Obama Headlines Vegas Show for Reid

President Obama is flying to Vegas today to headline a glitter-filled fundraiser for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Obama, Bette Midler and Sheryl Crow will all take the stage for Reid at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace tonight -- although not at the same time, we assume.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal estimates that the event will raise $2 million for Reid and the Nevada Democratic Party, but even that eye-popping figure doesn't erase Reid's painful poll numbers earlier this month. A Mason-Dixon poll showed Reid with a 38% to 50% favorable/ unfavorable rating in his home state, with just 35% of registered Nevada voters saying they would vote for him again.

Obama's favorability numbers in the poll beat Reid's, but the president will be greeted in Nevada by a still-simmering controversy over his comments at a town hall in February. "You can't take a trip to Las Vegas or down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers' dime," he scolded companies that have taken TARP money,

Who won't be greeting Obama in Vegas? The Republican governor, Jim Gibbons, who futilely demanded a meeting with Obama to discuss previous comments, now refuses to accept the White House's invitation to greet the president at the airport. "While I appreciate the offer, I am not interested in a handshake and a hello from President Obama," Gibbons said today. "I am interested in an apology and plan to undo the damage the President did."

Gibbons and the mayor of Las Vegas want a public statement from the president about the virtues of Sin City as a business-friendly meeting destination. Both said Obama's comments have hurt business on the Strip, which depends heavily on convention business between bachelor parties and gambling binges (we kid!). Obama's pro-Vegas push could come tomorrow, when he'll hold an event there to discuss the economy and his efforts to improve it with his multi-billion dollar stimulus package.

Despite his impolitic comments about Vegas junkets, the president will likely be greeted as a hero by most silver staters for his decision to to zero out funding for Nevada's Yucca Mountain in his 2010 budget. That move essentially kills the federal government's decades-long plan to permanently store the nation's nuclear waste 90 miles outside of Las Vegas.