Obama targets Nevada for votes

Barack Obama literally came out swinging as he took centre stage at a Las Vegas baseball stadium in a bid to woo voters in the key battleground state of Nevada.

Taking to the stage at the home of the Las Vegas Stars baseball club, the Democratic presidential nominee practised his swings before attacking John McCain on everything from the troubled US economy to his ties with President George Bush and “the old boys network in Washington”.

More than 14,000 Nevadans turned out to see Mr Obama lambast his Republican rival in a state which has an uncanny knack of picking the winner in the race to the White House.

“We can’t steer ourselves out of this crisis if we’re steering in the same disastrous direction, using the same old map,” the 47-year-old Illinois senator said.

“We can’t steer ourselves out of the crisis, if the new driver is getting directions from the old driver, and that’s what this election is all about.”

Speaking at the Cashman Centre in Las Vegas, Mr Obama paid special attention to Latinos, who he said had been hit particularly hard by the foreclosure crisis.

Nevada is 24% Hispanic, a group seen as classic swing voters in the state, and they could tip the results either way on November 4 as they deliver Nevada’s five electoral college votes to either Mr Obama or Mr McCain.

Partly due to this, immigration is a key local issue, along with a controversial plan to build a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, which many Nevadans are concerned about.

The western state, once a barren, isolated and unappealing place, has been the government’s main nuclear test site for years.

Mr Obama urged Nevadans to turn out on election day, saying they could make the difference in an extremely close race.

“(Mr McCain) said he would take on the old boys network in Washington. Think about this,” Mr Obama said.

“This is someone who has been in Congress for 26 years, someone who put seven of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington in charge of his campaign.

“And now he tells us he’s the one that will take on the old boys’ network in Washington. What’s wrong with this picture? The old boys’ network?”

To a standing ovation, he went on: “In the McCain campaign, that’s called a staff meeting. We’re not done yet. I’m not making this up. You can’t make this up. It’s like a Saturday Night Live routine.”

Mr Obama mocked his Republican rival for proposing a commission to study the economic crisis.

“We don’t need a commission to tell us how we got into this mess,” he said. “We need a president who will lead us out of this mess, and that’s why I’m running for president of the United States of America.”

Mr Obama also attacked the 72-year-old Arizona senator for trying to hijack his mantle of change.

“I’ve got a track record,” he said. “I’m not a Johnny come lately. I didn’t show up yesterday asking for change. I’ve been talking about change for two years now.”

The state of Nevada has a reputation for picking winners.

It chose Kennedy in 1960, Nixon in 1968, was heavily Republican in the 1980s, opted for Clinton in the 1990s and backed George Bush in 2000 and 2004.

Both presidential candidates see the state as highly competitive and the latest Real Clear Politics average of polls showed Mr McCain leading Mr Obama by one point.

But neither candidate won here during their party’s primary election season, with Hillary Clinton beating Mr Obama and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney beating Mr McCain.

Since the 1960s, it has been the fastest-growing state in the nation and its most populous city, Las Vegas in the Mojave Desert, is a major resort for the gaming and entertainment industry, which in some way employs half the state’s population.

While not as seedy or as dominated by the mob as it once was, Sin City, known for its tolerance of various forms of adult entertainment and neon signs which line the Las Vegas Strip, has grown to more than one million people and earns billions of dollars from visitors attracted by its glitzy casinos each year.

But it has not been immune from the problems caused by the troubled US economy, with takings and visitor numbers down as tourists tighten their belts and the economy becomes a key issue in the election.

The Silver State’s heavily-unionised service sector workers form a major voting bloc in Nevada, and are a key part of the Democrats’ constituency, while its rural voters tend to favour the Republicans.

It earned its name as many headed to the state looking for silver, taking around 500 million US dollars by the 1880s.

By the 1930s its population had declined again to 91,000 before the state hit the jackpot when it legalised gambling.

As for the tight campaign, Mr Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod said: “We never anticipated anything but a close race and now (after the parties’ national conventions) it’s settled back to where we expected it to be, which is a very close, competitive race.

“We have a lot of targets of opportunity in states that were Bush states in 2004. We expect to battle right to the end.”