Obama boost coveted

It's not just a political fundraiser. It's a Vegas extravaganza.

The headliner just happens to be the president of the United States.

Tonight at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, President Barack Obama will join entertainers Bette Midler and Sheryl Crow onstage for a "tribute concert" to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Obama plans to spend the night at Caesars, sources say, and is scheduled to appear Wednesday morning at Nellis Air Force Base for an event touting the stimulus package. The Nellis event is not open to the public.

It will be Obama's first visit to Nevada since he won the state's five electoral votes in November.

Both Reid and Las Vegas have reason to hope that some of that presidential glow rubs off on them.

Reid, running for re-election next year, could be in trouble politically, with polls showing he is little loved by home-state voters.

And Las Vegas, suffering from an economic slump that has sent the tourism economy plummeting, is nursing a bruised ego since Obama mentioned Vegas junkets as the type of corporate excess that federal dollars shouldn't be funding.

MAKING AMENDS

Among the local leaders and tourism officials who denounced Obama's comment was Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, who called for an apology or at least some positive words about the city from the president.

On Monday, Goodman said he had reason to believe those words would be forthcoming during Obama's visit.

"I'm of the impression that we're going to have a very positive statement about Las Vegas being a place for businesses to come to do serious meetings and conventions," Goodman said. "That's all I have ever asked, on behalf of the city, that we hear out of Washington."

Goodman said he got a call promising such a statement from the president's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.

Speaking at a town hall in Indiana in February, Obama bashed financial firms' wasteful spending of taxpayer bailout money. "You can't take a trip to Las Vegas or down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers' dime," the president said.

Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs were among the companies that canceled their Las Vegas plans in the face of similar criticism.

"He's the most important person in the world, and people listen to what he has to say," Goodman said. "When the president indicates that there is something inappropriate and unseemly about businesses coming to Las Vegas, that doesn't do us any good, and I think that's going to be straightened out (today)."

Gov. Jim Gibbons also has been sharply critical of Obama's visit, accusing the president of "hypocrisy" for coming to raise political cash in a town he supposedly insulted. Gibbons claims the state lost $100 million in meeting and convention business after Obama's remarks.

Gibbons demanded a meeting with Obama and local business people to discuss the matter, then turned down an offer to meet Obama at the airport when the president arrives today.

"While I appreciate the offer, I am not interested in a handshake and a hello from President Obama, I am interested in an apology and plan to undo the damage the President did," Gibbons said in a news release Monday.

STAR-STUDDED AFFAIR

Reid's campaign expects to raise almost $2 million from tonight's star-studded fundraiser, money that will go to a joint account shared by the senator's campaign and the Nevada State Democratic Party.

It is the first fundraiser for a candidate that Obama has hosted since becoming president, according to the campaign.

In keeping with the rule Obama set during his presidential campaign, donations are not being accepted from Washington lobbyists or political action committees.

The price of admission ranged from $2,400 for a backstage VIP reception to $50 tickets that were available to the public from Ticketmaster.

Organizers were hoping to pack the Colosseum, which seats 4,000. As of Monday afternoon, the event had not sold out.

In addition to Midler and Crow, both well-known for their liberal activism, the program is scheduled to feature a comedy routine by Rita Rudner; Clint Holmes singing the national anthem; folk singer Rachel Yamagata; the gospel stylings of the Las Vegas Mass Choir, and the student choir from Las Vegas Academy.

A local Iraq war veteran is scheduled to introduce Reid onstage out of gratitude for Reid's work for veterans, according to organizers.

GREETED BY PROTESTS

Jeers as well as cheers will greet the president's visit, with a conservative political action committee using the event as a launching point for its campaign against Reid's re-election.

Our Country Deserves Better PAC held a news conference Monday in Reno and plans another today in Las Vegas to announce a $100,000 campaign of radio, television and Internet ads for its Defeat Harry Reid campaign.

The Sacramento, Calif.-based group will be joined by Sharron Angle, the Republican former Reno assemblywoman who is exploring a possible run against Reid.

At 5:30 p.m., the group plans to hold a protest outside Caesars, joined by local Republican activists.

From now through the fall, the group plans to raise and spend $1 million to portray Reid as a "tax-and-spend liberal" who is "anti-military," the PAC's political director, Kelly Eustis, said.

The television ad features a quotation from President Ronald Reagan criticizing Reid in 1986, when Reid was running for his first Senate term. The ad calls Reid "emblematic of all that's wrong in Washington," and ties him to high federal deficits and taxpayer-funded bank bailouts.

STRUGGLING POLITICALLY

At the same time as his Washington profile has grown, Reid's approval ratings back home have worsened in recent years. Nevada's senior senator became leader of the Democratic minority in 2004 and of the majority in 2006.

A Las Vegas Review-Journal poll earlier this month found 38 percent of Nevada voters hold a favorable view of Reid, while 50 percent view him unfavorably.

Just 35 percent said they would vote to re-elect Reid, while 17 percent said they would consider another candidate and 45 percent would definitely vote to replace him.

The poll, by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc., had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Jennifer Duffy, an analyst for the Washington-based nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said those figures spell trouble. "Those are some of the worst numbers I've seen in a long time for somebody of Reid's stature," she said. "But you can't beat somebody with nobody."

Reid does not yet have a definite Republican opponent. As of April, he had more than $5 million in the bank for his campaign.

Bringing the president to town is yet another sign of the major ammunition Reid will have in this campaign, Duffy said.

"It sends a signal to would-be challengers: You can run against Harry Reid, but you're going to be running against Barack Obama as well."

Review-Journal writer Alan Choate contributed to this report. Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919.