Kerry overwhelming winner in Nevada caucus

Kirsten Searer

Saturday, Feb. 14, 2004 | 9:26 a.m.

Clark County Democrats filled the Chaparral High School cafeteria, the gym and finally the football field at Saturday's crowded Democratic precinct caucus.

Overwhelmingly, they voted to nominate Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry for president, as did Democrats across Nevada.

The only candidate to visit the state this week, Kerry won the statewide caucus with 63 percent of the vote.

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean took a distant second place, with 17 percent. Edwards won 10 percent and Dennis Kucinich received 7 percent. Other candidates split the remainder of the vote.

Delegates for the national convention will be officially committed in April at the state party convention.

Local Democrats said they were thrilled with the number of Democrats who turned up for the caucus, which typically only draws the party faithful.

An estimated 6,000 Democrats voted in the Las Vegas caucus -- about 10 times the number that voted in the 2000 caucus.

The caucuses in Reno and Carson City also saw huge turnouts, with almost 2,000 people casting votes in those two cities.

"The activists always show up, but people came today who have never shown up for one of these in their lives" said Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas.

The caucus came after at least 2,000 people attended a rally for Kerry Friday night at Valley High School.

Kerry appealed to Las Vegas workers, seniors and veterans and told the crowd he would fight the "creed of greed" that he said pervades the Bush administration.

Within his first few weeks in office, he said he would return to the United Nations to repair relations with other countries that were damaged when President Bush pushed the war in Iraq.

"Some of us know something about aircraft carriers for real," Kerry, a Vietnam War veteran, said of Bush, who declared victory in the Iraqi War last year on an aircraft carrier.

Kerry received some of his biggest cheers Friday night when he criticized President Bush for pushing forward the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste depository. As a senator, Kerry has voted against the proposed Yucca Mountain site.

After the rally, Kerry said in an interview with the Sun that he would further examine Yucca Mountain and its potential effects on Las Vegas if he were elected president.

"The president has a lot of different options about putting in place alternative choices and examining through scientific review and other things those options that might be available to us," Kerry said. "I always felt we ought to be doing that."

Kerry said Yucca Mountain could present safety, environmental and monetary issues that "I've never been comfortable with. As president, I would want to engage in that and make the effort to see what the alternatives if any make more sense."

On Saturday, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., issued a statement condemning the Democratic presidential candidates for what he said are "personal attack" on President Bush.

He also said Kerry has wavered on his positions on the war in Iraq, gay marriage, the war on terror and taking money from special interests.

"At the end of the day, it won't be hard for Nevadans to see that Sen. Kerry and the Democratic message of protest and pessimism are out of sync with this state," Ensign said in the statement.

"Regardless of the outcome of the Democratic caucus in Nevada, I am confident that this state will support President Bush and his positive vision for our state and our nation," Ensign said.

At Saturday's caucus, the state's major Democrats showed for a pep rally on Chaparral's football field. Several said they hope to maintain the enthusiasm felt Saturday throughout to the November election.

"What we need to do is realize we won the last election," Sen. Harry Reid, R-Nev., told the cheering crowd.

Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins added: "They're not stealing it this time."

Grassroots politicking literally was done on the grass on Chaparral's football field. Las Vegas resident Aurora Gandara was one of three Democrats who showed up to represent precinct 6380.

Gandara said she would like to be a delegate at the Democratic National Convention in Boston in July to vote for Kerry.

"This is do-it-yourself democracy here," she said, crouching on the field and filling out a stack of forms for the caucus.

Participants in the caucus separated into precincts and then decided who would like to be a delegate to the county convention in March.

County delegates have the opportunity to go to the state convention and possibly to the national convention to vote for their candidate.

Another 11 superdelegates - top members in the state's party - already have been chosen and will cast votes at the national convention.

During the Valentine's Day caucus, Las Vegas resident Michael Zahara passed out red roses to other participants and asked his neighbors to attend a barbecue at his home this July.

Zahara, a Chicago native, said he is so frustrated with the Bush administration that he wants to get his neighbors involved in the election, just like political activists do in the Windy City.

"This is the kind of stuff we do back home," he said. "We talk to the people."