Wednesday, July 18, 2007 | 7 a.m.
Chris Dodd finished his speech and started working the room, white hair rumpled from passing sweaty fingers through it too many times.
The Democratic presidential candidate had spoken in a cramped office suite for about a half - hour - to a Las Vegas crowd of maybe 40 people.
Dodd had come to Las Vegas to open his campaign headquarters, a simple act that candidates traditionally try to leverage into a big campaign event. But this drew just 40 people?
Hillary Clinton's traveling posse is that big. Barack Obama is greeted by more fans at airports. John Edwards always has big turnouts.
Dodd, not so much.
It's the same for two other Democratic candidates, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden. With Dodd, they make up the second-tier of candidates in the Democratic field. They have less money than the three front-runners and they are far behind in public opinion polls.
But here's the thing, or three things actually:
Each of the second-tier occupants has a resume more impressive than any of the front-runners. (The combined tenure of the top three Democrats is barely half Dodd's time in the Senate.) They appear to be having more fun campaigning. And they are spending more time in Nevada than Clinton, Obama or Edwards, all of whom usually come and go the same day, rarely staying overnight.
As Dodd shook hands and posed for photographs after opening his headquarters late last week, he stopped to talk with a reporter (also something a front-runner rarely does).
"Senator, we met in Pahrump," the reporter said, reminding Dodd of his last visit to Nevada.
Dodd broke into a big smile. "Ah, Pahrump," Dodd said, recalling in his deep voice a billboard he saw advertising the city's Museum of Brothel Art. "That's one of the greatest billboards ever."
In fact, he loved his visit so much that he recounted it for The New York Times, telling the newspaper that he got great publicity out of the trip: "I got a bump out of Pahrump."
And then this line that encapsulates Dodd and his campaign: "You have to have a sense of humor about this thing."
Similarly, Biden, known for his trademark smile and loquacious style, works crowds like a stand-up comedian, singling out audience members and cracking jokes.
Richardson, once the president of his college fraternity, charms with his jocular disposition, one that has disarmed the likes of Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro.
Former Sen. Edwards, by comparison, was stilted last week, launching directly into policy at a Las Vegas union hall Wednesday. There, he described his plan to raise the minimum wage and end poverty.
Obama was more sociable in his visit last week, but he came and went the same day.
Dodd is pitching himself as the "ideas" candidate. On a table in his campaign headquarters were 14 position papers, including one that outlines how his legislation has helped Nevada firefighters. (Dodd says he loves firefighters.)
It's his experience that distinguishes him from his party's front-runners, he said, and it's the glue that bonds the second-tier candidates.
"Experience has much more currency today because of what we've been through in the last six years," Dodd said. "No one wonders if Joe Biden, Bill Richardson or myself are ready to be president. These other campaigns are based on celebrity and name recognition, and that is much harder to sustain."
Dodd has spent the past 33 years in Congress, a fact he underscored Thursday by pulling from his back pocket the creased copy of the Constitution that Sen. Robert C. Byrd gave him at his start in the Senate 26 years ago. For much of that time he's played an influential role in foreign affairs , and he now heads the Senate Finance Committee.
Biden has served in the Senate since 1973, he heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and he has become his party's point man on Iraq. His plan to partition Iraq into three regions based on ethnic lines has been embraced by many leaders on both sides of the political aisle.
Richardson sports a varied resume of public service that includes 15 years in Congress and stints as President Clinton's ambassador to the United Nations and energy secretary. Last year he was elected to a second term as governor of New Mexico with nearly 70 percent of the vote.
All three are making more of their time in Nevada than the Democratic front-runners.
Last week, a day after opening his headquarters, Dodd flew to Reno, where he hosted a town hall for Culinary Union members. From there, he drove to Carson City, where he attended a barbecue with local Democrats. Then he drove back to Reno for another town hall, this one at a local brew pub.
Richardson toured a farmers market in Sparks on Thursday and later attended a house party with UNR students in Reno. On Friday he opened a Northern Nevada campaign office and met with local activists in Elko.
By contrast, Edwards flew into Las Vegas for a lone town hall. Sen. Barack Obama visited on Friday to attend a house party at the home of a Las Vegas supporter. Neither candidate had other public events on his schedule .
Dodd, for one, sees an opening in Nevada, despite failing to register in the last statewide poll.
"All of a sudden this thing has opened up," he said. "I feel pretty good about where we are."
And then that Dodd humor: "I've got nowhere to go but up."
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