Vegas Plays 'Strip' Politics ; Special Caucus Sites Reflect Union Muscle in Tight Democratic Race

Jan 19, 08:24 PM

Workers at nine casinos along this city's infamous "Strip" will take a break from work today to huddle in conference rooms a few steps from the slot machines and vote for president.

And it's all because today's Nevada presidential caucuses, on the Democratic side, are union-made.

The Culinary Workers Union Local 226, the state's largest, pressed for the casino-based caucus sites in hopes of boosting turnout and influence, and it seems to have worked.

While the Republican candidates largely have shunned the Silver State in favor of today's GOP primary in South Carolina, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards have been running hard here.

That means running hard for the labor vote in a state where unions have bucked the national trend of losing political influence as their membership shrinks.

"This is the first in history that a labor state has been so important" in the presidential primary season, said Nevada Assemblyman Tick Segerblom, a Democrat from Las Vegas. "It's the first time in history that a labor state is one of the first four states to vote."

Reflecting the union-heavy electorate, Clinton and Edwards sharply attacked Obama on Friday for telling a Las Vegas newspaper that President Ronald Reagan -- who is notorious among labor activists for busting the air traffic controllers union -- fundamentally changed the nation more than President Bill Clinton did.

Obama also said that the Republicans had been "the party of ideas" for a long time.

"That's not the way I remember the last 10 to 15 years," Clinton said, noting that the Republican ideas of privatizing Social Security, eliminating the minimum wage and burdening the nation with debt were not good ones.

Such arguments could resonate with the 13.8 percent of Nevada workers who are unionized, which is higher than the national average of 12.5 percent.

Segerblom noted that the Democratic National Committee chose Nevada as an early-voting state in part because of its heavy union presence, a sharp contrast to the traditional early starters: Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Of course, Nevada -- and Las Vegas in particular -- contrast sharply with practically anywhere else on the planet, a key reason why union endorsements alone won't be a guide to the results.

Most importantly, labor is split, with "the Culinary," as it's called in these parts, backing Obama and the carpenters behind Edwards. And while the Nevada State Education Association has not officially endorsed Clinton, several of its leaders support her.

That split has produced much of the drama in the race. After the Culinary endorsed Obama, the teachers union sued to try to shut down the casino caucus sites, saying they violated the "one person, one vote" principle by giving a certain class of voters an extra place to vote.

A federal court dismissed the lawsuit Thursday, which is expected to benefit Obama.

"The Culinary is pretty effective in getting its people out, so this endorsement is likely to translate into actual tangible votes," said Ted Jelen, a professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

The Culinary boasts 60,000 members -- more than twice as many as the state's second-largest union -- and that means it might have the sheer numbers to put Obama over the top in a state where no more than 70,000 people are expected to caucus.

A special weighting system also will give the casino-based caucus sites disproportionate influence in the awarding of the delegates, which Mark Penn, Clinton's chief strategist, said probably will give Obama a 5 percentage point advantage.

The RealClearPolitics.com average of recent Nevada polls still gives Clinton a 3.7 percentage point edge overall.

"But if the polls turn out differently from the result, there may be an easy explanation for it this time," Penn noted.

Then again, interviews with about a dozen members of the Culinary this week showed them to be split, with Clinton drawing nearly as much support as Obama.

Asked if the union was calling him to ask him to caucus for Obama, Noam Castro, a bartender at the posh Paris resort along the strip, said, "They call, and they call, and they call, and they call."

Not one to be easily swayed, Castro said he was leaning toward Clinton, who, he explained, will benefit from her years of experience in the White House.

Judi Musolino, a Niagara Falls native who waits tables in the bar at Paris where Castro works, voiced disdain for both Obama and Clinton.

"I think he's young. I think he's inexperienced," Musolino said of Obama. As for her distaste for Clinton, she said, "That does not require an explanation."

Other Culinary members echoed the union-line sentiment of Tammy Wahrer of Las Vegas, a member of the Carpenters Union, which boasts 20,000 members and has endorsed Edwards.

She's backing Edwards for one simple reason: "I am a carpenter, so I will stand with the carpenters."

Of course, the union label is not the only new dynamic that Nevada brings to the presidential race.

Nevada is simultaneously the nation's fastest growing state and one of its most transient; and metro Las Vegas -- which has 70 percent of the state's population -- has been more burdened by the mortgage foreclosure crisis than any city in the country.

The state of entrepreneurs and immigrants is infinitely more diverse than Iowa and New Hampshire, and, therefore, more like the rest of the United States.

"We're over with the white bread and mayonnaise primaries," Jelen said.

For political prognosticators, though, white bread and mayonnaise is a lot easier to digest than modern Nevada's multicultural stew.

Hispanics make up 12 percent of the state's eligible voters, and Jelen said they may well decide the outcome on the Democratic side.

He noted -- as did several Hispanic voters -- that Clinton has had a strong relationship with the Hispanic community since her days as first lady. Some of those voters said they are not about to abandon her now no matter what their union tells them.

Indeed, while Clinton's Nevada events typically draw huge Hispanic crowds, only a few dozen Hispanics attended an Obama event that attracted hundreds to a convention center in Henderson, a Las Vegas suburb.

As he did in Iowa and New Hampshire, Obama seems to be appealing to the upper-income Democrats, the entrepreneurs and educators who say they're swayed by his vision of a reunified America.

"What I like about Obama is that he thinks," said Stan Hillyard, a professor at UNLV's dental school.

If all that makes the Democratic race a bit confusing, just take a look at the Republican side of things, where voters won't caucus in casinos. GOP candidates -- except for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas -- have shunned the state in favor of the traditional primary kingmaker, South Carolina.

That odd dynamic gives life to the possibility that Paul, a libertarian who appeals to the state's gun-toting cowboy crowd, actually might win here, further diluting a chaotic race for the GOP nomination where no single candidate has won more than one major contest.

Complicating matters further on both sides of the aisle, Nevada traditionally had been a state with a late caucus. In 2004, only 9,000 Democrats turned out for the event.

Given Nevada's political history, "we have no idea whether people are going to turn out there," said Charlie Cook, political analyst and publisher of the Cook Political Report.

The Associated Press and News Staff Reporter Lindsey McPherson contributed to this report.

e-mail: jzremski@buffnews.com

Originally published by NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF.

(c) 2008 Buffalo News. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved. Vegas Plays 'Strip' Politics ; Special Caucus Sites Reflect Union Muscle in Tight Democratic Race
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