Friday, July 13, 2007 | 7:23 a.m.
If ever there were a Nevada politician who would seem tailor-made for the Nevada chapter of the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, she is Reno Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie.
Liberal, female and ambitious - sound familiar? - Leslie's career has been filled with forays into progressive causes such as improving health care and helping the less fortunate. She was a natural to be the next in the cascade of Nevada elected officials to endorse the New York senator.
Instead, Leslie was one of two state lawmakers (the other was Sen. Steven Horsford) rolled out by the Barack Obama campaign as leaders of his Nevada effort. Leslie's alignment with Obama is emblematic of why the Illinois senator, despite his youth and relative inexperience, is considered such a threat to front-runner Clinton in the race here and nationally.
Leslie's explanation for her decision also surely echoes similar endorsements across the country. "I'm really excited to be part of his campaign," Leslie told me this week. "After meeting with him and seeing how he interacted with people, I really did get the sense that he could be the inspiring leader our country needs. It's time for a change, to bring our nation back to the place where we are all proud of ourselves again."
And, Leslie added, "His consistent position against the war was the tipping point for me." As opposed to Clinton, for whom sorry seems to be the hardest word to say to appease many of the faithful.
To Leslie and other Democrats, Obama generates excitement, provoking the kind of giddy rhetoric Leslie used. He is the bona fide change agent. And, of course, he was against the war before being against the war was popular.
Obama may not be able to match the icy efficiency of the Clinton campaign, which has racked up endorsements here and across the country in an attempt to create an aura of inevitability. It is a tactic that has worked well here, where anointments are the rule.
But Obama's ability to keep pace with Clinton in fundraising and his ability to tap into a primary electorate galvanized by Iraq have turned this anointment on its head.
In Nevada, Clinton has more high-profile Democratic names - ex-Gov. Bob Miller, Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, Treasurer Kate Marshall, Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani and ex-Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa. But it is the breathless rollout of these endorsements, as if each one is indicative of an unstoppable steamroller. Sometimes methinks the senator doth get endorsed too much.
The Clinton memomania also is illuminating. National strategist Mark Penn's July 9 missive and then a local campaign's epistle two days later (not coincidentally right before Obama's steering committee was announced) had the same message: "Look how great we are doing. We are doing great. Can you see how great we are doing?"
This is not to say that the Clinton campaign has not been effective here. She is much better organized, has shown an uncanny ability to garner free media and is much better connected (including with longtime Clinton family friend Brian Greenspun, whose family owns this newspaper) than the Obama organization. And a poll of likely caucus-goers released last month showed Clinton with 40 percent and Obama and ex-Sen. John Edwards at 16 percent.
These polls, though, are next to meaningless almost 200 days before the Jan. 19 caucus, and Clinton has nowhere to go but down. Obama's announcement of his steering committee surely added to the Clinton campaign's worries.
Even more interesting than Leslie and African-American leaders Horsford and lobbyist/consultant Rose McKinney-James is the inclusion on the committee of Billy Vassiliadis, widely seen as one of the state's best political strategists , who also was wooed by the Clinton campaign, and Elaine Wynn. I find it humorous that the first reference to her always is as Steve Wynn's wife; trust me, folks, she is a powerhouse in her own right with a political Rolodex thicker than her lesser half's and a resume of social and educational activism that is almost unrivaled in the casino industry.
It's too facile, however, to conclude that Obama picks up much immediate momentum from this announcement. Clinton is still the front-runner and Obama has little presence here, although the process is such that what happens in Iowa (don't count Edwards out there or here) will affect what happens in Nevada.
But if too many Sheila Leslies decide to go with Obama rather than Clinton - here and elsewhere - this entire dynamic could change come 2008.
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