Photo by Jena Ardell
One thing you wouldn't necessarily realize about Nevada if you aren't from here is that it can get pretty cold. It's a desert, I know deserts get cold, yada yada, but it's not something you think of as part of the typical stereotypical Las Vegas image. I have no idea how this will affect the caucuses. And frankly neither does anyone else. These aren't just the first caucuses for Nevada; Nevada is an incredibly new state, population wise, having been the fastest growing state for 20 years in a row until overtaken by Arizona in 2006. Much of that new population is centered in Las Vegas, and a good amount is Hispanic.
Traditionally, Hispanics don't participate much in politics, and caucuses are even more complicated than straight up voting, which should accentuate this tradition. That said, there has been incredibly sophisticated outreach from the campaigns, so who knows. The Culinary union is the giant unknown, as an organized and significant force in the state.
If you have some time, you should check out dday, who has some terrific insights and observations about campaign coverage in general. He and Todd Beeton covered the same event Judith and I went to from a different angle. Says Todd, after rejecting the notion that anyone can predict anything:
I can't shake the feeling, just sort of taking the three events we attended yesterday, that the Clinton camp is preparing for a win and the Obama camp, not.
If you want more Nevada, the bloggers at Calitics are volunteering and blogging about it, and desmoulins at MyDD has a good mood piece.
More cowbell! I'm going to guess that Clinton will take this one. Edwards isn't even in the state, and Clinton is up by 9 in the polls. Local news is flooded with commercials, and at least anecdotally on the news I'm seeing a lot more Obama TV than Clinton TV.
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