Hard-hit Nevada will be key battleground in 2012
* Romney viewed as Republican front-runnerBy Andy SullivanLAS VEGAS, Oct 18 (Reuters) - A Republican debate will play
out in one of this city’s glittering casinos, but the real
battleground for next year’s U.S. presidential election lies in
the foreclosure-racked neighborhoods that sprawl beyond the Las
Vegas Strip’s bright lights.Few U.S. cities have been hit harder by the recession than
Las Vegas, which is likely to be one of the most hotly
contested prizes in an election dominated by economic
concerns.Las Vegas leads the nation in foreclosures and the
unemployment rate is also among the highest.One out of six people in the region have wondered over the
past month where they will find their next meal, according to
Three Square, a food bank serving the area.”I know so many people who are desperate,” said Linda
Overby, a painter who has been out of work since April.Though the economy may not pick up any time soon, Overby
and other Las Vegas residents will get plenty of attention from
presidential candidates over the coming months.Nevada, which has backed the winning candidate in every
election stretching back to 1976, is one of a handful of
battleground states that could decide next year’s election.This time, the state’s early caucus, tentatively set for
Jan. 14, will also give it an outsize influence in the
Republican primary race, although some candidates are
threatening to boycott the vote here due to a fight over which
states should hold primaries first.The caucus will be the first in the West, a region that
features high numbers of independent and Hispanic voters and
relatively few of the Christian conservatives who play a large
role in other early contests.COUNTERING THE REID MACHINEIt will also give the state Republican Party a chance to
build an organization to counter Senate Democratic leader Harry
Reid’s machine, which helped Barack Obama win the presidency in
2008 and saw Reid through a tough re-election battle last
year.Democrats now have 100,000 more registered voters than
Republicans, and Reid and other Democrats are already laying
the groundwork for next year with a three-day conference
focused on winning in Nevada and other Western mountain states.
Obama is scheduled to visit on Oct. 24.Republicans say he will have a hard time repeating his 2008
victory given the state’s dismal economic condition.”Simply put, he has failed miserably to deliver on the
promises of his previous campaign,” said Robert Uithoven, a
Nevada Republican consultant in the state who is not aligned
with any candidate.First, Republicans have to pick a candidate of their own.
No opinion polls have been published since August, but insiders
say Mitt Romney has the best chance of winning at this point.MORMON FAITH COULD HELP ROMNEYRomney’s Mormon faith, which could be a liability in other
states, is likely to help here. Fellow Mormons who account for
11 percent of the population helped him win the 2008 caucus and
will be a factor again this time.Romney has held several high-profile events in Las Vegas
over the past few months. He unveiled his jobs plan here in
September and raised $10 million in a phone-a-thon in June.”He’s been here more than anyone, he’s got a solid
organization, and the Mormon community will vote heavily in
proportion to others,” said Sig Rogich, another Nevada
Republican consultant who remains unaffiliated.Rick Perry has a powerful ally in Nevada Governor Brian
Sandoval, a Hispanic, and he recently hired his first staffers
in the state. But Perry’s lackluster debate performances could
hurt his prospects in Nevada.Herman Cain, meanwhile, could see his sudden national
popularity translate to success in the January caucus.Ron Paul, who finished second in 2008, retains a devoted
following in this libertarian-leaning state.Candidates with strong support among Christian
conservatives, like Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum,
probably will not do well in Nevada as social issues are not
likely to be a factor.In the jaws of a gut-wrenching recession, economic concerns
will play an even bigger role in Nevada than elsewhere.”Anyone who’s running for the presidency is going to need
to articulate some type of coherent plan,” said Kenneth
Fernandez, a political-science professor at the University of
Nevada-Las Vegas.
Margaret Atwood on debt and consequences
What might be most surprising about the myriad economic problems around the globe right now is how many major world economies seem to have been taken by surprise by the concept of debt. Maybe they should have been reading more Margaret Atwood.
Atwood isnt only one of the worldÂs premier novelists, sheÂs also the author of the nonfiction âPayback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth,â which hit the presses just as the financial crisis arrived in the fall of 2008 (timing that one review described as Âfreakishly prescientÂ).
Atwood is currently releasing her new essay collection about science fiction, âIn Other Worlds,â and  sat down with Reuters Money for coffee in Manhattan. We chatted about how debt has been dominating the headlines  and, perhaps, reshaping our sense of self.
Reuters Money: How did the issue of money and debt come to interest you?
Margaret Atwood: I came to this subject through studying literature. Money is everywhere. Charles Dickens, for instance, is completely obsessed with debt. His father went bankrupt, and was thrown into debtorÂs prison. As a child, Dickens had to go off and work in the factory, and he never forgot it.
YouÂve said that the current debt crisis was entirely predictable. How so?
MA: IÂm always sorry when IÂm right. It really is true that you can go back through history and trace the influence of money on crises. If you look at conditions right before the French Revolution, youÂll see that they were having a lot of money problems. They kept firing finance ministers and coming up with one new scheme after another, but those at the top wanted to keep everything for themselves. Conditions were top-heavy, with a lot of debt, the price of food going up, and many out of work â which all sounds very familiar right now.
During the boom years we barely even thought about debt and its consequences. Why is that?
MA: We were told debt financing was good. And indeed, itÂs not always a bad thing, as long as you can pay the debt back. But thereÂs a due date for the debt, and IÂm afraid that date has now arrived. When individuals canÂt pay, thatÂs one thing; when governments canÂt pay, youÂre into a whole new dimension. The situation in Europe is very scary. People scratch their heads and wonder, ÂWhere did all the money go? TheyÂre still thinking of money as pieces of eight. But money on that scale no longer has a physical presence: ItÂs numbers that whip around the Internet. No human being seems to be in control anymore. So the bill has come due â but nobody knows where to deliver it.
Did the whole debt-ceiling debate fascinate you?
MA: People do love to believe in fairy dust. The idea that we can wage two extremely expensive wars and still provide needed services, and that you wonÂt have to raise taxes at all: ThatÂs fairy dust. Unless you want to accumulate a debt thatÂs so enormous that all of your future income is going to go towards the interest. ThatÂs what drives people really crazy â that their money is going only to service interest payments.
From all your research on debt, anything that surprised you?
MA: I learned some fascinating things about the neurology of credit cards. If you spend with a credit card, it doesnÂt hurt; your brain doesnÂt register that youÂve spent money. It just registers that youÂve bought this wonderful new thing and you didnÂt have to pay a cent. So why wouldnÂt you keep buying? But follow that trail down to where it affects peoples lives, when they canÂt pay their taxes or their mortgages, and suddenly these virtual numbers have a very real physical impact. Then you canÂt feed your family, and youÂre out on the streets.
You said the Eurozone situation scares you. What frightens you the most about whatÂs going on?
MA: What you really donÂt want is inflationary Austria after the First World War, when people had wheelbarrows full of paper money that nobody wanted to accept, because the next day it would be worth even less. Then you revert to barter systems, and then you have no taxes with which to fund services. It becomes a death spiral.
When you were writing âPayback,â did you have a sense of just how prescient it was?
MA: This book came out right as the financial meltdown was happening, so I had a lot of people asking me, ÂHow did you know? Well, how could you not know? The handwriting was on the wall.
Margaret Atwood on debt and consequences
What might be most surprising about the myriad economic problems around the globe right now is how many major world economies seem to have been taken by surprise by the concept of debt. Maybe they should have been reading more Margaret Atwood.
Atwood isnt only one of the worldÂs premier novelists, sheÂs also the author of the nonfiction âPayback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth,â which hit the presses just as the financial crisis arrived in the fall of 2008 (timing that one review described as Âfreakishly prescientÂ).
Atwood is currently releasing her new essay collection about science fiction, âIn Other Worlds,â and  sat down with Reuters Money for coffee in Manhattan. We chatted about how debt has been dominating the headlines  and, perhaps, reshaping our sense of self.
Reuters Money: How did the issue of money and debt come to interest you?
Margaret Atwood: I came to this subject through studying literature. Money is everywhere. Charles Dickens, for instance, is completely obsessed with debt. His father went bankrupt, and was thrown into debtorÂs prison. As a child, Dickens had to go off and work in the factory, and he never forgot it.
YouÂve said that the current debt crisis was entirely predictable. How so?
MA: IÂm always sorry when IÂm right. It really is true that you can go back through history and trace the influence of money on crises. If you look at conditions right before the French Revolution, youÂll see that they were having a lot of money problems. They kept firing finance ministers and coming up with one new scheme after another, but those at the top wanted to keep everything for themselves. Conditions were top-heavy, with a lot of debt, the price of food going up, and many out of work â which all sounds very familiar right now.
During the boom years we barely even thought about debt and its consequences. Why is that?
MA: We were told debt financing was good. And indeed, itÂs not always a bad thing, as long as you can pay the debt back. But thereÂs a due date for the debt, and IÂm afraid that date has now arrived. When individuals canÂt pay, thatÂs one thing; when governments canÂt pay, youÂre into a whole new dimension. The situation in Europe is very scary. People scratch their heads and wonder, ÂWhere did all the money go? TheyÂre still thinking of money as pieces of eight. But money on that scale no longer has a physical presence: ItÂs numbers that whip around the Internet. No human being seems to be in control anymore. So the bill has come due â but nobody knows where to deliver it.
Did the whole debt-ceiling debate fascinate you?
MA: People do love to believe in fairy dust. The idea that we can wage two extremely expensive wars and still provide needed services, and that you wonÂt have to raise taxes at all: ThatÂs fairy dust. Unless you want to accumulate a debt thatÂs so enormous that all of your future income is going to go towards the interest. ThatÂs what drives people really crazy â that their money is going only to service interest payments.
From all your research on debt, anything that surprised you?
MA: I learned some fascinating things about the neurology of credit cards. If you spend with a credit card, it doesnÂt hurt; your brain doesnÂt register that youÂve spent money. It just registers that youÂve bought this wonderful new thing and you didnÂt have to pay a cent. So why wouldnÂt you keep buying? But follow that trail down to where it affects peoples lives, when they canÂt pay their taxes or their mortgages, and suddenly these virtual numbers have a very real physical impact. Then you canÂt feed your family, and youÂre out on the streets.
You said the Eurozone situation scares you. What frightens you the most about whatÂs going on?
MA: What you really donÂt want is inflationary Austria after the First World War, when people had wheelbarrows full of paper money that nobody wanted to accept, because the next day it would be worth even less. Then you revert to barter systems, and then you have no taxes with which to fund services. It becomes a death spiral.
When you were writing âPayback,â did you have a sense of just how prescient it was?
MA: This book came out right as the financial meltdown was happening, so I had a lot of people asking me, ÂHow did you know? Well, how could you not know? The handwriting was on the wall.
Margaret Atwood on debt and consequences
What might be most surprising about the myriad economic problems around the globe right now is how many major world economies seem to have been taken by surprise by the concept of debt. Maybe they should have been reading more Margaret Atwood.
Atwood isnt only one of the worldÂs premier novelists, sheÂs also the author of the nonfiction âPayback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth,â which hit the presses just as the financial crisis arrived in the fall of 2008 (timing that one review described as Âfreakishly prescientÂ).
Atwood is currently releasing her new essay collection about science fiction, âIn Other Worlds,â and  sat down with Reuters Money for coffee in Manhattan. We chatted about how debt has been dominating the headlines  and, perhaps, reshaping our sense of self.
Reuters Money: How did the issue of money and debt come to interest you?
Margaret Atwood: I came to this subject through studying literature. Money is everywhere. Charles Dickens, for instance, is completely obsessed with debt. His father went bankrupt, and was thrown into debtorÂs prison. As a child, Dickens had to go off and work in the factory, and he never forgot it.
YouÂve said that the current debt crisis was entirely predictable. How so?
MA: IÂm always sorry when IÂm right. It really is true that you can go back through history and trace the influence of money on crises. If you look at conditions right before the French Revolution, youÂll see that they were having a lot of money problems. They kept firing finance ministers and coming up with one new scheme after another, but those at the top wanted to keep everything for themselves. Conditions were top-heavy, with a lot of debt, the price of food going up, and many out of work â which all sounds very familiar right now.
During the boom years we barely even thought about debt and its consequences. Why is that?
MA: We were told debt financing was good. And indeed, itÂs not always a bad thing, as long as you can pay the debt back. But thereÂs a due date for the debt, and IÂm afraid that date has now arrived. When individuals canÂt pay, thatÂs one thing; when governments canÂt pay, youÂre into a whole new dimension. The situation in Europe is very scary. People scratch their heads and wonder, ÂWhere did all the money go? TheyÂre still thinking of money as pieces of eight. But money on that scale no longer has a physical presence: ItÂs numbers that whip around the Internet. No human being seems to be in control anymore. So the bill has come due â but nobody knows where to deliver it.
Did the whole debt-ceiling debate fascinate you?
MA: People do love to believe in fairy dust. The idea that we can wage two extremely expensive wars and still provide needed services, and that you wonÂt have to raise taxes at all: ThatÂs fairy dust. Unless you want to accumulate a debt thatÂs so enormous that all of your future income is going to go towards the interest. ThatÂs what drives people really crazy â that their money is going only to service interest payments.
From all your research on debt, anything that surprised you?
MA: I learned some fascinating things about the neurology of credit cards. If you spend with a credit card, it doesnÂt hurt; your brain doesnÂt register that youÂve spent money. It just registers that youÂve bought this wonderful new thing and you didnÂt have to pay a cent. So why wouldnÂt you keep buying? But follow that trail down to where it affects peoples lives, when they canÂt pay their taxes or their mortgages, and suddenly these virtual numbers have a very real physical impact. Then you canÂt feed your family, and youÂre out on the streets.
You said the Eurozone situation scares you. What frightens you the most about whatÂs going on?
MA: What you really donÂt want is inflationary Austria after the First World War, when people had wheelbarrows full of paper money that nobody wanted to accept, because the next day it would be worth even less. Then you revert to barter systems, and then you have no taxes with which to fund services. It becomes a death spiral.
When you were writing âPayback,â did you have a sense of just how prescient it was?
MA: This book came out right as the financial meltdown was happening, so I had a lot of people asking me, ÂHow did you know? Well, how could you not know? The handwriting was on the wall.
