las vegas -- Susan Gray and Tom Harper, momentarily lost amid a labyrinth of desert-hued apartment buildings, attract curious stares from tenants as they scurry along snaking sidewalks until they finally find the address on their list: a second-floor unit at the top of a flight of stairs.
Harper knocks on the door as Gray adjusts her armload of Barack Obama 2008 Nevada caucus pledge cards. Neither notices the retirement-age man on the sidewalk below, hands held loosely at his sides, his upturned face suspicious over an untucked blue shirt.
"Can I help you?" the man demands. No, Harper says, peering over the rail, they're just looking for the apartment dweller. "I see his car," the man offers, nodding toward the parking lot, and suggests his neighbor might be sleeping because he works odd hours. "Can I help you?" he demands again, more sharply this time.
Harper looks down at him and, after a pause, explains that they're working for the Obama campaign and that the person at the address is listed as a supporter. "Good," the man says, touching his right hand to the small of his back, "because I've got my .44 back here."
Gun-toting neighbors weren't on Gray's list of expectations when the political novice left her Mission Viejo home Friday to spend the weekend pounding the Las Vegas pavement for Obama. She and four other Orange County volunteers came to pair up with locals like Harper, and to get crash course in street-level politics.
This morning's lesson: Expect the unexpected.
Over the last couple of months, 164 Obama volunteers from neighboring states have made similar trips to Las Vegas, Reno and Elko as part of the Obama campaign's Drive for Change program. His is the only Democratic presidential campaign using this tactic, according to local observers.
The idea is to augment Nevadans' volunteer work ahead of the state's Jan. 19 caucuses while learning such campaign basics as how to run phone banks, knock on doors and collect data. Obama's campaign is running similar efforts in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina -- which also are holding early caucuses or primaries.
But Nevada's program has an added dimension: "We are surrounded by February 5th states," said Obama's campaign director in Nevada, David Cohen, referring to primaries scheduled in California, Arizona, Idaho and Utah. That makes Nevada prime training ground for volunteers from the other states.
"This is important from a larger, strategic perspective," Cohen said.
