When you think early primary voting, you think of New Hampshire and of earnest living-room discussions as Iowans gather for their caucuses—an hours-long process that, unlike voting in a primary, involves sitting and arguing with your neighbors in a democratic act that’s as close to Norman Rockwell (and the Athenian demos) as you’re likely to find in the Western world. If you think of who lives in these early states, you think of ethanol-obsessed corn farmers, a handful of workers in ailing factories, maybe a few commuters from southern New Hampshire driving to their offices at Fidelity.

But this winter, Nevada is getting in on the action. Croupiers and cocktail waitresses, chefs and chambermaids, ranchers and miners will take shift breaks to vote in the new early Nevada caucuses, a potential fulcrum in determining who our next president will be.

As a political reporter, I can think of nothing more fun than ditching Manchester for the Mirage, but as an American, I have my doubts about whether this change is good for us as a country.

First, some background. For decades, Iowa and New Hampshire have dominated presidential nominations because of their sainted first-in-the-nation status. Iowa has always been the first caucus and New Hampshire the first primary. But this year, Nevada, a state built on the dreams of silver prospectors and Bugsy Siegel, has been given an early caucus, likely to take place between the votes in Iowa and New Hampshire—although many of the early states are threatening to change their primary dates, and the schedules remain in flux. At first, it was just a Democratic caucus, but then, earlier this year, Nevada’s Republicans got jealous and moved their caucuses to the same day. Now Mitt Romney is eyeing the voting power of the state’s large Mormon population.

Appropriately enough for Las Vegas’ home, Nevada got the caucuses through luck. For years, minorities in the Democratic Party have argued that Iowa and New Hampshire are too white to have such a crucial role. Because no potential presidential candidate wanted to raise the ire of New Hampshire or Iowa, minorities’ arguments generally went unheeded. But after the previous Democratic Senate leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, was defeated in 2004, the rise of Harry Reid, the senior senator from Nevada, to the position gave the state an inside straight. Reid argued that his state was perfect for joining the Iowa-New Hampshire duopoly. It’s small enough that minor candidates can compete, it’s a swing state, and it’s a signal of the Democrats’ commitment to winning the West.

Now the candidates have to pay attention to things that never come up in Des Moines—mining and gaming, concerns about water rights, and, most prominently, the debate over the transfer of nuclear waste from the nation’s power plants to Yucca Mountain. Are we ever going to see a revival of nuclear power in America? The biggest thing stopping it could be the Nevada caucuses, which have basically put the presidential candidates on record against the transfer. If there is no place to put spent fuel rods, you can’t very well increase the number of nuclear power plants. Nevadans are overwhelmingly opposed to their state’s being the nation’s nuclear waste dump, and the presidential candidates (except for John McCain) have quickly fallen in line. As the caucuses approach, John Edwards, who once favored dumping in Yucca, now declares it dangerous.

In ways both good and bad, the Nevada caucuses will give unions an even bigger role than they’ve had before. No group in Nevada’s Democratic caucuses is more pivotal than Local 226 of the Culinary Workers Union, which meets in a grim, one-story white building near an outfit called Carpets Galore at the northern end of the Las Vegas Strip. The union represents about half of Vegas’ hotel and casino employees, not just those toiling in kitchens—as its name would suggest—but also the 60,000 workers who make the beds and scrub the toilets.