Treading carefully

GOP contenders tread carefully in Oregon standoff

After two days of silence, the candidates are starting to condemn the armed protesters, while keeping one eye on Nevada.

By Kyle Cheney

Marco Rubio on Monday condemned the band of anti-government protesters occupying a wildlife refuge in Oregon as “lawless.”

But he was quick to add a caveat: “And I agree that there is too much federal control over land, especially out in the western part of the United States,” the Florida senator told Iowa radio station KBUR. “There are states, for example, like Nevada that are dominated by the federal government in terms of land holding, and we should fix it, but no one should be doing it in a way that’s outside the law.”

After two days of silence, the GOP candidates are treading carefully around the armed seizure of a federal wildlife refuge, in which the protesters vowed to make a long-term stand against what they described as overbearing federal land regulations. Most candidates still haven’t addressed the crisis, and one professed ignorance of it. But the few who have spoken up did so gingerly.

It’s not difficult to understand why the presidential contenders are being cautious. Nevada, which votes next month in the 2016 nominating contest, has been the epicenter of tension between rural landowners and the federal government, which owns more than 80 percent of the state's land.

And many Republicans learned a lesson in 2014 when cattle rancher Cliven Bundy and gun-toting supporters repelled federal rangers seeking to confiscate his herd over unpaid grazing fines. He quickly became a conservative star, and soon-to-be presidential candidates hailed his resistance until a series of racially insensitive statements had most distancing themselves.

Many of those involved in the Bundy episode, including his son Ammon, are participating in the Oregon takeover. That's partly why strategists across the Nevada political spectrum are urging a more nuanced approach this time — one that condemns the militia for its illegal conduct but acknowledges the frustration many rural voters feel about onerous land restrictions.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz — who in 2014 called the Bundy standoff the “culmination” of how President Barack Obama has pushed for a bigger and more intrusive federal government and claimed “we have seen our liberty under assault” — struck a different tone on Monday.

"Every one of us has a constitutional right to protest, to speak our minds. But we don't have a constitutional right to use force and violence and to threaten force and violence on others,” Cruz told reporters in Iowa. “And so, it is our hope that the protesters there will stand down peaceably, that there will not be a violent confrontation.”

And Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, often a fierce advocate for those bucking intrusive federal government influence, on Monday was also reserved in his response. "I’m sympathetic to the idea that the large collection of federal lands ought to be turned back to the states and the people, but I think the best way to bring about change is through politics," Paul told The Washington Post. "That's why I entered the electoral arena. I don’t support any violence or suggestion of violence toward changing policy."

Peter Ernaut, a Republican consultant and longtime adviser to Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, said the candidates must strike a careful balance. "Obviously, you cannot condone or ignore extremely reckless and dangerous actions like the takeover of a federal building or an armed standoff with law enforcement. That said, to continually ignore or discount the underlying issues at play here is also a problem," Ernaut said. "Reasonable people need to rethink and restate how ranchers and other public land users can peacefully and collaboratively coexist on our nation's ranges."

Adam Khan, chairman of the Washoe County Republican Party, said candidates would be wise to not escalate the situation and should redirect voters’ anger and mistrust in the government to electing a president who would shrink the size of government.

"There is an obvious issue with the amount of land the federal government owns in the western United States. However, I do not believe that grabbing your guns and getting your friends up to occupy some land in the middle of nowhere is doing anything to help your cause," Khan said.

Few other candidates have directly weighed in on the standoff. The campaigns of Donald Trump and Jeb Bush did not respond to requests for comment. A senior adviser to Ohio Gov. John Kasich tweeted that "Bundy and his gang" should end up in prison. But Kasich himself said he was “not familiar” with the standoff in Oregon.

"Presidential candidates that do choose to weigh in will likely take the tone of 'we agree that the federal government should not own large swaths of land in the West' and mix in 'there is a legal process to go through to get this done,'" said Nick Phillips, former political director for the Clark County Republican Party. "Republicans in general are of the mind-set of a small centralized government, so keeping out of big government control over the land is beneficial for us, but there is also a proper way to go through it."

The Oregon issue exploded over the weekend after the staging of peaceful protests in support of two ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond, convicted of arson after setting fire to their leased federal land. The two men were ordered to prison, and supporters gathered to protest the decision. But the younger Bundy and a band of armed allies broke away and occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters, and they've urged sympathizers from around the country to join them over the objections of local law enforcement. The Hammonds, too, have distanced themselves from the effort.

"The people have been abused long enough," Ammon Bundy said in an interview posted to the Bundy Ranch Facebook page. "Their lands and their resources have been taken from them to the point where it's putting them literally in poverty. And this facility here has been a tool in doing that."

Nevada strategists argued that the Bundys have largely been relegated to fringe status, and aligning with them would be disadvantageous for presidential candidates, though their issues still resonate.

"Bundy and his so-called militia cohorts, are mostly dismissed by other Nevada ranchers and public land advocates as being fringe tax cheats," said Silver State Assemblyman Pat Hickey. "Republican politicians however, are reluctant to alienate their 'liberty' supporters."

The answer, said conservative activist Chuck Muth, president of the Las Vegas-based Citizen Outreach, is to generally ignore the specific crisis altogether.

"I’d speak about it in general terms of Big Government and bureaucratic over-reach, rather than get bogged down in the details," he said, adding that the issue could move votes in rural Nevada but likely would have little impact elsewhere in the state.