Mad Voter: What I saw at the Nevada caucuses

The debate in Las Vegas last Tuesday exceeded my expectations, or at least the participants did. The moderators, particularly Tim Russert, performed as expected, needling Clinton and Obama on issues of race and gender - trying to push the idea that the Democratic party was splitting over "identity politics," the new favorite phrase of the chattering class.

Despite the goading, the candidates behaved admirably, avoiding the pitfalls letting Russert make the very real tensions between Obama and Clinton reflect a larger fight among Democrats.

The highlight of that portion of the debate for me was the audience heckler (who sounded suspiciously like Mike Gravel) yelling at Russert to give it a rest already. Once the moderators gave up on the idea of starting a brawl, it ended up being one of the most substantive debates of the season.

I spent the next few days in Vegas on the Strip, trying to get a sense of how the big experiment of the process - the huge at-large casino caucuses - were going to unfold. I came away thinking we were doomed to see a muddled, raucous and problematic result from those caucuses.

I was concerned that union members and workers, many of whom are native English speakers, were going to be caucusing with their bosses. It looked like a prescription for intimidation to me, but that's not how it turned out. While there have beena lot of unsubstantiated reports of voter intimidation, the largest bloc of casino voters - the Culinary Workers - didn't go with their union's candidate, and Clinton won 7 of the 9 casino votes. That gives me a little more faith in the caucus process and in the unions.

While I'm still not a big fan of caucuses (too many people just can't show up to participate) my experience observing caucuses in Reno on Saturday also helped restore some of my faith in the system. I observed both the Republican and Democratic events Saturday morning.

First off for the Republicans - those results you are seeing are not the actual delegates committed to candidates, because they weren't selecting delegates by candidate. They did, however, have a straw poll at the end of the caucus where they could register their preference for President. This is where things got very confusing at the caucus - in some precincts, the candidates for delegate were asked to state their presidential candidate preference, and in some they weren't.

In some precinct meetings they started out with a show of hands for each candidate, and in some they didn't talk about the candidates at all. What was most prevalent among the Republicans I saw was the widespread look of confusion on people's faces as they tried to navigate the process.

That could have been a function of venue as well as lack of experience and a bunch of confusing rules. There were a couple dozen precincts meeting in a grade school gym, with people crowded into the bleachers, their precinct captains trying to shout directions above the din of all the other precinct captains shouting above the din. The confusion, the aforementioned din, the fact that they weren't actually selecting delegates for candidates directly, made more than a few folks a little cranky. As an observer, I wasn't supposed to talk with anybody, but I spent the hour circulating and eavesdropping on the proceedings.

What I saw was very few people speaking passionately for any candidate, which they were given the opportunity to do ahead of the straw poll vote. With the exception one McCain guy and a few Paul supporters, it was a very business-like crowd there to do their thing and move on. Turnout seemed good in the venue I observed, but was light overall in the state - somewhere around 43,000, about 11% of registered Republicans.

Who was motivated to turn out in this race? It's looking like it was Mormon voters. The state has about a 7.4% Mormon population, but Mormons comprised nearly a quarter of caucus attendees and 94% of those participating went for Romney. The rest probably came from the fact that he's been the only candidate to come to the state to campaign. The only other candidate to spend any effort in Nevada was Ron Paul, whose efforts paid off and given him the number two spot.

Speaking of Ron Paul, at the Democratic caucus that followed right on the heels of the Republicans, I met a woman who had caucused with the Republicans and cast her straw ballot for Paul, even though she "didn't know much about him." She then hung around waiting for the Dems to show up, and re-registered to caucus with the Democrats, where she planned to stay for the general election. Republicans had to register a month ago in order to participate, but the Democrats allowed on the spot registration for their caucus today.

Like the prototypical Western ticket-splitting voter, the woman I talked to was a registered Republican who voted all over the spectrum, depending on who appealed to her. Today, she started out thinking she'd go with Obama because she'd gotten a call from the Obama campaign inviting her to caucus. But once she got there, she decided she was really undecided, so she started out with them, and eventually ended up with Edwards, to help him reach viability.

The Democrats had record turnout Saturday, with the state Democrats reporting more than 115,800 voters and nearly a third of all the state's registered Democrats, where they were expecting somewhere around 70,000. Now how many of those Democratic caucusers were those Republicans who switched to participate, we don't know yet. I'm really curious to see those numbers. The woman I spoke to wasn't doing it out of any kind of mischief, she wanted to send a message to the Republicans, and her heart was with the Democrats.

The Democratic caucus I watched moved extremely smoothly - the instructions were very clear, there was one person most definitely in charge who was able to answer all of the participants' questions, and everyone behaved exceedingly well. Our group, in Washoe County which was an Obama stronghold, gave four delegates to Obama, three to Clinton, and one to Edwards.

Joan McCarter is a contributing editor of DailyKos.com and a researcher of Western politics

But the biggest cheer of the day did not come when the final delegate count was announced - it came when the precinct captain announced that the Democrats were on the way to taking back the White House and taking the country back from the party of George Bush. Make no mistake, the people who showed up to caucus in Reno Saturday were all about the Democratic party winning in November. Of course, both Clinton and Obama claimed victory - Clinton the popular vote and Obama the delegate count. Clinton has the momentum coming out of Nevada, but if we do end up in a brokered convention (and at this point, I wouldn't rule it out) that one delegate Obama picked up because of the way Nevada's Democratic party weighted results, giving rural precincts a boost.

The tensions between the top two candidates and their most ardent supporters led to some charges and counter-charges in Nevada that from my perspective are highly exaggerated. Where the campaigns cry foul - voter suppression and intimidation - it comes down to a few things: many new people who didn't know how the process worked adding to the confusion of an already complex process; way more people than they thought would show up, meaning crowded venues and not enough pledge cards and signup sheets; a Clinton campaign that was far more prepared to caucus and knew the ropes better, with a lot of sharp elbows and maybe a handful of questionable incidents - but nothing approaching a coordinated suppression effort.

The personal tensions between Clinton and Obama finally boiled over last night in South Carolina, resulting in what was certainly the most entertaining of the gazillion debates we've seen so far. What emerged last night were candidates who are passionate about leading, and leading as Democrats.

They put away the notion that any of them are trying to create a split in the party along identity lines, and fought over substantive, progressive issues. While the personal fight might have gotten a bit out of hand (and as an aside, I think it's time for Bill Clinton to put a sock in it), the candidates made it clear that it is personal and not a reflection of fault lines in the party they intend to exploit. That's good news for all those Democratic voters who are motivated to win in November.

Editor’s note: Joan McCarter's weekly blogs are part of a feature on The Denver Post's PoliticsWest.com site called "Diary of a Mad Voter." The group blog, published in partnership with NewWest.Net/Politics, is intended to give a glimpse into the hearts and minds of several independent-minded voters and thinkers in the Rocky Mountain West in the '08 election cycle. Check back regularly at www.politicswest.com for "Diary of a Mad Voter."

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