Courting voters step by step

Cradling clipboards, four campaign workers ambled along Cricket Lane to a chorus of watchdogs.

If the buildup to the Nevada caucuses has a sound, this was it Friday morning in North Las Vegas: bark, bark, bark.

"Everyone has a dog out here," said Jordan Salberg, a field organizer for Hillary Clinton.

Vester Ballard is allergic to dogs, but they still made her smile as she walked her first mile for the Clinton campaign. The sunny, 63-year-old precinct captain spent about four hours knocking on doors and urging Democrats to support Clinton in Saturday's caucus.

"I love it all," Ballard said. "I love being out. I love talking to the peoples. And I love talking to them about Hillary."

Ballard joined the campaign as a volunteer last week, after 22-year-old Fariya Ali showed up at her door to talk to her about Clinton.

"I was glad to see her," Ballard said. "She answered a lot of my questions; she really did."

Ballard represents Precinct 2366, a rectangle bordered by Craig Road, Allen Lane, Alexander Road and Decatur Boulevard. She and her husband, a retired Air Force chief master sergeant, have lived in the neighborhood since 1994.

Ballard said her support for Clinton stems from the senator's work on behalf of military families, particularly those of reservists.

A recent graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, Ali joined the Clinton camp in Nevada last month. Officially, she is an intern, but with an equal measure of optimism and cheese, the campaign has taken to calling staffers such as her "win-terns."

To earn that title, Ali has been knocking on doors in North Las Vegas every day for the past three weeks. So far, she has spent most of that time explaining the caucus process.

"Mostly what I've found is a lot of confusion. A lot of people have been telling me, 'I can't go to the caucus, but I'm going to vote for her,'" she said. "I think that's where I've made the biggest difference."

Starting around 9:30 a.m. Friday, Ali and Ballard, Salberg and Corey Goldiner, on break from college in Philadelphia, canvassed registered Democrats in a neighborhood near Alexander Road and Valley Drive.

They hit about a dozen houses and found people to talk to at more than half of them.

"Today was a fantastic day, as far as getting people at the door and engaging them," Ali said.

At Ballard's first house as a campaign volunteer, she and Ali struck up a 10-minute conversation with Mylas Thompson, who listed the war and the mortgage crisis as his chief concerns.

Thompson said he was leaning toward Barack Obama because he wanted an outsider with less of a politician's mentality.

Ballard, who did most of the talking, favorably compared Obama to Martin Luther King Jr. but touted Clinton as the one with the experience to get the job done.

Just down the street, Ballard and Ali met staunch Clinton supporter Marsha Hammond, who stepped out to chat with them despite the "no soliciting" sign on her front door.

"Hopefully, Hillary can help with this medical stuff," said Hammond, whose husband is battling cancer. "The insurance we have now, I fight with them every day."

A few houses later, they met a man who listed health care as his reason for opposing Clinton. The man, who closed the door before giving his name, said he didn't think it was the government's job to provide health care to everyone.

Around the corner, Lucille Piper said she would back Obama at the caucus because she is looking for a change. She accused Clinton of being too political and "talking around things."

"Don't they all, sugar," Ballard said.

The cordial chat ended a few minutes later with Ballard asking Piper to give Clinton a second look.

"OK," Piper said, "but I'm pretty stubborn."

At the next house, the campaign workers found a foreclosure notice taped to the door.

At the house after that, they spent a few minutes shooting down ugly rumors about Obama's past.

As they walked along Twin Peaks Drive, a woman in a car pulled up and started spouting made-for-talk-radio conspiracy theories about Clinton and the Iraq war. Ballard leaned in the passenger window and tried to reason with the woman.

"This I'd say is unusual," Salberg said. "We don't have a lot of people who stop us like this."

Ballard called it a day shortly after that. She said she would have kept going, but her allergies were starting to bother her.

Salberg and the "win-terns" took a short break and headed back out.

Ben Kobren, deputy communications director for Clinton in Nevada, said the campaign is "bringing in staff every day" and has seen volunteer ranks swell by 75 percent in recent weeks.

The campaign is about to open an office in Fernley, bringing its statewide total to seven, three of them in the Las Vegas Valley.

Ballard and company work out of the northern Las Vegas office. It's on the second floor of a strip mall at Craig Road and Rancho Drive, right next to Lingerie N More, High Class Mortgage, Diva Tan and the Puppy Boutique.

Kobren said the campaign effort will continue to build in the days before the caucus.

For Ballard, that means more knocking, talking and getting barked at.

"If the weather stays like this, I'd be out here doing this again tomorrow," she said. "I'm not going to go out when it's windy, though. Sorry, Hillary, my nose can't take it."

Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean @reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0350.