Political parties make final weekend push

Kirsten Searer

Friday, Oct. 29, 2004 | 11 a.m.

A van sporting a Kerry/Edwards sign created quite a stir Tuesday when it drove through a West Las Vegas neighborhood blasting James Brown music and cutting in periodically with a booming voice to say, "Don't forget to vote!"

That's nothing, though. Democrats loaded up a mariachi band on the back of a flat-bed truck Saturday to drive through Hispanic neighborhoods and remind people to vote.

"It went all day long," said Sean Smith, spokesman for the Kerry-Edwards campaign in Nevada. "They swapped out four bands."

Both parties are pulling out all the stops this weekend for a final push to get out the vote in Nevada, a state some say could cast the deciding votes for the next president.

"The state has never seen a grass-roots effort like this -- ever," said Nevada Republican Party executive director Chris Carr.

Clark County Registrar Larry Lomax predicts a record voter turnout this year, maybe as many as 500,000 of Clark County's 684,313 active registered voters.

The would be a 73 percent voter turnout, compared with about 69 percent in 2000.

Already, a record number of people have cast early votes -- 236,062 through Thursday. The previous record for early voting turnout was set at 167,000 voters in the 2000 general election. Early voting ends today.

Bush won the state in 2000 by 21,597 votes, largely because of a boost in the rural counties.

Republicans don't plan to be outdone this weekend, saying they hope to contact at least 100,000 people over the next few days.

Volunteers from Texas, California and Utah are already here to join the 1,000-person brigade that will patrol the state for voters this weekend, Carr said.

That includes the so-called Texas Strike Force, a group of 60 volunteers that Carr described as "just a hard-core group of volunteers who are very passionate about the president."

In all, about 1,000 volunteers will make calls and hit the road every day until Tuesday on behalf of President Bush, Carr said.

They'll be helped in part by high-profile "surrogates" who plan to come to town. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was in Las Vegas Thursday to trash the Bush administration's foreign policy, and former President Bill Clinton will be here to stump for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry today and Saturday.

Getting Clinton to Nevada was a huge win for state Democrats. Clinton will speak at a rally at 3:30 p.m. today at the Clark County Government Center. State Democrats plan to shuttle people to the nearby early voting site at the Regional Transportation Commission building at the government center.

"It's absolutely going to energize people," said Democratic party spokesman Jon Summers.

Clinton is also scheduled to speak Saturday at a private event.

Vice President Dick Cheney will attend a rally at 2:45 p.m. Monday at Green Valley High School in Henderson. This will be Cheney's seventh visit to Nevada this year.

"It's proof that Nevada obviously means a lot to the Bush campaign," Carr said. "We've said all along this was going to be a competitive race."

Albright made a stop in Las Vegas Thursday as part of the "A Stronger America" tour. She spoke with several other members of Congress, and former generals and veterans.

The highest-ranking woman in the history of the executive branch had harsh words for the Bush administration, saying Bush has focused too much on the situation in Iraq while leaving problems in North Korea, Iran and even Europe unattended.

"To use a diplomatic term," she said, "the world is a mess."

Re-electing Bush would be revalidating him in the eyes of the rest of the world, Albright said.

She said she was perhaps most concerned about the lack of attention she said the Bush administration has paid to the Israeli conflict. President Clinton was accused of focusing too much on the situation, but Bush hasn't spent enough time on it, she said.

"The road to Jerusalem does not lead through Baghdad," she said.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., a strong advocate for Israel, added that she thinks America is becoming a weaker ally for Israel.

"I don't think it does Israel any good to have its most reliable -- and perhaps only -- ally in the world as one of the most hated governments in the world," she said.

In response, Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., sent out a statement saying that Kerry can't hide from his voting record in the Senate, including his vote against $87 billion for equipment for the troops in Iraq.

"Sending former Cabinet members to Nevada can't obscure John Kerry's liberal record of being on the wrong side of every important national security issue for the past 20 years," Gibbons said.