Fear and Voting in Las Vegas
By GAIL COLLINS
New York Times
LAS VEGAS
Today, Nevadans go to the polls to take part in their presidential caucuses, a political tradition so historic that nobody had ever heard of it before.
As a headline in The Las Vegas Review-Journal understated: “Format creates state of confusion.”
You will remember these caucuses from Iowa. People gather at a local meeting place, where Republicans take a straw poll and Democrats divide into groups according to their candidate of choice. The only difference is that in Nevada:
1. Workers on the Las Vegas Strip can vote in the casinos. This is a boon to the powerful Culinary Workers Union, which supports Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton blew up at a television reporter over the unfairness of it all. (The former president appears to be on a schedule of one meltdown per state.)
2. The caucuses have been conveniently scheduled to take place on the Saturday morning of a three-day weekend.
3. The number of people in the state who have ever attended a caucus before is probably smaller than the number of people in the state who make their living as Elvis impersonators.
(Continued here.)
New York Times
LAS VEGAS
Today, Nevadans go to the polls to take part in their presidential caucuses, a political tradition so historic that nobody had ever heard of it before.
As a headline in The Las Vegas Review-Journal understated: “Format creates state of confusion.”
You will remember these caucuses from Iowa. People gather at a local meeting place, where Republicans take a straw poll and Democrats divide into groups according to their candidate of choice. The only difference is that in Nevada:
1. Workers on the Las Vegas Strip can vote in the casinos. This is a boon to the powerful Culinary Workers Union, which supports Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton blew up at a television reporter over the unfairness of it all. (The former president appears to be on a schedule of one meltdown per state.)
2. The caucuses have been conveniently scheduled to take place on the Saturday morning of a three-day weekend.
3. The number of people in the state who have ever attended a caucus before is probably smaller than the number of people in the state who make their living as Elvis impersonators.
(Continued here.)
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