Sun, Oct 28, 2007 (7:14 a.m.)

ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS MORRIS

Barack Obama, Cheyenne High School, North Las Vegas, Thursday, Oct. 18

A man sidewinding through a huge crowd awaiting Barack Obama sports a denim shirt, a baseball cap and the kind of American flag suspenders you don't often see at Democratic rallies in large cities. "Yes sir - our brand-new president," he shouts in ranch-hand twang.

"A'right, a'right, a'right," a black woman with a walker shouts back.

A middle-aged white woman turns to a lanky, long-haired Hispanic teen standing next to her and says, "Isn't this exciting?" A teen with a Mohawk makes out with a girl in a dandy emo-rocker sweater. A couple of guys wearing white Navy uniforms tower over their neighbors.

The crowd looks as eclectic as the kind presidential candidate Obama attracted when he started campaigning last winter, but this one sounds different. Chattier, more keyed up, less curious, more certain.

The layout is different, too. On earlier visits, Obama stood in the middle of crowds, surrounded. Tonight, he will speak in front of a giant American flag like George C. Scott in "Patton."

The press passes are new. Formerly cheery blue with a sun rising over a rolling field of red and white stripes, they now sport a dingy flag that looks like George Washington once used it as a coffee filter. Over it are the words "The Judgment to Lead."

A kindergarten teacher with a son in the Marines makes the introduction. She speaks with sincerity and poignancy about her fears for her son's life. She is good, really good, perhaps suspiciously good. She says: We need a candidate with "The Judgment to Lead." Probably a coincidence.

When Obama comes out, the "a'right" woman fires up her word.

When Obama shouts, "I will end this war," the crowd shouts so loudly the sound comes up through your feet.

When Obama talks about staying out of Iran, a woman accidentally steps on a cord to the sound system. It's like the auditorium popped out an air lock. In space, no one can hear arguments for diplomacy.

A guy wearing black hustles over to reconnect the sound at a junction box, then stands over it with his arms crossed and an expression like he's crushing a weasel with his bare thighs.

Later, while taking questions, Obama is asked a crazy one about the North American Union, a crazy plan to merge Canada and Mexico that the questioner claims President Bush has agreed to in double supersecret meetings. Obama tries very hard to answer without using words like "crazy."

Obama takes a final question, pointing to a young girl who he expects to ask a softball. Cory, 11, asks how he's going to lower gas prices.

Afterward, an older gentleman lectures a young activist about unreliable poll results in Nevada, where voter turnout is unpredictable.

"If all the Democrats who live in this state voted," he says, "there's no way that thing would be governor."

Outside, two high schoolers ponder their brush with democracy.

"It seems like it was all talk and rhetoric," one says.

"Well, yeah. It's a speech."

John Edwards, carpenters union training center, last Saturday morning.

John Edwards is introduced with the song "Born to Run," which is a good choice for a crowd you could picture at a Springsteen concert shouting, "Bruuuuuuuuuce!"

The place smells faintly of sawdust. Many people wear union shirts; others have printed slogans like "Big Moose."

All these carpenters seem about 6-foot-5. When they stand up, they're an instant forest of maybe 500 trees, many favoring mustaches in the way that lions favor manes.

Before Edwards speaks, the crowd sits through a short union film with the kind of narration you used to get in filmstrips about the perils of heavy petting. The trade deficit is bad, it says, because it's bad for the economy, "and for carpenters." Global trade agreements and outsourcing are bad for jobs, "and for carpenters."

Finally, the video ends, the union president speaks, and it's time for the carpenters to greet the candidate.

Edwards says the government should make it easier for workers to form a union. He bashes the North American Free Trade Agreement and a certain sinister-but-unnamed administration (think Clinton) that managed to pass NAFTA but not universal health care (think Clinton spouse).

If Congress won't pass universal health insurance, Edward says, as president, he would take away Congress' health insurance.

At this, some of the carpenters go "Woof-woof-woof" like Arsenio Hall audiences did in the '90s.

Outside, the Edwards campaign asks people to sign up to be precinct captains.

"Nah," says one towering guy with a mustache that could conceal several children, "I'm just here for the union."

Hillary Clinton, Springs Preserve amphitheater, last Sunday morning

Not a great morning for Clinton, if you judge by parking lots at her events.

At one, a man holds a Ron Paul banner. At another, a guy wears a barrel. (He hoists a sign complaining that the casinos robbed him of a slot jackpot and the courts are complicit and the government is complicit and why doesn't anybody listen to a man wearing a barrel?)

Inside the Springs Preserve amphitheater, people gather on the fake grass in front of the fake - rock stage. The lawn is about half-full, with the news cameras in the middle, pointed forward. In the back, a kid sitting on the shoulders of an unshaven man wearing a Dallas Cowboys jersey and hat asks, "Why can't we be on TV?"

Because the cameras are up front.

"Why?"

Nevada Treasurer Kate Marshall mounts the stage and says, "Don't worry. Your money is fine."

"Just don't let the Democrats spend it," the Cowboys fan shouts.

Marshall talks about the importance of funding education.

"Education or indoctrination?" he shouts.

A campaign worker hands out Clinton signs and tells people in the back to stand up, wave the signs and try to move in a bit to fill the gaps in the back rows.

"So the media can see it, huh?" the Cowboys fan says. "The drive-by media."

A few minutes pass. The Cowboys fan asks, "When is the queen of mean getting here?"

Clinton is coming from the East Las Vegas Community/Senior Center, where she appeared on stage with two people who represented the broken health care system.

A woman in the audience at the center said she worked in health care (cheers) at a pharmaceutical company (silence), but got arthritis and had to have surgery. Now the company won't hire her back, and in her view, it's George Bush's fault, his and the company's.

A man asked : What's wrong with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and the other Republicans? Why won't they fix health care? Where is the compassion?

A woman stood up and said, "We definitely need a woman president," which brought big cheers, then Clinton left for Springs Preserve .

By the time she walks on stage at the preserve, the Cowboys fan is gone.

She is a little hoarse as she talks about health care, then moves to renewable energy and the high cost of college. That last item goes over well, maybe because this crowd of about 1,500 is skewed Baby Boomer.

It is also heavily female. More than a few men are holding purses and waiting by railings, including a man wearing black jeans and a Harley-Davidson shirt, talking into his cell phone. "I'm at a Hillary Clinton rally," he says. "Yes, that's really where I am."

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