In detail, Clinton woos Culinary

Michael J. Mishak

Thursday, May 31, 2007 | 7:20 a.m.

No one prepares like Hillary Clinton.

At a morning meeting with about 300 Culinary Union members Wednesday in Las Vegas, Clinton demonstrated the discipline and exhaustive attention to detail that have come to define her presidential campaign.

The Culinary Union is holding contract briefings with each of the Democratic presidential candidates. Current five-year pacts, affecting about 50,000 hotel and restaurant employees, expire Friday.

One of Clinton's leading rivals, Sen. Barack Obama, will visit with union members Friday. Former Sen. John Edwards will do the same Saturday.

Before launching into her stump speech, Clinton described in detail how Culinary workers had touched every step of her visit since her arrival in Las Vegas on Tuesday night.

Porters took her bags. Maids cleaned her room. Chefs cooked her food.

And then, she offered simple thanks.

"I'm aware of what it takes to do the work that keeps this city going," she said. "You can have a humble building standing all alone, but it's what you do every single day that keeps people coming back."

That line brought the crowd to its feet - and Clinton was just getting started.

She proceeded to tick through a checklist of the union's contract demands: guaranteed health care and pension benefits, a defined path for career advancement, union organizing rights.

Clinton used the union's contract negotiations to highlight her central campaign theme of "rebuilding America's middle class." Organized labor, she said, provides an essential "balance of power" with corporate America.

In turn, Clinton vowed to kill special tax breaks for chief executives and corporations, to support federal legislation that would make it easier for workers to unionize, and to explore federal protection for union workers affected by private equity deals, commonly known as leveraged buyouts.

The candidates are seeking an edge from Nevada's largest and most politically active union.

Through aggressive organizing, the Culinary Union has more than tripled its membership, from 18,000 to about 60,000, in the past 18 years, becoming the fastest-growing local in the nation. That organizing muscle would be a large advantage in the state's Democratic caucus on Jan. 19.

Despite her strengths in organization, preparation and fundraising, Clinton has vulnerabilities as a candidate, best evidenced, ironically, by the biggest applause line of the day : At a town hall meeting in North Las Vegas, she declared her intention to end America's involvement in the war in Iraq.

Clinton voted to authorize President Bush to use force in Iraq, which will never be forgiven by many of the party's most devout voters, the very people who turn out in early primaries and caucuses.

Unlike Edwards, another top Democratic contender, Clinton has declined to apologize for the vote. But under pressure from liberal groups, she voted against a war-funding bill last week that did not include a timeline for troop withdrawal.

The war is just one of several reasons the party's online activists, or so-called netroots, are tepid about Clinton.

Another weakness in their eyes: She's a moderate, despite a public reputation as a liberal, which is the opposite of the ideal candidate, at least in bloggers' minds.

Although Clinton has proved to be an effective campaigner, especially in the town hall format, much of the country has fixed opinions about her, formed over 15 years.

Moving the favorability meter even a bit will take considerable effort and skill .

For now, Clinton is leading the polls in Nevada and outpacing her Democratic rivals in terms of campaign organization.

A Las Vegas Review-Journal poll conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. this month showed Clinton leading Edwards and Obama by more than 20 percentage points. A Reno-Gazette-Journal poll in March showed Clinton with a 12-point lead over Obama.

Her strong organization was on display Wednesday before a capacity crowd of 3,250 in the Canyon Springs High School gymnasium in North Las Vegas.

There, she was introduced by Clark County Commission Chairman Rory Reid, who heads her Nevada campaign, and former Gov. Bob Miller, who signed on to the national campaign Tuesday as chairman of a group of former and current governors supporting Clinton.

Also in attendance were representatives from Clinton's Hispanic and black "leadership councils," groups of volunteer campaign advisers that showcase support from the state's minority communities.

Sun reporter J. Patrick Coolican contributed to this report from Carson City.