Presidential campaigns setting the stage for Apr. 12 Clark County re-vote

LAS VEGAS-Saturday, elected delegates from the Clark County Democrats' Jan. 19 precinct caucuses will descend on the Thomas and Mack Center at UNLV to cast make-up votes from their unsuccessful Feb. 23 convention. As the date approaches, both remaining Democratic presidential campaigns are working feverishly to turn out their delegates and hopefully improve on their positions heading into the state convention May 17-18.

Since the new county voting plan was announced Mar. 5, the campaigns of both N.Y. Sen. Hillary Clinton and Ill. Sen. Barack Obama, with the help of state and county party staff, have identified their full complements of delegates for the re-vote and mailed delegates their credentials. Now, the campaigns are relying on telephone and e-mail contacts for a GOTD (get-out-the-delegates) effort to get their people to the Apr. 12 poll.

"We're just whipping our delegates," said Clinton state and Clark County Commission Chairman Rory Reid today. "It's a pretty small universe relative to what we had to deal with prior to Jan. 19. We're just encouraging them to come to the convention on the 12th and vote for Hillary."

According to the Nevada Democratic Party's caucus website, Clinton won 4,088 delegates to the state convention in Clark County, out of a total of 5,407 Clinton delegates statewide. Obama won 3,275 delegates in Clark County and 4,805 delegates overall in the state.

"We have aggressively worked to fill our delegate slots and to make sure the delegates understand the importance of showing up on Saturday," said state Sen. Steven Horsford, one of the leaders of Obama's Nevada effort. "It's what we've done in the campaign all along, which is very grassroots-oriented. There are a lot of volunteers logging a lot of hours, making personal calls and sending e-mails."

Obama's campaign has had volunteers phone-banking delegates evenings from a sub-let trailer at the Culinary Workers Union. Edith Byrd, 55, is one of those volunteers and has spent the last two evenings making GOTD calls.

"I did have a lot of responses [last night] and a lot of people said, ‘of course they would be there,'" said Byrd. "They told me if they have to lose a limb that they will be there."

The Clark County Democratic Convention was originally scheduled for Feb. 23, but had to be recessed due to an over-large turnout of delegates and prospective alternates. The turnout was more than the facility at Bally's could handle and many delegates were shut out, leading to fears that Clark County's delegates to the state convention or even Nevada's delegates to the Democratic National Convention may be challenged and not seated.

"The main problem that we had on Feb. 23 was that there were only supposed to be about 7,200 people that should have attended," said Clark County Democratic chairman John Hunt. Hunt estimated that 20,000 to 25,000 people attempted to attend.

"We now have a finite number of people, only the delegates, that will participate Saturday," said Hunt. "The only people allowed in the building will be delegates. We have acquired 150 county voting machines so that there will be no handling of ballots. It's the same process that you see when there's voting in any election in Nevada."

Hunt said he expects close to 100 percent turnout this Saturday.

The Mar. 5 plan also called for an executive committee of the state party to oversee delegate identification with state Sen. Terry Care acting as a neutral arbitrator to settle any disputes about credentialing. According to Hunt, the process went smoothly and Care "was not asked to resolve any issue the entire time."