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March 28, 2024

Hopefuls: It’s Elko or bust

Population 17,000 and visits by four presidential candidates within 24 hours

Edwards toasts

Sam Morris

Presidential candidate John Edwards toasts Star Hotel bartender Natalie Carter with a house specialty, a Picon Punch, while making a campaign stop in Elko Thursday, Jan. 17, 2008.

Campaigning in Elko

Sen. Barack Obama supporters hold signs up at a busy intersection in Elko Thursday, Jan. 17, 2008. Launch slideshow »

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What a whirlwind Friday for Ann Wright, with history unfolding right before her: four presidential candidates visiting this mining town in the span of 24 hours. In Elko!

“These people came all this way to see us,” said Wright, a waffling Democrat who was excited by all the attention the candidates were paying her little city.

John Edwards had shown up Thursday night, but drew only about 100 people to a rowdy, century-old bar. And frankly, many of them were more interested in drinking and socializing than politics.

Friday was different. In the morning there a Republican, Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, dropped by the middle school. Wright and her 16-year-old daughter joined about 300 other people to see him.

Then the Democrats: Hillary Clinton visited an Indian school gymnasium, filling the place with 600 to 1,000 people. While she was taking questions, many in the audience left to attend a Barack Obama event 20 minutes later at the high school.

Obama's event drew about twice as many people, it seemed.

All in all, Friday was a big day for this mostly Republican town of 17,000, 290 miles east of Reno. The place is giddy these days over the high price of gold and that keeps a sushi restaurant and fancy wine bar pretty busy.

Still, everyone wonders: Why would the Democratic heavyweights come here of all places, on the eve of the state’s caucus?

Political experts say the campaigns were pursuing the 50-state strategy promoted by Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean: Leave no Democrat ignored.

Jennifer Duffy, senior editor of the Cook Political Report, says Elko in particular has been targeted by Democratic state leaders as the perfect place to start carrying out Dean’s strategy in Nevada.

“This isn’t your Southern Baptist type of Republican here," said Sam Brown, assistant editor of the Elko Daily Free Press. "We have a lot of moderates and a lot of fence sitters, and the Democrats are hoping they’ll find some of them in November, so they’re laying the groundwork now.”

More pragmatically: Elko has an airport, making it the most accessible part of rural Nevada.

To Democratic voters here, the effort has not gone unnoticed.

When Leah Wilkinson arrived in 1999, she was scared to tell people that she was a Democrat. “I would have coffee with people and I would never discuss political beliefs. Now all the Democrats are coming out the woodwork and we’re starting to network with people we never knew were Democrats.”

About 15 of those people had joined Wilkinson on Thursday afternoon at Obama’s headquarters in downtown Elko, preparing for their candidate’s arrival. Next door, a volunteer at a much more sparse Clinton office was printing a “Welcome” sign.

“I see the tides changing,” said fifth-generation Elkoan Chris Walther, hanging out at the Star Restaurant before Edwards’ visit Thursday night. “Today I saw people marching in the center of town for Obama. I called my dad and I said, ‘You can’t believe this.’ We have people here in Elko holding up signs for a Democratic candidate.”

But the decisions of people such as miner Ralph Chiquete, a Republican who sometimes votes for Democrats, may be the real indicator here. He’s worried about Washington going after royalty fees on mines.

“We need people who know about mining,” said Chiquete, who found his way to the Edwards stump speech by accident. He had been going to meet his cousin for a drink. “These East Coast people, they don’t have a clue. All they want to do is cut mining and ranching down, but the country was made by miners and ranchers.”

All three Democratic candidates campaigning out here have told Elko that they’re against the royalty.

But come fall, Elko Daily Free Press columnist Douglas McMurdo says, the Democrats may as well forget any groundwork they have laid here if the Senate passes that bill.

“Everything else is secondary to mining," McMurdo said. "It’s about getting your livelihood taken away.”

Elko’s Republican mayor, Mike Franzoia, basked in Friday’s excitement and said he could imagine the Democrats’ groundwork paying off for them someday.

“In the short run maybe it won’t do much,” Franzoia said. “Trying to convince people of a different ideology doesn’t happen overnight. But that doesn’t mean they should just throw up their hands and say it’s a losing proposition. I think it’s worth their while to be here.”

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