The event is what I imagine it felt like the in the final days of Iowa -- a crowd fervent, even frenzied at times, with enthusiasm; a candidate rushing through his stump speech to get to questions; and a skeptical press wondering why all of this excitement surrounding a campaign that is supposed to be in its final days.

The campaign got some good news yesterday when the Nevada Democratic Outdoor Caucus chairman, noting that Edwards was the only candidate in the race to respond to the group's questionnaire, urged its members to caucus for Edwards and to volunteer to help in their precincts. This is a potentially very significant development, because the rural counties have not been very heavily targeted or very thoroughly organized by any campaign -- and because the roughly 15% of Democrats who live outside Washoe and Clark could hold the balance if its a close race in the larger counties. (As in Iowa, caucus math rewards breadth of support, so that the lower voter to delegate ratios in rural counties makes each supporter that much more valuable.)

The local coverage of the debate helped Edwards tremendously. While the Sun editorialized that Clinton had performed the best and the RJ endorsed Obama, Edwards got the most attention on local tv news -- largely because he represented such a novelty, previously left out of much local coverage. Hence Edwards claim at the event that "last night, Nevada voters found out there were  not two but three candidates for President."

After an abbreviated version of the stump speech, focusing on his approach to economic hardship and shorn of the anecdotes of individuals that are Edwards' stock in trade, he took questions. The questions came from a range of Steelworkers, Carpenters, teachers, veterans, and a 7-year old boy who literally asked him he would "save the world." The questions concerned the high price of gas, carbon emissions, the loss of jobs in the industrial midwest, inadequate body armour being procured by the DoD, social security, primary school literacy, Afghanistan, and, from a Steelworker, what question he had intended to ask Sen Clinton at the debate before being interrupted by Bryan Williams.

The question, he explained, would have been whether she would join him in pledging that if elected President, he not to have any corporate lobbyists serve in the White House.

His responses, as during the debate last night, highlighted his differences from the other two candidates -- his opposition to expanding NAFTA and his desire to change the focus of trade policy generally, his opposition to new nuclear power plants (on the same day that Sen Clinton said she does not oppose a nuclear waste repository; she just would not locate it in Yucca), his opposition to coal-burning plants until carbon-sequestration technology is in place, and his commitment to end combat operations and not to build permanent bases in Iraq.

As I walked around the room handing out policy booklets, I tried to focus on talking issues with undecideds and with supporters to make sure they knew their precinct location. In a few cases, I took address and email info to verify caucus location and get back to the voters. As I've written already, turning out supporters is going to be the key to each campaign's success Saturday. I was pleased to find a voter from my district who was there in an Edwards t-shirt, but whom I had not identified previously. A brief conversation on the phone just afterwards explained why -- she and her daughter are strong supporters, but our precinct captain had not canvassed their house because it had a Hillary sign out front. Put there by another family member. A reminder of the important dictum, "signs don't vote. People do."

On his way out, Edwards was approached by dozens of workers from the two major unions backing his campaign, Steelworkers and Carpenters, who thanked him for speaking on their behalf. That was pretty powerful, to see a politician being thanked by people for addressing real issues.

Tomorrow, he's got another couple of events and as of this evening, a Friday morning rally has been added to his schedule. And as importantly, tomorrow we enter the final 48 hours to caucus, the final push to turn out supporters.

I'm still not very optimistic about Edwards' chances, due to the simple reality of the big media campaigns being waged by his opponents. But I'm using the fact this is a campaign that is running on message and grassroots activism alone, to close with leaners. If Clinton wins, the message will be that the party establishment won. If Obama wins, the message will be that the unions are in fact as powerful as everyone thought.

But if Edwards does better than expected, if he's competitive despite being wildly outspent in this state, it'll mean only one thing -- that in Nevada, and in every subsequent primary state, the Democratic party, the press, and the electorate is going to have a real set of issues to address. The primary is going to go national one week after NV, and its clear at this point that if its a two candidate race, it'll be tit-for-tit exchanges about who said what about whom, and about who's breaking which rules.

If NV caucus goers stand up for Edwards, and if he hits his viability thresholds so that his supporters can win him delegates (more on what I expect to happen inside the caucus rooms tomorrow), then the primary will look like what we saw at the debate -- a clear and focused discussion of issues. After having set the agenda all year with his policy proposals, Edwards has in the last few weeks, even without winning a state, set the rhetorical agenda. Now Obama and Clinton are also denouncing "lobbyists" and "special interests" (by my count, a total of 7 times between them) and also promising to fight for the middle class.