If you want to watch Bob Beers' opponents in the Republican primary fidget and cogitate and check their hole cards, ask them what they think of the Tax and Spending Control initiative.
They start whittling their rhetoric as certified fiscal conservatives and front-row Republicans, and before long they have criticized minute elements of the plan while almost endorsing its general goals. In poker, people call such unintended twitches "tells."
They're all for controlling government spending, mind you, but they think it should be accomplished through leadership and the laws on the books, not by a constitutional amendment following signature drives and a couple of votes of the people.
They don't exactly say they're opposed to the people voting on such a thing - saying they're against the voters on any matter tends to be unhealthy in their line of work. Instead, they usually focus on the confusing language of the measure, its 4,200 words, and agree that it's a "full-employment act" for lawyers and accountants.
Not that they're against buckling down on Nevada's burgeoning budget and expanding government following a record tax increase. Just not like that.
By the end of an interview, you'll get the sneaking suspicion that the TASC proposal's greatest flaw is that it wasn't their idea. Beers is the initiative's lobbyist and mascot, and the state senator has used the theme of lassoing state spending and tying it to a post to become a player in the governor's race.
Democratic contenders Dina Titus and Jim Gibson, meanwhile, have no problem criticizing TASC. They question everything from its constitutionality to the fact it has had a tough time being implemented in Colorado. They don't like it, don't like it, don't like it.
But, then, they're not billing themselves as conservative Republicans.
This doesn't mean that Beers is more fiscally conservative than Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt and Jim Gibbons. (None has controlled government spending.) It mostly means that Beers has beaten them to the punch.
His timing was impeccable. Perhaps that's one reason why lately they have begun mentioning his name in more measured tones. While Beers has been busy head-hunting Gibbons, the GOP primary's formidable front-runner has responded with rhetoric that would make a person believe he can't wait to work with Beers when the Legislature opens its doors.
Hunt, a gifted campaigner capable of talking circles around her competition, goes so far as to say she admires elements of TASC, but prefers the 1979 law on the books that ties spending to population and the consumer price index.
To do more would be tantamount to an endorsement of an opponent.
"The fact of the matter is there are some points that are clear," Hunt said Monday. "We should take the good stuff in TASC, let it run its course (through the courts). ... We can have both. We can have our cake and eat it."
As long as Beers doesn't get credit as the baker.
Does all this mean Beers would make the best Republican candidate for governor?
No.
Hunt is a better campaigner. Gibbons is more polished and has far superior backing from the state's political mechanics. No poll I've seen has Beers threatening Gibbons in anything but the rhetoric department. Despite all those signatures he's gathered, Beers remains a genuine underdog.
And TASC is flawed. Beyond all the legal challenges, its chief shortcoming, in my opinion, is that it attempts to lock down a process that by its nature is fluid and is almost impossible to corral in a booming state with a long list of genuine needs. It makes more sense for conservatives to remove the spendthrift legislators from office by beefing up the party apparatus, but for generations well-intentioned people have searched endlessly for a one-size-fits-all plan for government.
TASC does, however, provide a potentially life-changing opportunity for Bob Beers.
Thanks to TASC, and the discomfort it causes his opponents, he's emerged as a political player with the chance to stand before the people and tell them what he thinks. Not just about taxes and budgets, but about public education and transportation, crime and welfare.
This is his moment to tell us what kind of leader he would be.
He will decide whether Nevada history remembers him as a one-note wonder, or as the man who used an opportunity to springboard into political prominence.
• John L. Smith's column, reprinted from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, appears on Thursdays on the Appeal's Opinion page. E-mail him at smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295.