Democrats gamble on Vegas vote

Jan 16, 2008, 4:22 GMT

Las Vegas - The US electoral system can often seem confusing to outsiders with its bewildering caucuses, electoral colleges and multi-million dollar campaigns.

Now, add another weird factor to the system. In the Democratic Party caucuses Saturday in Nevada, thousands of union members will get to vote at polling stations specially set up in the gaudy Las Vegas casino hotels that are better known for taking gamblers' fortunes than making political ones.

But in the high-stakes contest of the Democratic presidential nomination, Nevada's casino vote could prove decisive.

With polls showing senators Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton in a neck-and-neck race in the state of 2.5 million people, a victory would allow the winner to claim to lay claim to 33 delegates to the party's presidential nominating convention in August in Denver, Colorado.

More importantly, the winner could gain momentum as the frontrunner going into key states in late January and early February. Obama and Clinton split the two previous states to vote earlier this month.

Winning in Nevada would signal strong support among the centre- left party's important Hispanic constituency. Latinos represent 20 per cent of the Nevada population and 16 per cent nationwide.

Last week, Obama won the endorsement of the influential Culinary Workers Union, which represents some 60,000 employees in the hotels and casinos that drive Nevada's economy. Their support looks to be crucial.

Party officials expect between 37,000 and 45,000 Democrats to meet in 529 precinct caucuses across the state, including nine on the world-famous Vegas Strip. Obama hopes that allowing casino and hotel workers to back him without leaving work at the Bellagio, Luxor, Mirage, Rio, Caesars Palace, Paris, Flamingo, Wynn Las Vegas and New York New York casinos will spur him to victory.

Not so fast, says Clinton. The planned casino caucus meetings have sparked legal action by the Nevada Education Association, the teachers' union, whose leaders include prominent Clinton backers. They have sued in federal court to stop the casino caucuses on the grounds that it violates the equal-protection clause of the US Constitution.

The last-minute legal manoeuvre comes as both candidates are pulling out all the stops to influence Nevada voters, trudging the sidewalks in the sprawling suburbs that have made Las Vegas the fastest growing city in America, and plastering the airwaves with a barrage of ads. They have also made the usual promises on a key issue for Nevadans - vowing to block US Department of Energy plans to store spent nuclear fuel underground at Yucca Mountain, an extinct volcano about 160 kilometers north-west of Las Vegas.

About 40 per cent of the Culinary Workers Union membership are Hispanic. Many admire Clinton, whose TV ads ask: 'How can so many millions of people not be heard? Well, I hear you!'

Obama is making similar appeals to Hispanic voters. To overcome traditional rivalries between the African-American and Latin communities, he has touted his record of easing racial divides in his home state of Illinois, while trumpeting his own humble origins and history as union organizer.

At a rally last week, he pumped up the crowd with a chant of 'Si, se puede' - Spanish for 'Yes, we can.' In an appeal to union voters, Obama hailed that working men and women - white, black and Hispanic - in the gambling capital of America can still afford to raise families in middle-class comfort with blue-collar jobs.

'We plan to make the Las Vegas dream the American dream,' he said.