From the diaries, a great on the ground look at a largely untold story from yesterday - Todd

Here's some ground-eye view of what went on yesterday in Las Vegas, where the Clark County democratic party convention collapsed into chaos and recessed without electing delegates. I laid out the rough outlines here

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The convention was one of 17 county conventions held yesterday, at which the roughly 10,000 delegates elected statewide (of which just under 8000 were elected in Clark County) were to elect the delegates for the state convention to be held in May. (Clark County elects just under 2300 state convention delegates, of about 3200 state convention delegates.)

Results from elsewhere in the state favored Obama; in Washoe county, he won 59% of the delegates, a gain of several % points over his January 19th performance. Statewide results (pdf) (minus Clark, of course) gave Obama an advantage of 512-388 in delegates, or 57-43 in percentage .

Some local Clark County color after the jump.

Massive turnout statewide for Democratic county conventions in Nevada today. In all-important Clark County, the county party lost control of the credentialing process resulting in a recess without delegates being elected (and potentially jeopardizing the Nevada delegation to the national convention).

I'll post some MyDD-specific analysis from the floor in a side diary for for those not interested in such inside baseball. For those interested, here's some some detailed local blog coverage and a good story from the Las Vegas Sun. My own suggestions, posted in my own name, on how to fix this mess are on the Nevada progressive blog My Silver State.

The presidential campaign has moved on from NV and I've had a couple of days to restore some order in my house (though the back seat of my car is still full of Edwards signs). I though I'd take the opportunity to thank Jerome and Todd again for inviting me to write some stories about my experiences here and to offer a few thoughts on the fallout here in NV (I'll leave the implications for the national race to others).

Coming off the Iowa caucuses, the New Hampshire primary, and the Nevada caucus results, I think we're seeing the limits of momentum in these early contests:

Clinton's average polling in Nevada over the last year has been 45%. Obama's has been 21%. Which means in this vote, Obama's momentum took the spread of 24 points down to 5. Similarly, in New Hampshire Clinton's year-long average was 33% to Obama's 26%. In that race, Obama cut the spread from 7 to 2.5.

Obama's momentum off of his Iowa win can clearly tighten races and close the spread, but it seems this momentum can only carry him so far.

The New York Times seems to agree:

No longer do Democrats see much chance of either candidate stringing together a few quick victories and consolidating the support of the party. The possibility of building steam that carries from one contest to the next seems much in question.

It's becoming clear that the primary fight is turning into a two-way battle for delegates. The opening salvo of contradictory victory press releases from the Obama and Clinton camps is only the beginning.

What does it mean if the narrative shifts away from winners and losers and towards delegate counts?

For one, it makes momentum a lot less important. With both campaigns digging in for the long haul and the media switching its focus to delegate counts, wins in South Carolina and Florida will mean less. Super Tuesday may easily even out the counts, keeping the primary alive well into the spring.

On one hand, this means more people get to participate in the process. When early primary momentum carries a candidate to a quick victory, Democrats around the nation rightly complain that a tiny minority of the American population chooses a candidate for the rest. (See John Kerry, 2004) If the primary is about delegates and not about momentum, and if the season lasts for another month of two, a majority of America will get to weigh in.

This is an unambiguously good outcome for the Democratic party as a brand. The longer primary process means we Democrats get to have a longer, more thorough national conversation about our core ideology. By the end of it, I think we'll have a more unified message that can appeal to the country as a whole in a more compelling way. Just as primary challengers can shake conservative Democrats from their slumber and drive the conversation to the left (see Dan Lipinski), a long primary fight for the White House is shifting conversation to the left as well. When our candidates battle over who will remove troops from Iraq faster or whose health care plan covers more people, the Democratic party as a whole wins.

Plus, a longer primary is simply more democratic.

On the other hand, it may be spring or summer before we have a nominee. I'm not sure whether this is good or bad strategically for Democrats. A longer primary season takes more money out of campaign coffers, possibly leaving less ammunition to go after Republicans with. The counter-argument, proffered here by Chris Bowers a little over a year ago, says that a drawn out primary season keeps Democrats rolling in free media, whereas an early conclusion leaves Republicans alone in the spotlight for months until the general election campaign starts.

I, for one, am glad for the long primary season. Beyond the reasons mentioned above, I've got my New York absentee ballot sitting on my desk, and the Times says New York might be "in play," meaning my vote might actually count! I feel relieved that Iowa and New Hampshire didn't decide for me this time around.

I say, let the primaries roll!

My precinct caucus was a pretty exciting affair and actually closely reflected the overall result of the state. We had a few glitches but after that, things settled down and ran very smoothly. It didn't turn out too well for Edwards but Clinton didn't win by as much as she could have.

And despite the presence of "observers" from Culinary, their members in fact a) did not turn up in large numbers (perhaps because many were at work and voted on the strip? don't know) and b) did not all caucus for Obama.

Here's how it went down.

Following up on Jonathan's post about the Obama camp's claim that he actually won more delegates today, Dave asked Nevada Democratic Party Chair about the inconsistency and wrote the following about his conversation with her over at his site:

OK, I just spoke with Jill Derby, the head of the Nevada State Democratic Party. Regarding the Obama claim that he'll actually get more delegates out of this, essentially that's spin. Derby said that the caucuses are an "expression of the support of Nevadans today." Around 11,000 delegates were elected today. That will be winnowed down at county conventions and eventually at the state convention in May to the 25 that will go to Denver for the DNC. In 2004, Kerry didn't win every delegate on Election Day, but most of the delegates that eventually went to the DNC were his. Once there's a presumptive nominee, the delegate numbers are subject to change. It's non-binding.

If that makes your head spin, the short version is that this was a beauty contest, and you can't project delegate numbers at this time.

I just overheard Jill Derby elaborate to someone else, essentially saying:

We didn't elect any national delegates today and it's non-binding.

If you think all this confusion is going to make it more likely that Nevada will forsake the caucus system in the future and return to primaries, don't count on it. The state will continue to push for caucuses because the state has to pay for a primary, whereas the parties pay for the caucuses.

I'm reading a lot about accusations of voting irregularities and voter suppression tactics at various caucus locations on the part of the Clinton campaign. I saw no evidence of it at The Wynn, nor did my contacts I've spoken to at a North LV caucus site or at the Mirage, but my friend thereisnospoon catalogs the accusations, including his own first hand observations, over at dailyKos, and it's very disturbing if true.

Marc Ambinder has the Obama campaign's official statement on the reports of irregularities:

"We currently have reports of over 200 separate incidents of trouble at caucus sites, including doors being closed up to thirty minutes early, registration forms running out so people were turned away, and ID being requested and checked in a non-uniform fashion. This is in addition to the Clinton campaign's efforts to confuse voters and call into question the at-large caucus sites which clearly had an affect on turnout at these locations. These kinds of Clinton campaign tactics were part of an entire week's worth of false, divisive, attacks designed to mislead caucus-goers and discredit the caucus itself."

Dave spoke with Jill Derby, chair of the NV Democratic Party about whether they intend to launch investigations and she said that it was unlikely, that it was up to individual voters to pursue legal action if they felt their rights were infringed.

Depending on how big this story gets, the mere accusations could taint Clinton's win going into South Carolina.

I just returned from caucus precint 5022 in Reno. This precinct assembled at Clayton Middle School. There were four precincts at this school.

The turnout at this school was astonishing. There were long lines and quite a few people got registered on location. I was told that precinct 5022 had about 20 people come out in 2004 and State Assemblyman David Bobzien (who co-chaired Edwards Northern Nevada campaign) told me they expected about 100 people to turn out in this district. In the end 179 people were in the room.