On Friday night, Sharron Angle made her first public appearance on behalf of Rick Santorum since officially endorsing him for president, headlining a solo rally at Santorum’s headquarters.

In politics, managing expectations can be an important part of competing. The sports world gets this. Instead of predicting an easy victory, a savvy coach flatters the opposition and talks down his own chances, hoping to lull the other team into a false sense of security. So how are the presidential candidates attempting to manage expectations for today’s Nevada Republican caucuses? To read the strategy, you need to know where things stand.

Sixty miles west of Las Vegas is a land to which few Republican presidential candidates dare go — unless you’re Ron Paul. Nevada’s rural counties often get ignored at national election time because of simple math: With 70 percent of the state’s population in Clark County and another 20 or so up in Washoe county, the voters out here just don’t exist in the sort of numbers out here to make the time it takes to go, campaign, and come worthwhile.

Democratic Party members, inserting their voice into an immigration discussion that recently has focused on the policies of the Republican presidential candidates, reiterated their belief that President Barack Obama has the most sensible immigration plan and is still the best choice for Hispanic voters.

With less than 24 hours to go before caucus time, Newt Gingrich stood up in a bar Las Vegas Friday morning, and told Nevada voters not just why they should vote for him, but that if they voted for him, he could win.

In his final campaign swing through Nevada before Republicans caucus on Saturday, Mitt Romney found himself fending off not attacks from his GOP primary opponents but a more nefarious campaign foe: positive economic news.

Tennessee state Sen. Stacey Campfield sparked an uproar with his comments about gay people and the origin of AIDS.  In one claim, Campfield said AIDS was transmitted to humans because "one guy" had sex with "a monkey" and then started "having sex with men." PolitiFact Tennessee put that claim to the Truth-O-Meter. >>More

It was a fitting closing chapter in the Republican presidential nominating contest, which has had all the gravitas of Mardi Gras. Donald Trump, the nation’s charlatan-in-chief, endorsed likely nominee Mitt Romney on Thursday in his fabulously classy, super glamorous, totally loathsome building near the Las Vegas Strip.

It might seem strange that the candidate sponsored by Nevada’s deepest-pocketed political donor is casting his campaign as the scrappy underdog in the Silver State. That, however, is how Newt Gingrich tried to distinguish his campaign from Mitt Romney’s Thursday. “We’re really running with people power versus money power,” Gingrich told a crowd assembled at the Xtreme Manufacturing plant in Las Vegas.

The idea of a divided Mormon vote in Saturday’s Republican presidential caucus sounds implausible: Mitt Romney is positioned to become the first major-party presidential candidate who is also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But Ron Paul’s campaign isn’t automatically ceding that ground, and instead has mounted a campaign aimed at members of the church based on Paul’s strict constitutionalist views.

The Ron Paul crowd in Reno on Thursday night was young and cool — there was a waxed mustache; someone complained about the venue’s lack of PBR, the hipster beer of the moment; and a recent college grad sold homemade Paul T-shirts outside. Inside, the young audience was loud and engaged, creating the rock concert-like atmosphere that has characterized the Texas congressman’s campaign stops. If Paul was a television show, he’d hit the perfect demographic — 18 to 34 — and given his four-plus years on the national scene, probably would be syndicated by now.

AS THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY IN THE HISTORY OF NEVADA POLITICS looms Saturday, I had the privilege of being allowed inside each of the campaign’s inner sanctums this week.

The four remaining Republican presidential candidates have lept at every opportunity to distinguish themselves from one another on most economic issues, trading jabs on jobs plans, tax plans and health care plans as they’ve made their way through Nevada. But when it comes to housing — potentially the most potent economic issue in Las Vegas, where over 70 percent of home loans are underwater — the candidates have eschewed detailed plans to take on the crisis, apparently willing to let their similar positions blend together.

Four years ago, Reno-area Republicans caucused overwhelmingly for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. On Thursday, hundreds of them packed a Reno convention hall for a speech many saw as key to their decision on whether to caucus for him again.

Mitt Romney accepted Donald Trump’s endorsement in the lobby of Trump's glittering golden tower on the Las Vegas Strip. “There are some things you just can't imagine in your life,” Romney said as he accepted the endorsement. “This is one of them."

Newt Gingrich’s national advisers are feuding with his Nevada team over the candidate’s campaign here, sources said, highlighting the shortcomings of a hastily assembled local operation.

Three Republican officials are telling The Associated Press that Donald Trump intends to endorse Mitt Romney's presidential bid. Trump plans to make the announcement Thursday afternoon at his casino hotel in Las Vegas.

This is part of our new "In Context" series, which provides the full transcript of controversial remarks so you can see them without editing. O'BRIEN: Let me ask you a final question. And there's a poll that came out a few that says, understanding the needs of average Americans. And President Obama rates at 55 percent in this polling. You come in at 39 percent. And the Conservative Writer, Kathleen Parker, wrote about, you know, it's that Romney can't connect with the people as has been - it isn't that Romney can't connect with the people has been pronounced repeatedly. ... >>More

While the Tea Party in Nevada and elsewhere has had some small successes in local and congressional races, they are now so fractured that nominating a presidential candidate to carry their mantel is all but impossible.

It was a more relaxed Mitt Romney that stopped in Las Vegas Wednesday night than we’ve seen elsewhere on the campaign trail. He was coming off a big win in Florida. The crowd was cheering with almost as much gusto as a Ron Paul-congregation as Romney derided President Barack Obama and recited forgotten verses of “America the Beautiful.”