Sparks, NV – Nevada is one swing state that is still very much in play. Look at the polls. Both tickets have passed through there in recent days and will continue stopping by Reno and Vegas through Tuesday.
While we recently were catting around in the all-important Washoe County — home of Reno and Sparks — we met Jim Laudrisen. The Sparks resident is a 63-year-old retired janitor.
He’s an Obama supporter — like he was four years ago. But in the past few months, he’s discovered that a lot of his close pals are voting for Mitt Romney.
Democrats (and privately, some Republicans) talk about how powerful The Reid Machine is in getting out votes in Nevada. The Senate Majority Leader, backed by organized labor, is indeed formidable there.. And Reid’s pollster, Mark Mellman, just released a memo saying Obama is up six points there.
Mellman did accurately predict Reid’s 2010 Senate race. But that sounds ambitious. Nevada has one of the highest unemployment (12 percent) rates and number of foreclosures in the country. There is no deep well of support for Obama there like there is for Fightin’ Harry.
Just ask Jim Laudrisen. Here is yet another chapter of our vaunted series of Voices of the West video blogs, courtesy of San Francisco Chronicle/SFGate.com’s Shaky Hands Productions:
