Last night Dave and I were late getting to the Clinton rally, which usually is fine since these things start an hour or so after they say they will, but this time it was a problem as the room was absolutely packed and no more media was being let in. I waved my Clinton credential around and acted as though I was expected in the room by very very important people but we were turned away, diverted to the overflow room, something about secret service and fire marshall...

Although slightly bummed, as I wanted to be where the action was, I soon came around to the whole overflow room concept. Here was a room with a huge screen displaying Hillary Clinton's final Nevada closing speech, with at least 300 people watching Clinton, rapt, reacting with laughter and applause to every word she said, as though they were actually in the room with her. I thought to myself, isn't this essentially the same as watching it on CSPAN across the country? No, there was something about being in the next room and there was a level of commitment and excitement about Hillary Clinton in that room that I did not expect. To be honest, there seemed to be more excitement in that room for her than there was at the UNLV for Obama. I should note that our best guess is that there were more people at the Clinton event than were at the Obama event; that was surprising as well.

Another thing that impressed me was how diverse, age and gender-wise, the crowd was. Contrary to my own experience and general expectations, there were a lot of young men there, cheering enthusiastically for Clinton. People should not underestimate the breadth and solidity of her support. Just as one measure, between the Bill Clinton event earlier in the day and the rally at night, every person actually with the campaign that I encountered was a young white man; do with that information what you will.

Clinton's speech was one of her better ones, given in earnest, tough but still somehow intimate "I found my voice" tones, making her best "ready on day one" to "run the government" pitch. She projected an enormous amount of confidence; it almost felt as though she was giving a victory speech ("Thank you, Nevada! Thank you for your commitment and your support...!") which was in stark contrast to Obama's speech and the on-the-edge aggravation of his campaign manager David Axelrod. While Matt Stoller, who was in the room with the Clinton rally, found it low-energy, this graf stands out:

In the last event before the caucuses in Iowa, the Clinton campaign was dying on its feet, and you could tell in the despondency of the organizers, the low energy of the crowd, and the sagging sense of petty doom.  Tonight it did not feel that way.  The Clinton camp is pretty confident, though tired.

Dave has a good post at his place that sort of rejects the idea of psychological analysis as punditry, but I can't shake the feeling, just sort of taking the three events we attended yesterday, that the Clinton camp is preparing for a win and the Obama camp, not.

Dave and I are going to be at the Wynn at-large precinct caucus site, I'll hopefully be able to check back in from there. Then I'm going to try to be in the room for Clinton's speech once the results come in. I honestly feel that Clinton will be giving today's victory speech, but as a local journalist who was fairly sure of a Clinton win last weekend, told me last night, the culinary workers are the big unknown and if they turn out for Obama, he can still pull this out.