Sometimes experience does count, and in union there is strength. Jon Ralston, go-to guy on Nevada politics, in the Reno Gazette Journal:
… Saturday may well be the day that altered the course of the Democratic presidential race, when Hillary Clinton blunted Bernie Sanders’ campaign, when she was forced to work as hard as she ever has for a week (with a little help from a lot of friends) and slingshotted her with new momentum into South Carolina and then Super Tuesday. Nevada may indeed prove to be the day that saved Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
But the caucus, which Clinton won by about 5 percentage points, also cemented Prince Harry [Reid] as a man Machiavelli would have bowed to, a man who with one eye who still sees the field better and is still more dangerous, effective and cunning as any pol the state (the country?) has ever seen. Clinton may not have won Nevada if Reid had not interceded last week when the man feigning neutrality saw what everyone in the Democratic elite saw: Sanders erasing a once mountainous lead and on the verge of perhaps winning Nevada and rendering inoperative the “Hillary is more electable” argument…
In the middle of last week, Reid made a phone call, first reported by The New York Times’ Amy Chozick, to D. Taylor, the head of the parent of the Culinary Union local in Las Vegas. Before that call, the Culinary, facing difficult contract negotiations and seeing no advantage in enmeshing itself in a bloody internecine fight, had declared it was more Swiss than Hispanic. With the Culinary not endorsing and unwilling to even engage in the caucus, turnout at six casino sites on the Las Vegas Strip was forecast at a combined 100 or so. That is, insignificant.
But Reid did not stop there. He also called casino executives, sources confirm, with a simple message: “Let your people go.”
That is, he wanted to ensure the workers would be allowed time off from work to caucus. No one said no to Prince Harry.
Despite their common public neutrality, Taylor and Reid surely believe, as do most Democratic power brokers, that a Sanders nomination would be a disaster. Reid knew that Taylor would get his swarms of organizers to turn out mostly Latino workers, who would likely vote for Clinton.
A gamble? Yes. But like going all-in with a straight flush.
And it paid off.
On Saturday, Clinton not only won all six casino sites, most handily, by a combined delegate count of 109-52. And instead of an aggregate 100 or so employees, hundreds of workers showed up to caucus, thanks to Reid to Taylor to organizers…