Clinton’s presence brings it home

J. Patrick Coolican and Michael J. Mishak

Thursday, Feb. 22, 2007 | 6:59 a.m.

CARSON CITY - Sen. Hillary Clinton was standing in the corner of a legislative office, behind velvet ropes arrayed to prevent the crowd from crushing in on her, and she had a dazed but happy smile as one admirer after another stood next to her and Flash! OK, who's next? Flash! Who's next?

On it went until she was gently moved by an aide into an office to meet some local legislators, and then into a hallway, where fans had gathered, greeting her with literal squeals of delight, circa "I Saw Her Standing There."

For all the preparations and all the talk about how presidential politics have come to Nevada with the state's early Democratic caucus, it didn't really arrive until this moment.

Clinton and most other Democratic presidential contenders were in town for the first forum of the 2008 race. For the most part, the candidates were in broad agreement about the issues, and didn't draw particularly sharp distinctions, which is likely what organizers wanted: The nice buzz of big-time politics without the hangover of negative attacks.

And those buzzy moments that hover around presidential politics kept coming all day.

There's Carl Cameron from Fox News with a Red Bull, and a crooked Fox News grin.

There's Sen. Chris Dodd, and check out that hair. And Gov. Bill Richardson is wearing cowboy boots. He's a Westerner!

They were in town for the political and oratorical equivalent of limbering up, getting in a few deep-knee-bends in preparation for a presidential campaign that isn't so much a marathon this time as one of those extreme marathons - 100 miles through the desert.

Nevada is a player in presidential politics for the first time, and the state hosted all but one of the major Democratic candidates, who spoke to a group of union members at a small community center in the state capital, where the high school recently staged, rather fittingly, "Pericles Prince of Tyre."

It was a scene usually reserved for Iowa and New Hampshire: entourages and satellite trucks and box lunches and George Stephanopoulos.

Although the forum was in Nevada, or "Ne-VAH-duh," as Stephanopoulos mistakenly said to jeers, the two issues that dominated the discussion were national in scope: the war in Iraq and how to end it, and health care and how to improve it.

Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack distinguished himself by calling on Congress to cut off funding for the war and asking a provocative question: "I want to challenge every single one of you and ask a question. What have you done today? What have you done to end the war?"

Dodd, a 26-year veteran of the U.S. Senate, said his 2002 vote to authorize the war was a mistake.

Former senator and vice presidential candidate John Edwards also got confessional about his war vote. "I was wrong," he said.

A woman in the audience shouted, "Thank you for saying that." The crowd was raucous all afternoon.

Edwards also pitched his plan to provide health care to every American, which he'd pay for by rolling back President Bush's tax cuts for those who make more than $200,000 per year.

Clinton cannot match the oratory of either Edwards or Sen. Barack Obama, another front-runner and the only candidate not to attend.

Her tone was conversational, and she was heckled for her "yea" vote on the war authorization.

Many of the candidates ridiculed the fight in Congress over a nonbinding resolution condemning President Bush's escalation of the Iraq war, calling it ineffectual. Sen. Harry Reid, who led that battle, sat stone-faced in the front row.

After the candidates left the stage, they went into a back room where they took questions from the media, which were assembled in a gymnasium - replete with basketball hoops - watching on televisions. After Clinton finished, a scrum of photographers and reporters focused intently on a door, expecting the former first lady to appear. They waited, and they waited. Unbeknown to the media crowd, she'd slipped out another door. Suddenly, Richardson appeared in the doorway, his huge smile gracing his face.

The New Mexico governor and former ambassador to the United Nations talked up his executive experience and status as a Westerner. (Reminder: He was wearing cowboy boots.) "Governors actually do things," he said.

Some less well-known candidates practically begged the crowd to give them a look.

Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware touted his foreign policy experience as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and his plan to end the war by partitioning Iraq into three separate federal entities: Kurd, Sunni and Shiite, a plan that's now getting much buzz in the foreign policy establishment back East.

"Just look me over," he said. "I'd appreciate it very much."

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who opposed the Iraq war all along and was mayor of Cleveland when that city went bankrupt, made a dig at his competitors: "It must be difficult for candidates to come before people and explain that they were tricked by George W. Bush," he said. "Here's one who wasn't."

He closed his address by walking around, turning circles, arms outstretched, leading the audience in chants: "A president with no strings."

There was no clear winner among the candidates, and indeed, the format, in which one candidate was on stage at a time, wasn't conducive to conflict or argument.

What's clear, though, is that presidential politics has arrived.

Nevadans can expect another year of this. Some are already intensely interested. About 500 people watched the forum on C-SPAN from the local newspaper building in Carson City. The candidates stopped by.

Will the voters get fatigued?

Edwards responded: "One reason there won't be voter fatigue is that most voters aren't paying attention now."