Jerome invited me to do some posts that would report on the campaigning in Nevada, and I'll try to do so for the next 10 days leading up to the caucus. I'm an active supporter of Edwards and have been volunteering on his behalf in a heavily Democratic assembly district since last summer. I'm a rather low-tier activist so most of what I can share is only impressionistic but at the least, my area is demographically rather representative of the state as a whole.
The big question that I'm sure is on most people's minds at the moment is what will be the impact of the Culinary and SEIU endorsements of Obama. I've posted earlier that I think its a big boost for him, though I still think its a very wide open race here. Here's why:
First and foremost, the biggest mystery of the campaign at least in the field has been the Obama ground organization. For months the press has been reporting that Obama has the best field organization anyone has ever seen in the state; for months, Ive been scratching my head about where it is. The Obama campaign has certainly been present but in my district, the canvassing and phone calling that I'm aware of his been entirely by out of state volunteers, and the precinct captains that I know in my district were not very well informed about the process nor where they particularly active as volunteers. Or, as I suppose the Obama campaign would have it, they are stealthily doing their work and not telling anyone about it.
I've long felt that his support has been intense but not very broad. I think Culinary and SEIU will certainly help him broaden it, especially in areas like mine that have a lot of members. But since the Culinary and SEIU's political turnout apparatus is best at mobilizing members in areas they are concentrated (producing some very impressive wins in some local elections the last few cycles), and since the membership is itself divided in its support (though Culinary members tend to be very loyal to the union), its not clear how broadly this organizational strength will translate into a stronger organization statewide. (Indeed, some argue that Culinary's membership's influence in the caucus will be diminished by the at-large precinct sites on the Strip, since large numbers of Culinary members who are on shift Sat the 19th may end up electing a relatively small amount of delegates.)
Culinary itself is playing down its influence and playing up the influence of Clinton's endorsements from elected officials. Some reporters have already speculated that the caucus will now become a showdown between Culinary and leading Dems like Berkeley, Titus , Reid and Guinchigliani to see who really controls the grassroots activists. Thats a silly way to analyze it, not least because it leaves out the large number of labor, enviro and progressive activists supporting Edwards.
To this point, from what I've seen, the best answer is that the endorsement has brought Obama the sort of media buzz and name recognition that Clinton has long enjoyed. Today making voter persuasion calls I picked up for the first time, casual Obama supporters -- those who had moved from undecided to Obama but could not name an issue or reason. For months, those sort of voters have been uniformly Clinton -- and everyone on all sides has considered them effectively undecided. Obama dropped mail yesterday and started a new 1 minute ad, recycled from Iowa, today, but there's no sense of a wave of support at least not in my area.
The other key question remains turnout. After Iowa and NH, the state party has raised its hopes of a turnout closer to its original target of 100K, and to this end, the party has begun a direct mail and tv advertising campaign. And getting the Culinary and SEIU turnout machine in action could help there too. But I still think this will be largely a caucus of activists rather than casual voters.
Lastly, to make the case for the Edwards camp, my calls and visits have (somewhat to my surprise) not shown any significant drop-off in support, especially among activists/ precinct captains and those off my lists that I consider likely to caucus --- and the increased field presence thanks to the arrival of most of the Iowa field staff may be increasing the number of supporters.
Richardson's withdrawal opens up a pool of likely caucus goers for the taking and, as is generally the case with non-front-running candidates, those supporters are probably a bit more issue-oriented than the average voter. I think this means they will likely be more responsive to those campaigns that can speak to their policy concerns rather than simply buzz.
As I said, this is anecdotal and probably too vague to be up to the standards of what we've enjoyed on this site. But I do hope that others who are here in NV and see it differently might give their perspectives, from Washoe or the rurals, or from another part of Clark.
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