Campaign: Mistaken claims about Nevada unintentional

The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says multiple mistakes and exaggerations about Nevada in a recent presentation to the national media were unintentional.

Of four claims the campaign made about Nevada in the presentation, one is outright wrong, one is a stretch, and one cannot be proven.

Early Monday, campaign manager David Plouffe held a conference call with national reporters to make the case that Obama, a senator from Illinois, is best-positioned to win Thursday's Iowa caucuses and to go on to win three other early voting states and the 22 states holding contests Feb. 5.

Two of the 24 pages in the campaign memo Plouffe presented concerned Nevada. On the first, four bullet-pointed items purport to show the strength of the campaign's grass-roots organization in the state, where he consistently has trailed in polling to Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.

One claim, that Obama was the "first candidate to run state-wide Spanish language ads," is false. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson began airing commercials in Spanish on Reno and Las Vegas radio stations in July.

Obama started his Spanish radio ads in August. Asked about this Monday, the campaign admitted the claim was wrong.

The memo also claims that Obama was the "first candidate on TV, airing first commercial December 11th."

In fact, Obama was tied for first in getting started with televised ads. Clinton also began airing TV commercials on Dec. 11.

Obama announced that his ads were about to start several days before Clinton did, but the ads themselves began airing on the same day.

The document claims that Obama has the "largest field operation with over 50 field staffers," meaning organizers who go out and talk to voters.

A spokeswoman said she could not prove that its number of organizers was more than other campaigns' but contended that "largest field operation" referred to more than just staff.

Clinton's campaign said it also had more than 50 workers in the field in Nevada. "We have more than that number (50)," Clinton spokeswoman Hilarie Grey said. She would not give an exact number.

The Obama campaign was telling the truth when it said it has the "most offices open of any candidate, with 11 offices across the state."

Obama's campaign on Friday opened its 11th Nevada office, in the Lake Tahoe area, giving him more than twice as many campaign offices here as any other candidate. No other campaign has more than four offices in the state.

Nevada's Jan. 19 caucuses will be the third meaningful Democratic contest, after Iowa on Thursday and the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 8.

Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball@reviewjournal.com or (702) 387-2919.