A Guided Tour of the Las Vegas Caucus at the Wynn Casino

by: Matt Stoller

Tue Jan 22, 2008 at 20:30

I have now lost two posts about the Las Vegas caucus to my evil browser, so this one is going to be a picture tour.  I'll just say, for all the whining about caucuses - and they are problematic in many ways - the ones in Las Vegas were just awesome.  Cocktail waitresses, cooks, maids, nightclub PR flacks, pipe fitters, random Las Vegans all came together in the Wynn casino on the strip in a gaudy ballroom to pick a President, and it was... exactly like Iowa.  It was raucous, cheerful, and exciting, as that video above shows.  People are all the same, and when they are empowered it's just wonderful to observe. 

These two guys are holding signs that say 'I support the union I support Hillary', the union being the Culinary Workers whose leadership endorsed Obama.  The signs were paid for by the Clinton campaign, which outworked and out-organized Obama.

My full picture set is here, or you can follow me on the flip for a guided tour.

Nevada is a Western state.

One sign of a city full of degenerates who know how to have a good time is cupholders at the urinals. 

And here's the entrance to the caucus, an opulent hallway that had a sort of 1970s porn feel mixed with a bar mitzvah.

Let's stuff a bunch of modern art-ish stuff together and put it on a table.  Time to fuck!

And here are the nightclub PR flacks, beautiful people paid to look good and entice tourists into their clubs. 

They apparently were up all night and came to the caucus, mostly to go for Obama.  Or rather, I hear they went for Obama, because they wouldn't really talk to me, as I was uncool.  They probably had their own VIP after-caucus, not that I'm insecure.

The rest of the caucus was full of different Culinary workers, and it was just really fun to watch.

I'm a journalist.  Which issues were most important for you in making your political choice, ma'am?

People were having good fun.

And the caucus was over, and it was back to feeding, cleaning, working for, building buildings for, and enticing degenerate gamblers.

Now a quick detour from the caucus site to the Hillary victory party.  This was the secret to the Hillary campaign, older ladies who were precinct captains.  The one of the left was named Faith, and she loved Hillary.  After seeing a sign a few weeks ago a local library, she went to some trainings and became a precinct captain.

Go Las Vegas, fount of democracy.