DENNIS MYERS Against the Grain Advertisement

At a conference in the mid-1960s, Nevada Republican chair George Abbott told a national political reporter, "Barry Goldwater's nomination shifted the center of power in the Republican party about one thousand miles to the east. It's not moving back."

An eastern GOP leader standing nearby overheard Abbott's comment and said something about westerners being "too big for their damned britches."

Abbott was an important figure in the elevation of the west in national politics, yet when he died in Douglas County on Jan. 31, it was largely ignored. The only obituary I've found is a six-sentence Associated Press report that barely scratched the surface. Even a search of his hometown newspaper did not turn up an obituary.

This is a common problem in a state with Nevada's population turnover. There is little institutional memory. I remember in 2002 having to badger my television newsroom into covering the death of Howard Cannon because no one in that newsroom had heard of him. (Cannon served four terms as Las Vegas city attorney followed by four terms in the U.S. Senate where, as chair of the Senate Rules Committee he oversaw confirmation of the nation's first two appointed vice presidents and as chair of the Senate Commerce Committee waged a determined but ultimately losing fight against deregulation of the airlines, a stance that later proved to be correct.)

Abbott was a typical Nevadan - that is, he came here from somewhere else. Born in Burwell, Neb., in 1923, he took a law degree there and saw infantry service in World War Two. By the time he came to Nevada he had already had a full career. During the 1950s he was a legal counsel to the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee and a subcabinet official in the Interior Department.

With the end of the Eisenhower administration, he decided to move to Nevada where his wife hailed from, and settled in Douglas County. He lost a race for district attorney but became close to a rising star in the state Republican Party - Paul Laxalt.

As Laxalt brought modern techniques like opinion polling to state politics and moved from lieutenant governor to governor, Abbott rose with him, becoming state GOP chair.

In 1968 at the Republican National Convention, Abbott got his 15 minutes of fame. After Richard Nixon was nominated for president, he chose Gov. Spiro Agnew of Maryland as his vice presidential running mate. Uneasiness, particularly among party moderates, swept the convention and a wide net was thrown for a competing candidate. Abbott emerged as a leader of this revolt and reserved time to make a nominating speech. By one account ("The Ungovernable City" by Vincent Cannato), Abbott did not know whose name he would place in nomination as he climbed the steps to the podium. Abbott never wrote an autobiography or did an oral history, so we may never know the truth of it.

New York City Mayor John Lindsay was the logical alternative candidate, but he had been convinced to second Agnew's nomination (mispronouncing Agnew's name in the process). So Michigan Gov. George Romney (father of this year's presidential candidate) stepped in. Abbott nominated him in a barn burner of a speech on national television, calling out a litany of GOP verities and each time asking the convention, "Don't you agree with me?" - and each time the convention roared back "Yes!"

Nevertheless, the Agnew nomination prevailed and when Abbott arrived back in Nevada he was faced with a newspaper headline: "Nevada GOP delegates want Abbott fired - pronto." Laxalt was indecisive on the matter, but Nixon said he was not offended by the revolt (in fact, he was furious) and Abbott kept his job.

In the aftermath, a Reno columnist wrote that only later would it be determined "whether Abbott had foresight founded in political expertise or simply moved in a revolutionary manner that showed party disunity..." Five years later, with Agnew driven from office for bribe taking, Abbott looked like a prophet.

I once visited Abbott in Douglas County. He had purchased an old bank building for his law office and restored it to a thing of beauty. As late as 2004 he tried to get the county district attorney to prosecute U.S. Sen. Harry Reid for a billboard Abbott thought was misleading. It was silly, but Abbott never gave up on what he saw as an interesting fight. It's unfortunate that his role in his state's history is so neglected.