Reid caucuses, but keeps his choice a mystery

Tiffany Brown

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his wife, Landra, raise their presidential preference cards to be counted in their home precinct in Searchlight. They did not commit to any of the candidates.

By Mike Trask (contact)

Sun, Jan 20, 2008 (2 a.m.)

2008 Caucus Coverage

Searchlight — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wakes up at 5:30 a.m. on the day he created.

It is caucus day in this old mining town, as peaceful as any place around, 780 people and no stoplights.

Yet Reid worries. Using his sway as the third-most-powerful politician in the country, he has muscled an early caucus for Nevada.

And now he thinks: What if nobody shows up?

He won’t have to go far to find out.

He travels less than a mile down Route 164 from his home and turns left at Michael Wendell Way to get to the Searchlight Community Center. It’s next to Harry Reid Elementary School.

He strolls past a fellow handing out Barack Obama stickers and declines, saying, “I’m not a sticker kind of guy.”

Inside, Reid is greeted by his own portrait. He also is featured in the one-room museum dedicated to this town founded in 1898.

He knows just about everybody in the room. He sees Noreen Thanuum, who used to sell merchandise to the senator at the general store until her knee went out a few months ago. Today she’s campaigning for Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Reid takes a deep breath, seeing all the people who have showed up for the caucus — 69 people. In Searchlight, that’s massive.

He passes on the snacks laid out — a spread of crackers, sliced hot dogs, sliced meat, and cheese spread in an aerosol can.

At 11:30 a.m. sharp, the leader of the majority party in the U.S. Senate addresses his neighbors. This is a historic day, he says, and their votes count. He knows that because, he reminds them, he won a 1998 Senate bid by only 401 votes.

Caucusgoers choose to join groups for Clinton or Obama. Reid and his wife, Landra, make their own huddle, for “uncommitted.”

Standing alone, they admire a painting of a tepee called “Peaceful Morning.” The painter is Jane Bunker Overy, who today serves as precinct secretary. Yes, the town is very small.

At 12:15 p.m. the caucus is over. Clinton wins three delegates; John Edwards and Obama win one each.

And one couple is neutral.

Discussion: 3 comments so far…

By jaidahbaby

1/21/08 at 8:31 a.m.

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You know this all seems funny with some strange things going on. Talk about hard ball politics, the Clinton's have done everything but go outside and gather garbage and throw into everyone's face. If you really read closely and gather information you will be able to read between the lines of truth and lies of the Clinton's. I would not doubt if there was some underhanded stuff going on at the polling/caucus sites.
By exiledlady

1/28/08 at 12:07 p.m.

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Unfortunately, I'm inclined to agree. I've heard too many unsettling stories from people I trust. They've ranged from conversations overheard between neighbors about having their time off from work paid by a campaign so they could attend, and others in which people *talked* about being from another state (Maryland in one particular case) but having come to Nevada to caucus for their candidate. (Iowa caucus-goers reported students from other states being paid $250 to show up and caucus.) I've talked to union members who were told that caucusing for someone other than who the union supported would be viewed the same as crossing a picket line.

And how many precinct sites closed their doors early, or gave misinformation to caucus-goers?

Perhaps most problematic in my view is that we temporary caucus chairs were specifically told not to request identification from those people who were registering to vote. The voter registration forms state that registrants need to provide a Nevada drivers license/ID card or the last 4 digits of their social and a power bill, bank statement, paycheck stub, etc. that proves they live at the residence they're registering at. And yet we didn't do that. I know that people didn't provide such information. We had people marking another country as their country of origin and providing no other info besides their name and address. Were these people eligible to participate?

I'm glad the Democratic Party is so thrilled at the attendance. I find it suspicious. Republicans made people register ahead of time and had a 'normal' attendance. So I have no faith in the results and I'll sit out the next one, if Dina Titus can't give us a primary. Not that those can't be corrupted too...