Trailhead: A campaign blog.

Union Be Damned

Make no mistake, Hillary Clinton's projected win in the Nevada caucuses is a big deal. Not because she won—polls had her in the lead going into the caucus--but because the culinary union failed.

After Barack Obama's win in Iowa and his defeat in New Hampshire, Nevada's culinary workers' union endorsed Barack Obama—a move that pundits, aides, and staffers all said greatly boosted Obama's chances and maybe even guaranteed a win. But something seems to have gone wrong.

Latinos make up a large but undetermined portion of the culinary union, yet they favored Clinton over Obama 2.5 to 1, a loss that is foreboding for Obama as he moves forward and may have doomed him in Nevada. Moreover, Obama lost to Clinton in Clark County, where a large majority of Nevadans live and where the union has especially large sway because of its epicenter in Las Vegas. Even the controversial at-large caucus sites couldn't help Obama beat Clinton. Clinton's camp said that the at-large sites may give Obama a 5-point jump in the results, but it doesn't seem that ended up happening. If it did, then Obama has even bigger problems than he thought.

Clinton may have Harry Reid's son to thank for overcoming the union's power. Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid endorsed Clinton early on and seems to have delivered enough establishment support to sap the union's strength. With 82 percent of precincts reporting, Clark County chose Clinton over Obama 54 percent to 44 percent.

One last tidbit: Clinton had more than twice the number of Nevada unions supporting her as either Obama or John Edwards. They weren't as large as Obama's, but union members may have fallen in line with the leadership's wishes more resolutely. Exit polls show that she was tied with Obama among union members.

Obama struggled to grab union support in the early primary states, so the culinary union was thought to be a major breakthrough. Instead, it may have just allowed him to save face.

Photograph of Hillary Clinton on Slate's home page by Elise Amendola/AP Photo.

Obama's Entrance Poll Woes

If the entrance polls are suggestive of real votes in Nevada, Barack Obama has a big problem on his hands. Ms. Clinton, meanwhile, has reason to celebrate and wonder why all the hoopla over unions and caucus sites was necesasry. According to CNN:

• Seventy-two percent of voters surveyed were older than 45, and they favored Clinton over Obama.
• More female voters than male. Both genders favored Clinton over Obama, but women especially so (52 percent to 30 percent).
• Sixty-five percent of voters say this week's debate in Nevada played into their decision, and Clinton leads among those voters by considerable margins.
• Eighty-three percent of voters were Democrats, 52 percent of whom chose Clinton and 33 percent of whom chose Obama.
• The silver lining for Obama is the 12 percent of voters who said they were supporting John Edwards. Reason follows that they would go to Obama as a second-choice candidate, not Hillary, because of the two candidates' change messages.

Nevada Caucus Chaos

The lawsuit filed by a Nevada teachers’ union on Friday to keep Vegas Strip workers (the place, not the profession) from caucusing in their workplaces is making a lot of people look and sound crazy. But hey, that’s a caucus.

The main reason for the rage: The lawsuit is transparently political. The Nevada State Education Association hasn’t endorsed a candidate yet, but many of its leaders openly support Hillary Clinton. Now that the Culinary Workers union has endorsed Barack Obama, the nine new “At-Large” precincts set up in Vegas hotels—where a vast number of culinary workers will likely turn out—threaten Clinton’s prospects. The plaintiffs claim that these caucus-goers would have disproportionate influence compared to Nevadans who caucus in their home districts. But seeing as they never complained about this fact until the Culinary Workers endorsed Obama, their last-minute objection looks suspect.

Obama practically turned it into a civil rights issue: “Are we going to let a bunch of lawyers try to prevent us from bringing about change in America?” A group of Nevada teachers agreed with him, firing off an angry letter to their own union asking it to drop the suit.

Meanwhile, Bill Clinton weighed in in the name of fairness: “I think the rules ought to be the same for everyone. I question why you would ever have a temporary caucus site and limit to a certain kind of workers.” 

But even if the lawsuit is political, that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. The plaintiffs’ main contention—that voters in at-large precincts will have more influence than other Nevadans—may well be accurate. All Nevada precincts allocate one delegate per 50 registered voters; the at-large precincts would likely allocate more than that, according to the lawsuit (PDF here).

But then again, caucus math is arbitrary in the first place. Who came up with the 15 percent viability requirement? Why hold the caucus at 11 a.m., instead of after dinner? Why not create at-large precincts all over the state, not just on the Strip? The whole system is so random that this deviation from sanity seems no more offensive than any of the others. And seeing as this is Nevada's maiden voyage with the caucus system, there's no precedent. Bon voyage!