Political frontier moves West

By David Montero, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Photos by Chris Schneider / The Rocky

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton visits A+B Printing in Las Vegas on Friday during last-minute campaigning leading up to today's Nevada caucuses. Clinton talked about the foreclosure crisis during her stop at the business.

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards talks to voters at the Carpenters Union Hall in Las Vegas while campaigning this week.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama embraces his wife, Michelle, at an appearance in Las Vegas on Thursday.

Once candidates merely flew over the West on their way to California. Now with today's Nevada precinct caucuses, and the Democratic National Convention being held in Denver, the West is no longer just a placeholder on primary calendars.

The red-tiled roofs stretch well into the desert, where craggy cliffs eventually rise and scrape the faded blue sky.

Tract after tract of stucco homes stand with signs for move-in specials to tempt potential buyers.

Phil Mackovski stands on a street watching roofers carefully place the tile in grooves on an unfinished cluster of houses and puts his hands in his jacket pockets.

Just two years ago, Mackovski's building company was booming. He could barely keep up with the region's thirst for housing. His small business, Mackovski Builders, was hiring crew after crew of workers to complete the homes that sold within weeks.

And then, about 10 months ago, it all came to a screeching halt.

"I have lots for 30 units to build on," he said. "And I can't start on any of them."

The subprime mortgage crisis, the foreclosure crisis - whatever you want to call it - ramped up in earnest and slammed places like Las Vegas last year. Other Western states with lots of open land and builders willing to sell the American Dream began seeing the real estate market suffer, too.

Last year, according to Realtytrac.com, Western cities crammed the top 10 list for number of foreclosure filings. Denver, Las Vegas and Phoenix are all found there.

It has become one of the top talking points for the presidential candidates as they jockey for votes at the Nevada's caucuses being held today.

The real estate crisis has become more of a Western issue and one the candidates are increasingly putting the spotlight on. Before that the only Western issue that seemed to crop up was the controversy of dumping nuclear waste in the Silver State.

"Yucca Mountain, Yucca Mountain, Yucca Mountain," quipped former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, alluding to the shorthand used for the ridge of mountains where the waste is buried.

But Webb, who is supporting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination, said while she has talked her share about Yucca Mountain, she's been hammering at the foreclosure crisis as well.

Clinton hits foreclosures hard

That was true Friday when Clinton showed up at A+B Printing just off The Strip. It only took her about a minute into her speech to mention foreclosures to the nearly 40 workers jammed into the tiny office.

"I went door-to-door in Las Vegas last week and I started meeting people who are unemployed now," she said. "Nobody ever thought the economy in Las Vegas would slow down."

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards spoke to union carpenters Wednesday night and talked about the mortgage mess as well.

"We need to provide help to people who are in danger of losing their homes through a home rescue fund," Edwards said.

Sen. Barack Obama held a roundtable meeting with victims of foreclosure in Reno as well and, according to a report in the Reno Gazette-Journal, took a shot at his fellow politicians in Washington, D.C.

"It could've been stopped if the White House and Congress were paying more attention and listening to the people involved," the Illinois senator said earlier in the week.

Bob Duffy, professor of political science at Colorado State University, said it's not surprising the candidates are starting to hone in on the high-profile mortgage crisis as they traipse through the West because of the impact it's having in the region.

Duffy said it helps that the issue is a national one - cities in the Rust Belt are also struggling with foreclosures - but it does give the candidates a foothold on an issue that is impacting many voters in Western states.

"They focus on the issues that matter in the places they're campaigning and, for years, that was Iowa and New Hampshire at the beginning of the season," Duffy said.

Foreclosures a national issue

But Mike Stratton, a Western political consultant based in Denver who was a chief strategist to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's failed bid for the Democratic nomination, said those issues do get talked about by the candidates as they campaign in rural areas.

"Yucca gets all the headlines, but when you get out to rural Nevada, they have to be able to talk local issues," Stratton said. "That's how they will have success at those caucuses. But those issues are below the radar screen nationally."

Stratton said the jumbled caucus and primary results up until this point - four different Republican winners in four states and two different winners in two states on the Democrats' side - has helped highlight Western issues. The crowded field has helped the West - just as the Democratic National Committee had intended when it awarded Denver the convention in August and gave Nevada the first caucus, Stratton said.

"The goal was the candidates would have to campaign out here and get immersed in the West," he said. "Is it more than we've gotten historically? Exponentially more. Look at how much time the candidates are spending in Nevada."

By Friday afternoon, Edwards had flown out to Missouri and Obama was out of the state as well. Clinton was headed up to Elko in the afternoon.

Once the caucus is over this afternoon and a winner is declared, the campaigns will go full-throttle to Feb. 5, when Colorado and more than 20 other states will hold primaries or caucuses.

DNC Chairman Howard Dean said last week he thought it would be unlikely the nominee would be known after that date and thought it could drag out until mid-March.

But at some point, the field will be clear and the nominee will arrive in Denver. This time, however, the path will have traveled on the ground through the West.

That was the strategy, at least.

"They used to be able to fly over us," Stratton said. "The goal was to put the West at the forefront, and with four states in play - Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona - it worked."

February primaries, caucuses

Western states holding primaries or caucuses Feb. 5

* Arizona Democrat/GOP

* Colorado Democrat/GOP

* Idaho Democrat

* New Mexico Democrat

* Oklahoma Democrat/GOP

* Utah Democrat/GOP

Top Western-oriented Issues

* Natural resources

* Water

* Energy

* Mortgage crisis