From Nevada, Romney says he supports New Hampshire status

As the early voting states wrangle over the start of the 2012 election calendar, the Republican presidential candidates have been competing to be defender-in-chief of New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary.

Mitt Romney tried to get in on that action Tuesday, not long after the editorial page of New Hampshire’s influential newspaper, the Union Leader, accused him of putting his political ambitions before the state’s interests.

Hours before a debate in Nevada, Romney affirmed his support for New Hampshire’s process and said he would take his lead from New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner.

“I’ve proudly campaigned in New Hampshire over the past several months in the very best spirit of the state’s time-honored traditions, which I respect and admire,” Romney told New Hampshire voters who joined him on a conference call Tuesday afternoon. “New Hampshire’s voters take their role in this process very, very seriously. They’re well informed. They’re passionate about politics and ask me some of the best and toughest questions I receive on the campaign trail.”

“I also respect and unequivocally support New Hampshire’s status as our first primary,” said Romney, who has far outpaced his rivals in New Hampshire polls.

But the former Massachusetts governor stopped short of endorsing a move by other candidates to pressure Nevada to change its contest date by threatening to boycott the state’s caucuses.

The scheduling flap was sparked by Florida leaders last month when they set their state’s primary for Jan. 31. That move violated party rules that contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada should lead the other states. South Carolina Republicans responded by moving their contest to Jan. 21; Nevada switched their date to Jan. 14; and Iowa announced this week that it would hold its caucuses on Jan. 3.

Many had expected New Hampshire’s Secretary of state to move New Hampshire’s primary to Jan. 10, but Gardner is concerned that date would not comply with a New Hampshire law that says there should be at least a seven-day gap between the state’s primary and any similar contest.

Candidates including Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum have threatened to boycott Nevada. Jon Huntsman, who is betting heavily on New Hampshire, went so far as to withdraw from Tuesday night’s debate in Nevada. But Romney, who won Nevada easily in his 2008 presidential run, has been more restrained.

Citing reports in a Nevada newspaper Tuesday, the Union Leader’s editorial charged the Romney campaign with encouraging Nevada leaders to move the state’s primary earlier to boost his campaign.

“What this effort suggests: Romney is willing to sacrifice an institution beneficial to the republic [the New Hampshire primary] for his own political advantage,” the influential newspaper’s editorial said. “Whether New Hampshire goes in December or in January with Nevada only a few days behind it, the tradition is broken, and other states will be emboldened to move in for the kill in 2016.”

The editorial suggested that Romney still had time to “put New Hampshire voters’ minds at ease about his commitment to the primary and the value of selecting candidates the old-fashioned way” by joining the boycott of Nevada’s caucuses: “New Hampshire is watching.”

Romney did not mention the boycott by other candidates on the call Tuesday afternoon, but said he supported “a quick resolution of this dispute, a resolution that recognizes New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary status.”