Valley residents cheer their favorite candidate

When Barack Obama declared that looking into someone's eyes and seeing his soul is no way to conduct foreign relations, the North Las Vegas home of Sheryl Parks went up in cheers.

Five women, all Obama supporters, had gathered there to watch the first presidential debate between Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, and Republican John McCain. They cackled knowingly at Obama's barb, a reference to President Bush's relationship with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who was then Russia's president.

Across town, at the Las Vegas home of John and Caridad Pfeiffer, the reaction was the opposite. The 25 McCain supporters who gathered there frowned at Obama's remark.

But when McCain responded that he had looked into Putin's eyes and seen "three letters, K-G-B," the room went wild. "He's not going to get anywhere trying to tie McCain to Bush!" a listener yelled.

Terry Wagner, 63, said the KGB remark was one that showed "the layers of experience that McCain has."

"He has so many layers you can't even deal with them in a debate of this length," the administrative assistant said.

When McCain said he doesn't need any on-the-job training to serve as president, Wagner and the crowd shouted their approval.

Obama's attempts to try to continually tie McCain to Bush, said Damian James, a 40-year-old postal worker, will not resonate with voters.

"He's his own man, he's showed that through his life," James said. "Obama is very charismatic in front of a big crowd with everyone going 'rah, rah,' but when he's got someone firing back in a debate it knocks him off stride."

Josh Whitfield, who said he is an Army veteran who earned the Purple Heart in Iraq, said that like McCain he finds it distressing that Obama won't speak more positively about the troop surge.

"I just don't get the sense that he understands how Iraq works," the 21-year-old Whitfield said. "I was part of the surge and I saw how the people in the areas responded positively."

When McCain referred to his own military experience, Anthony Pfeiffer was impressed. The Pfeiffers' 18-year-old son is about to go into the Air Force.

"When I'm in the military, I want a president who's also been there," he said. "Obama just doesn't have the right background."

Wagner said she does not believe Obama's continual reference in the debate to McCain's voting for the Iraq war as a mistake will help elect the Democrat.

"We can argue about whether it was right or not forever," she said. "But what people want to know now is what is going to be done in the future."

Dave Gibbs, a 52-year-old Air Force veteran, said that McCain showed that Obama doesn't understand the Middle East.

"Obama sees the terrorists and al-Qaida as being in Afghanistan," he said. "McCain knows that they're throughout the Middle East. We had to go into Iraq to get (Saddam) Hussein so we could move forward throughout the region. McCain sees the whole picture and Obama sees everything in little pieces. I think we're much safer with a president who sees the big picture."

Over at the Obama party in North Las Vegas, one of several Democrats held throughout the valley, 61-year-old Ruth Brooks couldn't sit still watching the debate. She paced the kitchen floor, shouting replies to the candidates on the television in the corner of the living room.

"Yes! Preach it!" she said when she thought Obama had scored a point. "Come on now, Barack!" McCain's answers she greeted with tsk-tsking, headshaking or a tart retort.

When McCain brought up storing and reprocessing nuclear waste, Brooks hooted, "Yeah, he wants to put it here, at Yucca Mountain!"

The lights were out, the women intent on the action onscreen. The volume was turned up on the TV, which sat next to a fireplace with a display of military memorabilia on the mantel -- medals and a flag belonging to Parks' husband, a retired Air Force man.

He wasn't watching the debate. "Don't tell anybody, but he's a Republican," said Parks, 44, who owns a business development company.

Brooks, the dean of students at the Agassi College Preparatory Academy, was annoyed by McCain's declaration that "we're winning in Iraq."

"How can you say that?" she said. "Is he living in the same world as we are? We're going to tell them democracy is what they need, and for what? So we can get our oil, and 4,000 of our guys dead?"

She exhorted Obama to be more aggressive and fretted that he was being "too nice" much of the time.

She was happier when Obama at one point called McCain out for previously threatening North Korea and Iran, saying the GOP senator was not believable when, during the debate, he counseled prudence.

"Coming from you ... I don't know how credible that is," Obama told McCain.

"Hit him where it hurts!" Brooks exulted.

Sophie Braddock, 33, beamed, "You know what they say, with Muhammad Ali -- that's rope-a-dope right there."

Braddock was especially pleased when Obama insisted he was right about meeting with hostile world leaders. "He's consistent," she said. "He'll say something and be criticized as naive, but he stays with it and then people come around to his point of view, because he's right."

Several of the women in the room started out as supporters of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary, including Cathy Wilson, 65, a retired General Motors worker who now works as a substitute teacher. She said she was impressed with Obama's ability to be specific about issues.

"From McCain I heard a lot of dancing around the issues," she said. "He kept bringing up his experience. Well, he's been in Congress all this time -- I think that makes him part of the problem."

On the whole, the Obama supporters didn't think the debate was likely to change a lot of minds. Parks said most people who watched probably came away with their pre- existing ideas reinforced.

The women were already looking ahead to next week and the next debate. "I think what will be really telling," Wilson said, "will be when we have the vice presidential debate."

Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919. Contact reporter Paul Harasim at pharasim@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2908.