Clinton visits rural Nevada

Leaving Las Vegas, Hillary Clinton first saw sign after sign for the new developments that are ever extending the urban area south and west: Something Crest, Something Ranch, Something Ridge.

A wall of jagged red-brown rock rose up before her as her motorcade entered federally protected land, with a sign along the way warning, "Danger: Watch out for wild horses and burros on the highway." The Democratic presidential front-runner's ears probably popped as the car as reached the Mountain Springs Summit, elevation 5,490 feet.

From there, much more high desert, dotted with Mojave yucca and Joshua trees; a sign featuring Smokey the Bear and rating today's fire danger "very high." And then Pahrump came into view, marked by billboards for casinos, fireworks stands, and, notoriously, the Brothel Art Museum.

Clinton made her first trip to Nevada's rural precincts Monday, appearing at a roller-skating rink in Nye County's largest town and drawing a surprisingly large crowd. Her rural stop was bookended with events in Henderson: a surprise morning visit to a Smith's grocery store and an evening event where she shadowed a union nurse.

When her campaign staffers recommended she visit Pahrump, Clinton told the crowd, "I said, 'You bet, I'll go to Pahrump. How many people do you think we can get together in Pahrump?' They said, 'If we work really hard, maybe 100, 200.'"

Make that 2,500, a roaring capacity crowd; dozens more were turned away after the venue filled up.

"I want to go to the White House with Pahrump in my column, so that together we can make the changes we need," Clinton said, to more cheers.

The drive through the desert, she told the crowd, prompted her to think about what a great place it would be for solar energy farms.

Clinton is not the first presidential candidate to set foot in Pahrump this season. Fellow Democrat Chris Dodd, a senator from Connecticut waging an underdog campaign, visited the town in April.

And other candidates have visited more remote, and more Republican, parts of the state in attempts to make inroads with the coveted rural vote.

Of Nye County's approximately 21,000 registered voters, 44 percent are Republican, 37 percent Democrat. Candidates Barack Obama, senator from Illinois, and Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico, have braved the enemy territory of Elko, where there are more than two Republicans to every Democrat.

Pahrump is often portrayed as a town in transition: a formerly insular Old Nevada hamlet, with legal brothels, being transformed by retirees and commuters from elsewhere who have swelled the population to the point that it now boasts its own Wal-Mart.

The man who introduced Clinton in Pahrump on Monday, Nye County School Board President Dennis Keating, commutes to Las Vegas to work for Clark County.

Clinton hit her familiar themes in her speech: health care, education, getting out of Iraq. After speaking for about half an hour, she fielded questions from the crowd about trade, energy, stem cell research, education, Social Security and the economy.

The trade question prompted a bit of tiptoeing on the candidate's part. "I am for smart, pro-American trade, and I believe we can do a lot better," she said.

She didn't directly address the North American Free Trade Agreement, passed by her husband in 1993, from which she has seemed to distance herself in her own campaign.

Although many in the crowd were devoted Clinton supporters, there were plenty of uncommitted Democrats, nonpartisans, even Republicans.

"I'm a registered Republican, but disillusioned," said 40-year-old Pahrump resident Brett Harriman. After seeing Clinton, he said, "I'm keeping an open mind. She said the right things. I'm pleased she came here, and I'm amazed that she stayed and shook everybody's hand afterwards."

Harriman is in a mixed family. With him were his mother, a nonpartisan, and his father, a staunch Obama supporter.

Ruth Laura, 68, said she, too, would prefer to see Obama get the nomination. "I have a lot of friends who are Republicans, and they hate Hillary. They just hate her with a vengeance," she said. "I don't know if she could get elected."

But Bob Henderson, 74, said the throng was proof of Clinton's popularity.

"Look at this crowd," Henderson said. "They all came here because of Hillary Clinton. What does that tell you?"

The workers and shoppers at the Smith's on Valle Verde Drive in Henderson were another story. They didn't know Clinton was coming until shortly before she walked through the door, past the slot machines, a display of crackers and a stand of frosted cakes with colored sprinkles.

Clinton circumnavigated the spacious suburban supermarket, pausing to greet surprised shoppers and union grocery workers. As she paused in front of the produce, Las Vegan Karen Marshall held a banana in one hand and a cell phone in the other, using the camera phone to take a picture.

"I was here to shop. I had no idea," Marshall said. A registered Republican, Marshall said she "vote(s) for the person, not the party" and would "keep listening to her (Clinton's) campaign."

At the end of the cookies-and-crackers aisle, store manager Diana Bruni explained the store's recent remodeling. "The dairy was actually where the meat is," she said.

Nodding, Clinton said, "Putting the deli up front so people can run in and run out, I bet that makes a big difference."

Monday evening, after the journey to Pahrump and back, Clinton was again in Henderson, participating in the Service Employees International Union's Walk A Day In My Shoes campaign.

As a prerequisite for the union's endorsement, it is asking each candidate to spend a few hours with a union member.

Clinton spent a couple of hours of Michelle Estrada's nursing shift at St. Rose Dominican Hospital, Siena campus, then went to Estrada's home for dinner.

"I came away with even greater admiration and respect for the work our nurses do," Clinton said of the experience.

Although health care is the theme Clinton sounds most often, she has not met the expectations of the SEIU, most of whose members are health care workers.

The union asked all the candidates to present detailed plans for universal coverage by Aug. 1; when the deadline came, Clinton still had not done so. To date, she has not introduced a plan that meets the union's requirements.