Hillary Clinton won the Nevada caucuses. The turnout was massive, well above 115,000 and far and above any pre-caucus predictions (except those of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who was closer than anyone with a prediction six months ago of 100,000).

Massive turnout did not propel Barack Obama to victory, as it did in the Iowa caucuses. In two consecutive states (New Hampshire and Nevada), large turnout has lifted Clinton and lifted her where it matters most — among core Democratic constituencies such as labor households, women, and Latinos and lower income households. Yes, Hillary had the support of most of the state’s most prominent state and county Democrats and once led by as many as 25 points two months ago. Obama did close the gap and gave Clinton a tough race. But he still lost. Wins and losses leave consequences in their wake.

In politics generally and in this race particularly, some things matter more than others. Two-straight victories for Hillary based on core party voting blocks means more than the current stir here about Nevada’s delegate allocation.

Right now, the Clinton and Obama camps are arguing over who won the most delegates in Nevada. The issue in Nevada is how delegates will be apportioned from urban centers and rural counties. Obama won 10 of Nevada’s 16 counties and carried the sparsely populated rural counties by lopsided margins and thus may collect more delegates than Hillary, even though she won the turnout and precinct battle .

Nevada Democratic Party Chair Jill Derby disputes this and she should know. Here is Derby’s statement: “Just like in Iowa what was awarded today were delegates to the county convention. No national convention delegates were awarded. The calculations of national convention delegates being circulated are based upon an assumption that delegate preferences will remain the same between now and April 2008. We look forward to our county and state conventions where we will choose the delegates for the nominee that Nevadans support.”

Delegates matter in the big picture, but this dispute is a side-show and here is why: Nevada had 25 pledged delegates to allocate and either Clinton won 13 and Obama won 12 or just the opposite occurred. One delegate either way doesn’t move the needle in any important way.

Whoever captures the Democratic nomination will need to win 2,025 delegates. Viewed in isolation, Nevada is a fraction of that amount. And a one delegate shift between 13 to 12 doesn’t change the trajectory or strategy of this race nearly as much as Hillary’s victory in the raw turnout and precinct-by-precinct contests.

Nevada is about momentum and electability. Hillary leaves Nevada with more of both than she arrived with. That’s what matters. Hillary lost two things in Iowa — the aura of inevitability and the sense that she was genuinely the most electable Democrat. With her New Hampshire and Nevada victories, Hillary can now more credibly assert she is at least as electable — and possibly more electable – than Obama.

Clinton won the union vote here by carrying 7 of the 9 casino-based at-large caucus precincts even though the Culinary Workers Union endorsed Obama and applied intense last-minute pressure to mobilize their members on Obama’s behalf. As The Bourbon Room observed before the caucuses commenced, there is every reason to believe the Culinary endorsement came too late to push Obama across the finish line first. It also means that Hillary arrived in Nevada with a pre-existing following among Culinary workers and their loyalty translated when and where it mattered most — on caucus day and at their assigned precincts. That was especially true among Latino members of Culinary. Of today’s caucus turnout, Latinos comprised 15 percent. Of those, 64 percent voted for Clinton and 26 percent for Obama.

The Latino vote in internal campaign polls before the race had a roughly 65 percent to 35 percent Clinton/Obama split. Notice, Clinton’s actual performance closely matched the pre-caucus polls but Obama’s did not.

It may be that the UNITE radio ad that described Clinton tactics here in the form of a law suit filed against the at-large precinct caucus sites as “shameless” and showing a lack of “respect” backfired on Obama. Of course, Obama’s campaign had nothing to do with the content of the ad, but Obama could have denounced the ad’s content as Clinton’s camp requested. When it did not, Obama gave rise to the perception that he agreed with the ad script which both John Edwards and team Clinton regarded as malicious and out-of-bounds.

If the Nevada race reverberates anywhere other than South Carolina, it’s in California. The Clinton campaign worked very hard to make sure Spanish radio and television were aware of her Latino outreach and the nasty nature of the UNITE radio spot. As one senior aide put it to The Bourbon Room, “we’ve been attached at the waist to Univision and Spanish radio for the last couple of days.” Pro-Clinton surrogates with deep ties to the Latino community, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaragosa and Delores Huerta chief among them, intend to leverage Hillary’s strong Latino showing and the Obama-sanctioned hardball on Spanish radio. Why? To motivate Latino voters in California, the biggest prize by far on the 22-state Super Tuesday calendar (370 pledged delegates).

For these reasons, some things matter more in Nevada than delegate allocations. The Bourbon Room has attempted to listed the most important.

Share

The Bourbon Room caught up with Rory Reid, son of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and head of Hillary Clinton’s Nevada campaign, and senior Obama adviser David Axelrod to discuss Saturday’s Nevada caucuses.

Reid: “Anyone who tells you knows what turnout is going to be is lying because nobody knows. We believe Democrats are energized and this is an exciting process for Nevada Democrats, but we just don’t know how that is going to translate on caucus day. Hillary Clinton has a strong identity in Nevada and has attracted a lot of support because of her work on Yucca Mountain (the nuclear waste repository the vast majority of Nevadans don’t want) and her push for an economic stimulus bill that will help southern Nevadans deal with the mortgage crisis. We feel very good about where we are in this campaign.”

Axelrod: “I’ve always felt that we were fighting from behind here because she has most of the establishment with her. We’re the challengers, we’re the insurgents, we’re taking on the party establishment. I’ve heard (turnout) estimates from 25,000 to 100,000 so it’s almost impossible to predict. There’s no voter history here. But I do believe she has structural advantages here that are formidable and we will have to overcome them.”

Handicapping Saturday’s Nevada caucuses would be difficult under the best circumstances. Considering the turbulence of the fight for the Democratic nomination so far, predictions about Nevada are riskier than any wager in a state famous for them.

The biggest variable here is turnout. No one knows what it will be. In 2004 energized Democratic turnout was 9,000 for caucuses that everyone knew would have no affect on the race because John Kerry was clearly en route to the nomination.

A long time ago, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, one of the biggest players in Nevada capturing its coveted third-in-line status among early caucus and primary states, said turnout could be as high as 100,000. Talk about betting the farm. There are about 412,000 registered Democrats here and a 100,000 turnout would constitute caucus attendance of roughly 25 percent of registered Democrats.

I am not aware of a precedent anywhere in American history of a state achieving turnout that high in its first competitive presidential caucus. Most Nevada pros are assuming caucus attendance will follow the Iowa model, in which about 10 percent of registered Democrats participated when Iowa’s nominating caucuses first became competitive and nationally meaningful.

Considering the energy and excitement this race has generated among Democrats, it wouldn’t be illogical to assume turnout could be as high as 15 percent of registered Democrats. If you accept the 10 percent to 15 percent turnout model, you would then expect between 41,000 and 62,000 Democrats to participate. But there are other factors that could keep turnout down, among the distractions embedded in a three-day Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend; confusion about where to caucus, and the simple lack of a caucus culture that motivates people to take an hour out of their Saturday morning to attend.

All this makes campaigns uneasy because the only thing more nerve-wracking than bad polls numbers is poll numbers you can’t trust because you can’t confidently create a reliable turnout model. That’s where the Clinton and Obama camps find themselves now.

Share