Lombardo grabs a gear: Neutral

In New Hampshire, Republican Governor Chris Sununu this week endorsed Nikki Haley in the state’s Republican presidential primary.

In Iowa, Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds last month endorsed Ron DeSantis in the state’s Republican caucus.

After Iowa and New Hampshire, Nevada is the third state on the Republican presidential nominating calendar. 

In Nevada, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo hasn’t endorsed anyone.

He says he doesn’t intend to. 

And nobody cares.

That’s (mostly) because, unfortunately for Nevada Republican voters, Nevada will have both a Republican primary and a Republican caucus, and nobody cares about either of them.

The Nevada State Republican Party, led by fake elector and full-on Trump toady Michael McDonald, has done everything it can to assure that the national press, voters in the rest of the country, and even what’s left of the candidates will be paying effectively zero attention to Nevada’s third spot on the calendar. 

Although state law requires Nevada to hold a state primary – which it will on February 6 –  McDonald, at Trump’s behest, insisted on also holding a party-run presidential caucus, on the evening of February 8.

Trump’s name won’t be on the Feb. 6 primary ballot because Trump didn’t want his name on the primary ballot. His name would be on the primary ballot if he had filed for the primary. But he deliberately didn’t, because the Feb. 8 caucus is built specifically for him to win, and he filed for that, and only that, instead. 

Local mainstream media could do a great service for the state and democracy by stating that fact on an extremely frequent basis, by the way. When Republicans vote in the primary and don’t see Trump’s name on the ballot – or DeSantis’s name either – a lot of them will wrongly blame the Democrats. If prior results offer any indication of future performance, McDonald and Trump will do the same, even though they themselves authored the chaos, and they know it.

Haley visits Nevada, but not that one

Meanwhile, the only name that anyone has ever heard of that will be on the primary ballot is Haley’s. As such, she presumably will win the Nevada primary, if only by the process of elimination (Mike Pence and Tim Scott had filed for the primary but have since left the race). 

But apart from the act of filing for the primary, Haley and her campaign have given no indication whatsoever that they a) know, or b) care that Nevada is third on the calendar.

“I think you’ve got three major people that are going to go into Iowa, and I think after Iowa, one is going to drop,” Haley recently said, referring to DeSantis. “And then I think you’re going to have a play with me and Trump in New Hampshire, and then we’re going to go to my home state of South Carolina, and we’re going to take it.”

And, um, Nevada?

The only “Nevada” where Haley has shown an interest in voters is a place called Nevada, Iowa, (population, 6,658), which claims to be the “26th best small town in America.” She’s campaigned there at least once already, and Haley is scheduled to visit the town again Monday.

So will the Haley campaign just cold ignore Nevada – the state – and its primary? If so, what if by some chance she loses to one of the unknowns who will also be on the ballot. Would the campaign care? Or just shrug it off as a nothingburger because Nevada’s such an omnishambles thanks to the petty Trump-bespoke Nevada presidential caucus administered by a state Republican Party chair who was a 2020 fake elector?

Alas, we don’t know. While the Haley campaign’s press people are happy to send multiple emails a day, they’ve yet to respond to one.

Neutrality in the Trump age

It’s lucky for Lombardo though that Nevada’s ostensibly precious early spot in the nominating process has been rendered null and void by his own party. If not, he’d be getting publicly and privately pestered and pressured to pick a horse.

To reiterate, he says he’ll remain neutral and not endorse anyone, instead vowing he “will support whoever.”

Governors staying neutral in presidential primaries is nothing new, especially if there’s not a candidate they’re hot for.

It’s not, by the way, as if Lombardo’s fellow Republican governors, Sununu and Reynolds, are profiles in courage by endorsing someone other than Trump. Their (publicly stated, anyway) objection to Trump – which is identical to that voiced by Haley and DeSantis – is not that Trump is a criminal thug with dictatorial ambitions who has called for the termination of the U.S. Constitution and is unfit for any and every public office. Rather, their complaint with Trump is (or so they say) they think he will lose.

During his 2022 campaign for governor, Lombardo accepted Trump’s endorsement, campaigned with Trump, and even publicly contradicted himself at Trump’s behest, folding for Trump on command.

But during his campaign, and as governor, Lombardo has also signaled he would prefer to get as little of Trump’s trademark toxicity on him as possible.

In other words, it would be shockingly out of character for Lombardo to be anything other than neutral.

Lombardo campaigned, in his sheriff’s uniform, as the upright, trustworthy champion of law and order.

While sharing a stage with Trump during the campaign, Lombardo also once declared Trump “the greatest president.”

Trump, the gift that keeps on giving, rewarded the would-be stalwart lawman’s trust and praise by getting indicted on 91 felony counts.

Among those counts are charges that Trump plotted to deprive voters – and specifically the majority of voters in Nevada and six other states –  of the right to have their votes counted in the 2020 election.

In simpler, saner times, a presidential candidate showing such malice and disrespect for the people of Nevada would have prompted disgust and condemnation from a Nevada governor, whatever their party affiliation. But we don’t live in simple sane times, so we get “will support whoever.”

Neutrality in the Republican presidential contest is obviously a convenient option for Lombardo. It’s just as obviously an ignoble one.