46, a dog sitter in a gated community in Henderson who pays for pro-Paul brochures and delivers them door-to-door and Pete Claytor, 49, a Las Vegas electrical union member who converted five of the six Democrats at his job site.
Gambler’s Billboard
Robert Fellner, 27, a professional poker player and blogger, donated $1,000 of the $3,500 cost of putting a billboard up in downtown Las Vegas, raising the rest of the cost on his website. The billboard touts Paul as the only candidate to predict the economic collapse.
Those avid supporters may give Paul an advantage in such caucus states as Nevada and Maine on Feb. 4 and Colorado and Minnesotaon Feb. 7, where casting a vote takes more of a time commitment than showing up at a precinct and casting a ballot.
On Jan. 31, as the Florida results were being counted, Paul flew into Nevada and kicked off a state tour with a rally at a Henderson casino that drew more than a 1,000 — a number far exceeding Newt Gingrich’s 200-person reception in Orlando that evening.
‘Irate, Tireless Minority’
“We will spend our time in the caucus states because if you have an irate, tireless minority you do very well in the caucus states,” said Paul, who finished fourth in Florida’s primary with 7 percent. “If you have an energized group of people that are working on a campaign and actually believe in something, it is going to work in the caucus states.”
In the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, Paul placed third with 21 percent of the vote. Romney and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum had 24.5 percent and 24.6 percent, respectively, in the contest, while Gingrich had 13 percent.
In Nevada, Paul’s staffers have been on the ground for more than six months, Carl Bunce, the state campaign chairman, said at the Jan. 31 rally. They have been educating voters both on the candidate and on the caucus process, holding “scores” of training events all over the state, said James Barcia, deputy national press secretary.
Paul is the only candidate with a presence on college campuses here, said David Damore, associate professor of political science atUniversity of Nevada, Las Vegas. The only campaign with a stronger ground operation in the state is Romney’s, Damore and other observers said.
Tea Party Outsourcing
“The Paul folks are well-organized, the Romney folks are well-organized and Gingrich is outsourcing to the Tea Party,” Damore said.
In 2008, Romney won the Nevada caucuses with 51 percent support compared to Paul’s 14 percent. In the four years since then, both candidates have maintained their support bases in the state. Romney has spent more money. As of Jan. 31, he had bought almost twice as much in broadcast television commercials in the state than Paul, according New York-based Kantar Media’s CMAG, a company that tracks advertising. The other Republican contenders hadn’t spent anything on commercials.
Nevada Lieutenant Governor Brian Krolicki, co-chairman of the Romney campaign in the state, said he’s confident his candidate will win, although he wouldn’t rule out Paul’s campaign machine.
“A caucus can always be full of surprises,” he said in a media call on Jan. 31.
Appealing to Mormons
One way Paul is targeting Romney is by going after his rival’s base: members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- Day Saints, who four years ago comprised about 25 percent of Nevada’s Republican caucus-goers. A campaign subgroup called Latter Day Saints for Ron Paul is seeking to convince Mormons that the congressman — and not LDS member Romney — best represents their views about the U.S. Constitution.
“Although the country might be ready for a Mormon president, we provide them with the notion that, in terms of constitutionality, that we have the better candidate,” Barcia said in a Jan. 30 interview at the Henderson campaign office.
David IsBell, 29, from Las Vegas, said he saw a sign on an overpass in Salt Lake City in 2007 that said “Google Ron Paul.” He did. IsBell had been a Mormon missionary in Eastern Europe when the U.S. invaded Iraq. The move turned him away from President George W. Bush and other Republicans. Paul’s opposition to the war got his attention.
“He was the first politician who gave me goose bumps when he talked,” IsBell said in a telephone interview. “The way Ron Paul speaks is parallel to the way our prophet Ezra Taft Benson spoke about our faith,” he said referring to the former president of the Mormon church, who served from 1985 to 1994.
Root Beer Floats
IsBell said he spreads that message at root beer float socials, game nights and other events wearing a Ron Paul t- shirt. He shares quotes from Benson, and then Paul.
“Mormons are reliable voters — they turn out,” said Robert Uithoven, a Republican consultant with j3 Strategies in Reno. Still, Uithoven, who has ties to Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS)chairman and Gingrich supporter Sheldon Adelson, puts most Mormons in Romney’s camp. While Nevada’s libertarian streak is good for Paul, those same Mormon voters were targeted by his campaign in 2008, Uithoven said.
“He has a base of support that tends not to grow very much,” Uithoven said.
Paul’s strategy isn’t limited to Mormons. He has rolled out special coalitions of gun owners, home-schoolers, veterans, Hispanics and hospitality workers, too.
The most unlikely coalition of supporters, though, is the one the candidate didn’t recruit.
Moonlite BunnyRanch
At the Moonlite BunnyRanch, a legal brothel near Carson City featured in HBO’s “Cathouse” series, the most scantily- clad caucus of all was held two weeks ago.
Dennis Hof, 65, the proprietor and self-described “pimpmaster general” of the BunnyRanch and five other Nevada brothels, said he polled all 500 women to see who they supported for the presidency. Last time, they cast their support behind Barack Obama. This cycle their opposition to the roundups of wild horses on federal land near the brothel moved them to Paul.
He said they like Gingrich — they “don’t have a problem with him being a womanizer” — but they think Romney is too square. Paul’s support for states’ rights won them over, he said.
At the BunnyRanch, customers who say they are “Pimpin’ for Paul” get extra attention, Hof said, and some of the women ask clients for Paul donations. Many, like Hustler centerfold Cami Parker, 25, also donate tips.
“I really appreciate the fact that Ron Paul respects states’ rights and individual rights,” Parker said in a telephone interview. “It seems like he really understands our rights to do what we want.”
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