Clinton's Wager Pays Off

The scene on Saturday morning in the employees' cafeteria at Las Vegas's Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino provided a glimpse of where the day was headed. When Sen. Hillary Clinton arrived to greet workers and urge them to caucus for her, they mobbed her like paparazzi. Cheering and applauding, their eyes wide with enthusiasm, they jostled for position to catch a glimpse of her and perhaps shake her hand. "You guys need to stop pushing, okay? Calm down," said one hotel staffer to a mob of employees surging toward the candidate. Everywhere she turned, Clinton—who was sporting a bright red jacket and beaming at the fervent reception—was greeted by a sea of raised cell phones, snapping away. As one guy took a picture, he yelled out, "For the best woman in the world!" A buxom waitress in a tight red dress gushed, "I'm so proud that I'm meeting you."

Most of these people were members of the Culinary Workers Union—an organization that endorsed Sen. Barack Obama and boasted a muscular turnout operation. Yet judging from their response to Clinton, many decided to part ways with the union's leadership and exercise their own ideas about who to support. "I will vote for Hillary," said Martin Corona, a banquet server who was planning to caucus later that day. "She has a lot of experience. She's better than the new man. I don't know where he comes from." Cinthya Fernandez, a housekeeper, added enthusiastically, "We're going to make history this year." Among the half-dozen union members interviewed by Newsweek, all but one declared themselves Clinton supporters.

It was only a snapshot, but apparently a telling one. Clinton won the Nevada caucuses, beating Obama 51-45 percent in a hard-fought and sometimes caustic contest. According to a memo by Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis-Doyle and strategist Mark Penn, "exit polls show she won the union vote, won across all income groups and won heavily among those around Las Vegas, sweeping Clark County. The Latino vote backed Hillary by over three to one, and Democrats voted for her by a wide margin." Moreover, she won seven of the nine at-large caucus sites that were set up in casinos—settings where Obama was believed to hold an advantage, due to his support by the Culinary union. "I guess this is how the West was won," Clinton told staffers at a festive gathering at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino where she declared victory.

The outcome capped a week of crossfire between the two leading Democratic campaigns. Clinton attacked Obama relentlessly, suggesting that he admired Republicans, that he would be a hands-off leader along the lines of President George W. Bush, that his health care plan would exclude millions of Americans. Obama launched his own salvos, mocking Clinton's response in the most recent Democratic debate to a question about the candidates' weaknesses. Groups independent of the campaigns escalated things further, most importantly in a battle over the addition of nine at-large caucus sites in the largest casinos. Their purpose: to make it easier for casino workers, many of whom would be unable to take off work on caucus day, to cast their votes. Though both campaigns had long ago agreed to these sites, the Clinton camp began arguing that the at-large sites unfairly benefited the culinary workers—and thus Obama.

Though Clinton was leading in polls taken before the caucuses, her campaign argued that the at-large sites gave Obama a significant advantage. The purpose of that line of argument was clear: to tamp down expectations for Clinton, and in the event of defeat, to furnish a ready explanation. In the final days of campaigning, Clinton added another concern regarding the caucuses: reports that some culinary-union bosses were bullying their workers into voting for Obama. Though the evidence to back up such accounts was thin, Clinton repeatedly raised the specter of voter intimidation. Among the culinary workers interviewed by Newsweek on Saturday, none said they felt pressured to vote for Obama. And in the end, of course, many didn't.(Despite his loss, Obama appeared to leave Nevada with a strong delegate count; indeed, mid-Saturday evening, he claimed to have one more than Clinton).

That dynamic was on display at the at-large caucus at the Wynn Las Vegas. In a cavernous conference hall with floral carpeting and ochre walls, supporters of each candidate arrayed themselves on opposite sides of the caucus area. They cheered on their candidate and jeered at the opposition, though all in good fun. Many culinary workers who backed Hillary waved placards that read, "I Support My Union. I Support Hillary." The 397 people who registered represented a cross-section of Las Vegas hotel workers: cooks in checkered pants and toques, cocktail waitresses in skimpy dresses, housekeepers wearing long aprons. Then there were the 40 or 50 employees of the nightclub Tryst—a young group of hipsters with gelled hair, tight jeans and Dolce & Gabbana shades, all of whom looked like runway models. They had gotten off work at dawn, powered up with coffee and came to caucus for Obama. "You guys can single-handedly make a difference! You need to get vocal!" yelled one of them, Ron Nicolli, trying to animate his exhausted peers.