Vegas

This weekend I traveled to Las Vegas to register voters in one of the most evenly divided states in the country. It was an experience I won't soon forget. Las Vegas is very different from all other cities I have visited in America. Money at a level previously unknown to me and severely impoverished neighborhoods are separated by nothing more than a few blocks and a freeway overpass. Nowhere else in the world can you so frequently find Pink Escalade stretch -limos parked alongside tattered old Cutlass Supremes.

However, in Vegas I did more than observe. I and over 200 other volunteers registered people outside of supermarkets, strip malls, and at the UNLV vs. UNR rivalry football game. Voters at the supermarkets in our area of north-eastern Las Vegas espoused a wide variety of ideologies. Some folks were fervent supporters of either Obama or McCain, but quite often the people we registered were still undecided. Some shoppers were already registered, or claimed to be to avoid talking to me. Others were opposed to voting in general despite the possible deciding role their state could play in the upcoming election. As a result, many people signed up as non-partisan voters that will continue to ponder their choice between McCain and Obama.

I will save the tales from the college football tailgate in the Las Vegas desert for another time. What I will say is that all the talk of college students being tree-hugging, hopeful Obama fanatics should be taken with a grain of salt. I personally talked with many college students last Saturday that are spitting mad at the idea of being led by a Democrat who many believed was a poor military strategist and an inexperienced leader. Sadly, there were also those who believed that among worse things, Barack Obama is a "Flag-burning Muslim."
This trip illustrated in painfully real terms the bitter division among Democrats and Republicans that thrives in many parts of our country.