Nevada Dispatch: Casino Caucus Absurd

LAS VEGAS -- Have you seen the shiny new Wynn casino resort on the Strip? The exterior is a science-fiction golden-red futuristic wedge, unlike anything else in town at the moment. Who knows how long it will be a novelty -- Las Vegas Boulevard is a massive construction zone, and much more futuristic monuments may rise up in the very near future.

But for now, the Wynn is unique. Since I was in town for Nevada's "First in the West" Caucus and the weird experiment of letting unionized casino workers caucus in the casinos, I asked to see Saturday's vote from within the Wynn, just to see what it was like inside, and what it was like to pick a president from the massive bowels of a gambling hall.

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I can't stand Vegas and never go there unless it's absolutely necessary, like for a presidential election or a nuclear bomb test. This is what happens when you've lived in Nevada a while. There's something about seeing old people with oxygen tanks playing video poker and chain smoking menthols at the Long's Drug store on a Tuesday night that just destroys any sense of gambling glamor.

The Wynn is indeed shiny and opulent inside, but it's still filled with the kind of human trash that gravitates to Las Vegas like fleas to a filthy dog. Cocktail waitresses were pretty and costumed in very little cocktail dresses, but the actual customers, clients, gawkers, gamblers and tourists look like the usual combination of fat people in shorts on a budget cruise. You can spend a billion dollars on the finest construction and interior design, but it's all ruined by that guy with the baseball cap and the mustache and the flip flops, sucking on a "free" Coors Lite..

It only took a horrifying 20 minutes or so to find the Caucus Ballroom, just a few miles southeast of the casino floor. Once the tourists faded away, I found myself walking huge, empty, opulent hallways. Surely those little dead girls from "The Shining" would appear and take me to play with the other media, forever and ever. Instead, I just found the usual pack of media people standing around with their industrial-strength video cameras and lights and other crap, waiting around for that three seconds of video you may or may not notice on the 6 o'clock news.

Finally, the Culinary Workers' Union members could be seen, slowly making their way down the huge chamber. They were in their work uniforms, which makes sense considering they were working -- or taking a quick break from working. The camera guys waited in vain for a cocktail waitress to show up at the Caucus, in uniform. I sat in the "media corner" of the big creepy ballroom, on the floor, and discovered there was no Internet access, no wireless, no way to get my thrilling report to the world as it happened.

Covering elections and campaigns, you get so used to having all this stuff provided -- from phone lines to catered food -- that it's a terrible outrage when something basic like The Internet isn't available for reporters.

The workers slowly made their way into this monstrous cavern that could've easily held thousands of people. They talked and gossiped and laughed, and a few even led some half-hearted chants for either Hillary or (mostly) Obama. He won the endorsement from the Vegas union, so everybody just figured he'd win all the casino workers' votes. Hillary's campaign sure thought so: Her supporters went to court to block the "at large" casino caucus from happening. But the trick failed, and on this Saturday at noon the unionized employees of nine big casinos were all meeting in ballrooms, ready to try this most ridiculous part of the American political system.

If you've paid attention to the news once every four years or so, you've probably seen video of an Iowa caucus. These are orderly, well-rehearsed affairs, where white people meet up with their lifelong neighbors and eat some pie and talk to each other about which candidate said the nicest thing the other day at the diner, or which campaign provided lackluster pie at a "town hall meeting." Iowans have been doing this since 1492, when Columbus discovered Iowa, so they know the routine.

This was not the case in Nevada. Here's a very terrible video clip that I shot in the middle of the confused crowd inside the Wynn. And here's an actual professional video shot by some other guys. Both prove the same point: Nobody knew what the hell they were doing.

I was not the only reporter who thought the whole thing was well underway when somebody announced at the podium that the caucus was about to start. People were blowing whistles, the kind you use in parades or riots. Sinister observers from the Hillary and Obama campaigns were everywhere, getting in the faces of the Nevada Democratic Party volunteers, arguing about arcane caucus rules. People made little groups, sort of, but not in the orderly defined way we've witnessed in Iowa. A lot of the talk was in Spanish. The reporters and photographers were finally forced back to the dark corner, too far away to hear what was going on or even get decent pictures.

And then it was over. 185 people were on the Clinton side, allegedly, and 181 were on the Obama side. Edwards had only eight supporters. Supposedly the Clinton and Obama fans were now all working these same eight Edwards supporters, but I couldn't tell from so far away. They could have been dancing or playing frisbee or raising animals for all I knew. Eventually, Clinton's crowd won with just two more supporters than Barry Obama could claim.

Despite the chaos and confusion, it was worth seeing this oddball process for one reason: It played out in almost the same exact way in all the other casinos where workers caucused behind closed ballroom doors. Hillary won the union vote and she won the Hispanic vote. The only place where Barack Obama won big was my old hometown of Reno, where the Democrats are more rare but the ones you find are more liberal, probably because so many of them came to Northern Nevada from the ultra-liberal Bay Area.

Whatever, I've seen a caucus. When my children are old enough to totally ignore me, I'll sit them down and say, "Boys, one time I stood in a mostly empty casino ballroom and watched dishwashers vote for a woman and a black man.

And they'll gaze with confusion at our kitchen, wondering about the old days when even appliances could vote.


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