Hillary still on top in Clark County

Way back on Feb. 23, it appeared the momentum Barack Obama had picked up from his Super Tuesday performance and other victories was beginning to help him here in Clark County.

But it was impossible to tell as much because of the raucous spillover crowd at Bally's which had assembled that Saturday for what was supposed to be the Clark County Democratic Convention. When the Obama and Hillary Clinton camps split for a "cooling off" talk aimed at shutting down the poorly planned proceedings, support for the candidates certainly appeared evenly divided.

A vote on Feb. 23 would have been a disaster, challenged by either side because of the sheer incompetence of those trying to handle the huge crowd of alternate delegates vying for credentials.

When the convention finally blew up, it seemed as though the decision to postpone the event actually helped Clinton. After all, Clinton had handily won Clark County during the state's Jan. 19 presidential caucus, and had ended up with the popular vote edge statewide. Obama, whose camp was outmaneuvered in the get-out-the-vote efforts on the Strip and in Clark County's suburban neighborhoods, succeeded in earning one more delegate because of the way rural counties are apportioned.

But Clark was Clinton County in January, and during the height of the "up-for-grabs" stage of the Democratic nomination in February, it appeared the county convention was a good enough place to try to wrest support for the state and national conventions to follow.

The Democratic Party worked diligently to plan a new day of voting to finish the business left undone Feb. 23. And when the deadline to register for the reconvened convention passed, it was actually Obama who had more delegates signed up to attend voting at the Thomas & Mack Center this past Saturday.

Of course, not every delegate showed up -- and it became clear that a controversial comment by Obama was helping to reawaken the former first lady's support here.

Once again on Saturday, Clinton surpassed Obama in Clark, by roughly the same margin as she did on caucus day.

But for the very real need to seat delegates at next month's state convention in Reno, the mulligan was about as necessary as many prizefight rematches, and with a similar outcome to boot. The winner won again.

Blue-collar voters, especially those who work on the Strip, can sure get riled up when a politician appears elitist. And so Obama's comments about "bitter" voters who cling to religion or guns was immediately manipulated by Clinton -- a woman who characterizes an outright lie that impugned the service of our soldiers as a simple misstatement -- into some kind of terrible comment.

But week upon week of campaign appearances in Pennsylvania burgs and Indiana schools is too boring for the cable networks. Thus a private remark by Obama, as truthful as the candidate's past statement to the Reno Gazette-Journal about Ronald Reagan's legacy, instead is used to feed the 24-7 needs of the cable networks and the various echo chambers.

And so with the country's economy mired in what no one will officially call a recession, and with the U.S.-funded truce between the warring tribes in Iraq about to blow up, race and religion are once again front and center in the minds of Democratic voters.

Obama and Clinton do no one down-ticket any good by talking at all about guns. Sure, it's blue-collar union workers who are as mad as anyone about the endless inaction on immigration. And plenty of middle-class Americans -- Republican, Democratic and independent -- believe strongly in their faith and their freedom to hunt when they please.

Obama's statements, made in San Francisco of all places, may just be the final nail in the coffin for some independents who decided to give him a pass on his former pastor.

Clinton rushed to use the comment in an effort to screw up the Obama delegate math. But she couldn't just leave it at Obama being elitist. She also slammed John Kerry (although not by name) and regaled reporters with another fish story. Well, in this case, it was a duck story. She apparently shot one once when she was first lady of Arkansas, apparently displaying better aim than the mythical snipers she wrongly remembered aiming at her in Bosnia a decade ago.

Not that she didn't really shoot a duck. It's just that with Clinton, you never know when she's "misspeaking." She also conveniently remembers hunting trips to Scranton, Pa.

In homage to Jason Miller, Clinton's "Championship Season" is getting as pathetic as trying to remember the glory of the mid-1990s without all that other stuff.

None of this matters of course, because at least in Nevada, Clinton is still on top.

Contact Erin Neff at (702) 387-2906, or by e-mail at eneff@reviewjournal.com.