Shocker: Convention do-over looking good

The lull in the Democratic race for president has had a calming effect here in Southern Nevada.

The camps are still split, as evenly as I can tell, between pledged delegates and superdelegates from the state. When you add it all up, Barack Obama has 17 total delegates and Hillary Clinton has 16 from the Silver State.

Way back on Feb. 23, when the Clark County Democratic Party attempted to hold its convention at Bally's, the fury between the camps only exacerbated typical organizational failures, and the event was scrapped. On Saturday, when the failed convention reconvenes, it appears that things might move much more smoothly. There will be ample parking and meeting space at the cavernous Thomas & Mack Center.

Many organizers of political events will tell you that booking a smaller room makes the crowd appear larger. I wonder how 7,200 or so people will look in the 19,000-seat facility. When the party first tried to hold a convention, neither it nor either campaign had a true sense of who the delegates were. So it felt like 19,000 people were squeezing into a space for much fewer than 7,200.

To remedy the largest organizational failure in recent political memory, county Democrats finally went big time and secured the Mack -- pro bono, to boot. The state Democratic Party also helped accommodate the county party by posting on its Web site the names of all credentialed delegates to the county convention -- it's 145 pages long. There are bound to be mistakes, but the list, posted publicly, is a good way for each campaign to vet its information within official channels.

Whether all 7,200-plus delegates show up Saturday (they have all day to do it) remains to be seen, but if you wanted to attend the convention, you had to pre-register. The county party also was supposed to mail each delegate a credential and packet of information this week about Saturday's 11-hour do-over.

And how's this for efficiency? The packet of information is supposed to include the county party's platform. It's good to know the Democrats will actually get to see the platform on which they're voting.

The other order of business for the all-day affair Saturday will be delegate selection to next month's state convention in Reno.

In theory, it works like this. Delegates support a specific candidate. The candidate with the most support gets more delegates. The delegates who get the most votes get to go to Reno. Assuming everyone votes for themselves, it's going to be very interesting to see how this gets divided.

The two campaign slates are listed on both the state party and the county party's convention Web sites. And it's obvious that while Clinton won Clark County on Jan. 19 and the state's popular vote, she's been losing ground here since.

The county party Web site breaks out the total 7,200 delegates by candidate. The Clinton slate of delegates to the state convention is 35 pages long. The Obama slate is 48 pages long. Not all delegates are choosing to run for the state convention, but if the size of the Obama slate mirrors his overall delegate total, it's clear the tide has turned against Clinton in Nevada as the overall race drags on and on.

The county party has even commandeered some of Clark County's voting machines for Saturday's affair.

It's hard to call it a convention since delegates are only permitted to sign in, vote and then leave immediately after they push the buttons. That sort of makes it a pain to drive all the way down to the Thomas & Mack.

No speeches, no music. Just business.

And, this being the Democratic Party, those voting machines also have the voter-verifiable paper receipt option for anyone skeptical of the technology.

The county party insists this mulligan on Masters weekend won't require Democrats to part with their greenbacks. Parking is free. Voting is free. You even get to keep your credential.

Maybe the parking lot will be the real place to be. Since this is now being run like an election, various candidates could be milling about outside, trying to drum up support.

One thing is certain: It will be awfully difficult to screw up this event, given all the hand-wringing and confabs over the past five weeks.

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It's hard to imagine the boisterous "Buffalo Jim" Barrier down for the final count.

Barrier, who was found dead Sunday, was always one of the reasons I found covering local politics so intriguing. The gadfly/auto mechanic/wrestler embodied Las Vegas as well as any other -- flashy and self-promotional to the extreme. And he always had a story -- some believable, some not.

I don't know how Buffalo Jim died, but I know his passing marks another step toward the extinction of a breed of downtown characters who aren't afraid to speak out about the powerful. He was the kind of guy who made you wish there was one more story.

Contact Erin Neff at (702) 387-2906, or by e-mail at eneff@reviewjournal.com.