Campaign coffee klatch: A dozen candidates for four voters

Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2006 | 7:21 a.m.

Saturday morning on the campaign stump starts under the electric bingo board at El Dorado Estates senior mobile home park, where almost a dozen state and local political hopefuls arrive at 8:30 with cards, T-shirts, pins, pens and promises to deliver.

There are cookies, and there is coffee and there is potential.

The candidates are ready to mill around, shake hands and smile big at anyone who comes in the door. A reporter is quickly spotted and courted. Primary elections are days away and everyone is eager to hand out campaign fliers and meaningful quotes.

There is just one problem. There are only two people in the audience - two women who, sunk deep into the park's rec room couch, look as if they made a wrong turn on their way to the bocce court or neighborhood slot.

And now they are trapped. For the next half hour or so, in their matching white pants, sandals and floral shirts, they are the only women in the world.

The speeches begin. The two women sit with arms folded and hands clasped as, one by one, each candidate explains why he or she ought to have their vote for sheriff, secretary of state, constable, district attorney or District Court judge.

Each pitch is timed by the event's organizer, a perky woman in shorts and T-shirt, whose optimism echoes off wood panel walls. Most candidates try to lock in eye contact with the two women. Others read from cards. A handful crack jokes, sometimes over another hopeful's speech.

Afterward, most of the candidates ask whether the audience has any questions. This audience never does.

Finally, another voter enters - a lanky man in jeans and glasses wanders in 30 minutes late. Before he can make it to the back corner of the room, a campaign operative working to promote county recorder candidate Gil Eisner hands him some literature. This sets into motion a volunteer for sheriff candidate Jerry Airola, who jumps to shove some glossy fliers into the man's hand.

Soon a woman shuffles in from a side door, all but obscured under a scarf she has draped and secured over her head with a baseball cap. She gets a plate of cookies, a cup of juice, and seats herself a few feet in front of secretary of state candidate Danny Tarkanian.

When he is done talking, the woman rustles papers and asks him for an autograph. He obliges, and Airola announces loudly that he, too, would be happy to give an autograph.

Governor hopeful Dina Titus arrives, now almost an hour late. The speeches are over and a few candidates are still hovering around El Dorado Estate residents, who are obliged to take more fliers , magnets, stickers and throw-away campaign mementos.

This, says sheriff candidate Laurie Bisch, is all part of the game. Her yellow pickup truck is parked outside, rigged to carry a massive A-frame billboard.

After Ed Dorado Estates, she's on her way to campaign at a gun show.