In Vegas, Politics Comes to The Strip

Culinary union officials dismiss the complaints as sour grapes from Clinton allies. "It's strange it's coming after our endorsement," D. Taylor, the secretary-treasurer, said of the suit.

Minutes from the meeting last March when the state Democratic committee approved the caucus process show that several of the parties to the suit were there and approved of the process.

Clinton raised questions about the caucus process when she campaigned here Thursday. Repeating an argument she made after she lost the Iowa caucuses, she said caucuses provide only a "limited period of time" for participation, as opposed to day-long primaries. "People who work during that [caucus] time, they're disenfranchised," she told reporters.

State party officials counter that the sites in the casinos are specifically designed to meet the objections raised by Clinton and to allow more people to participate in the notoriously cumbersome caucus process.

The casino caucuses are open to any shift worker, including cab drivers and employees at nonunion casinos, who is on duty midday Saturday within a 2 1/2 mile radius of the nine sites. They must present identification showing that they work on or near Las Vegas Boulevard, the Strip's official name. However, the logistical reality of Las Vegas -- where mega-casinos can be half a mile long and the Strip is clogged with cabs hustling gamblers around town -- is that it will be very difficult for workers in nonunion casinos to take the time to walk or drive to the caucus sites.

Culinary officials have been prepping their union's members on caucus rules -- the doors close promptly at noon, and no late attendance, for example -- at meetings for months. Although their endorsement of Obama came late, they predict a near-united front for him, adhering to the labor movement's notion that division weakens a union's hand, whether in contract bargaining or politics.

"We believe that everyone has the ability to choose on their own, but normally we all try to stick together," said Jennifer Grote, 44, who works in food service at the Paris hotel-casino and will serve as a caucus captain on Election Day.

"You cannot divide union workers," added Leain Vashon, a bell captain at the Paris.

Any members who want to oppose their leadership and support another candidate will have to do so in front of their co-workers, wearing their casino-issued work clothes identifying themselves as members of the union.

At the Bellagio, executives estimate that between 4,000 and 5,000 employees will be working at caucus time. While they have been accommodating so far, executives say they cannot possibly let every worker take more than an hour-long break on Martin Luther King Day weekend, which will be extra busy.

"It's not perfect for us. We've got a business to maintain," said Gordon Absher, spokesman for MGM Mirage, which owns the Bellagio and three other casinos hosting caucuses.

Despite Obama's organizational advantage, Clinton has hardly given up in Nevada. After touring a Latino neighborhood that is home to many culinary workers Thursday, she returned here yesterday with former housing secretary Henry Cisneros in an effort to peel away Latino votes.

With Obama getting the support of the dishwashers and housekeepers, Clinton has the backing of such political players as former governor Bob Miller, former Las Vegas mayor Jan Jones, and Rory Reid, son of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (who has stayed neutral in the race).

Her campaign convened a conference call with casino executives Friday to attack Obama for his opposition to expanding casino gambling in Illinois while he was in the legislature there. They said it was hypocritical of him to accept the endorsement of the hotel and casino workers while having previously criticized the industry on which their livelihoods depend.

Taylor, the culinary union leader, pointed to Clinton's prominent backers as evidence that "the entire Democratic power structure" supports her, saying that makes Obama the underdog.

The competitive nature of the fight is exactly what Nevada Democrats hoped for when they used Harry Reid's clout to give the state an early place in the primary process. The state party bills the contest as "the test in the West" -- the first battle in the western half of the nation.

"Nevada is right in the eye of the storm, and it's wonderful," Harry Reid said in an interview last week.