Democrats court service employees union

It didn't take long for the Democratic presidential candidates to come calling in Nevada after the Service Employees International Union started dangling its prize.

As they swept through town over the weekend, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton made time in their schedules to hold private audiences with members of the Nevada SEIU in Las Vegas.

The meetings came in the wake of a decision by the union not to endorse at the national level, allowing state chapters to decide whether to make their own endorsements. Nevada has the largest SEIU membership, about 17,000, of the four states expected to hold the first primaries and caucuses.

The union announced Wednesday it had narrowed the candidates it would consider to Clinton, Edwards and Barack Obama. And the candidates immediately started lining up to make their pitch for the union's support.

Edwards, who has been endorsed by the union in 11 other states, was scheduled to come to the union at its hall on Sunset Road on Saturday, before his public event at the Carpenters union.

Clinton was to have the union come to her at the East Las Vegas Senior Center on Sunday for a meeting before her public discussion on health care at the center.

Obama, who has two state SEIUs on his side, also was in town last week, visiting Reno and North Las Vegas on Thursday, but didn't meet with the service employees union.

He did visit the Culinary union for the umpteenth time, serendipitously catching members just as they'd settled a contract, so he was able to offer congratulations instead of a "hang in there" pep talk.

A spokeswoman said Obama was invited to visit SEIU after most of his schedule for the Nevada trip had already been set and couldn't fit it in, but hoped to do so in the future.

"Senator Obama is pursuing SEIU's endorsement in Nevada, and we do feel we are very competitive in the process," Shannon Gilson said.

A union spokeswoman said SEIU didn't feel snubbed. The Obama campaign and the union are working together to find a time to meet, Hilary Haycock said.

Haycock said it was encouraging that the candidates were coming to visit.

"We are excited that our members are going to continue having many opportunities to learn more and make an informed decision about whether to endorse and, if we endorse, who we decide to endorse," she said.

HEY, BIG SPENDER

Almost all the presidential candidates upped the amount of money they're spending in Nevada in the third fundraising quarter, according to campaign finance reports released last week.

Once again, the biggest contributor to the Nevada economy was Obama, followed by fellow Democrat Bill Richardson, according to a spending summary provided by the Federal Election Commission. Clinton was third, followed by Edwards.

In the first two quarters, spanning six months, those were also the top four. Obama spent $296,000 in Nevada in the first two quarters, Richardson $228,000; in the three months of the third quarter alone, Obama spent $312,000, Richardson $263,000.

And the filing period ended before the Obama campaign announced it was increasing its Nevada offices from three to seven and adding field staff.

Spending, experts say, can be a better measure of candidates' efforts in a given state than fundraising, but it is only a rough metric, since not all expenses are recorded in the states where they're used. For example, the salary of Joe Brezny, a staffer in Nevada for Republican Mitt Romney, appears as a Massachusetts expense because he gets his paycheck from campaign headquarters in Boston.

Romney has raised the most money of any candidate in Nevada, but he spent just $34,000 in the third quarter, compared to $36,000 in the first two quarters. Fellow Republican Rudy Giuliani spent more here, $120,000, than he raised, $70,000.

Democrat Dennis Kucinich spent $26,000 in Nevada, an impressive sum for a campaign that spent less than $900,000 nationally; it turns out he uses a Las Vegas-based Web design company.

Republican Ron Paul managed to raise $43,000 in Nevada while spending just $4,300, while Republican Fred Thompson, who raised $39,000, has yet to spend a dime here.

Clinton's numbers are a bit off because of a number of salary and travel payments to a staffer living in "Astoria, NV, 11103," a city and ZIP code in Queens, N.Y. But she is the only candidate to report paying Nevada taxes.

Richardson paid more than $2,700 to an Elko organizer before learning the organizer had worked for a brothel and was wanted in California for writing bad checks. The staffer resigned.

And Republican John McCain, who spent $33,000 in the first two quarters here, then underwent a massive campaign overhaul based on staff turmoil and lackluster fundraising, has certainly pared back. No more blowing $18,000 on a party at a risqué Vegas nightclub.

McCain spent just $104.59 in Nevada the third quarter. The check was made out to downtown's Plaza hotel.

NEW ANTI-WAR GROUP

Elliot Anderson was getting frustrated.

The Marine Corps veteran who served in Afghanistan has become a passionate opponent of the Iraq war, organizing regular protests in Southern Nevada. But because his group was aligned with the Democratic Party, it was often dismissed as partisan, he said.

"Looking at the polling, we know Republicans are upset about the war, too," Anderson said. "I've been approached by people who say, 'I'm a Republican, but I feel the same way you do.' But they buy into the narrative that the Democratic Party hates the military."

Anderson, a full-time UNLV student and full-time craps dealer, will still lead the Nevada Democratic Veterans and Military Families Caucus; but last week he launched a new, nonpartisan group, Nevadans for Change in Iraq. About 20 people, including a few Republicans, showed up for the inaugural protest in front of Rep. Jon Porter's office in Henderson on Friday, he said.

Anderson said the targeting of Porter is solely because of the congressman's war position, not because he is a Republican seen as vulnerable in next year's election.

"I am a Democrat, but for me personally, the energy I'm putting into this, it's about the issue. It's about the fact that we're using our military improperly, to police a civil war, and we need to be protecting our country, which we're not."

A spokesman for Porter said he was not convinced the group was nonpartisan.

"Were they demonstrating in front of the offices of the Democratic members of the delegation as well?" Matt Leffingwell said. "They're the party in power, and they're the ones continuing to fund the war. Congressman Porter remains committed to allowing our generals to determine when our troops come home from the battlefield."

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