The Spotlight Lands Briefly On the 'Back of the House'

It swung left at Cartier and right at a restaurant called Alex, where the tasting menu begins with Spotted Prawn Tartare with Persimmon Osetra Caviar. Beyond the wedding salons, just opposite the pool, Don Harris waited with his toolbox, fresh from his job installing exhibits at the latest of the conventions. Harris had settled on Hillary Clinton, but only after deciding with his wife that caucusing for John Edwards was a waste.

"Yeah, I don't know," he said, clearly ambivalent about his choice. "I just don't know how many hours she spends in the Wal-Mart boardroom."

For an hour or so on Saturday, in the name of democratic selection, the people who in Las Vegas are known as the "back of the house" had come out front to be counted. The Wynn was one of nine casinos designated as caucus sites, and the crowd gathered resembled nothing so much as the United Nations, if delegates arrived at the General Assembly in maid uniforms and chef hats.

"You know, America has been changing, so it's time for a change," said Roldolfo Javero, 55, an army major back in the Philippines but a cabbie in Vegas. Camouflage fatigues peeked out from beneath his black leather topcoat. "They say come to America because it's the land of opportunity," he said. "But it can be the other way around, too, because America can use and abuse you."

He had come for Barack Obama.

Inside the ballroom, before a stage wreathed in royal purple and under a ceiling no closer than 30 feet, the two groups sent up chants. "Hil-lar-y!" was answered with "O-bam-a!" The Obama crowd was easier to spot, outfitted in T-shirts printed by the Culinary Workers Union whose coveted endorsement the Illinois senator had won. Anyone else in the room might be a Clinton supporter, though it appeared a bit more likely if she was dressed as a maid.

"My vote is mine!" said Thelma Estrada, explaining her departure from the union line. The Guatemala native waved her Clinton sign at a Sudanese man named Tong, who cleans rooms on the same floor. She only pretended to be mad when he knocked her placard to the carpet. "We work together," she said, smiling.

Still, it was hard to go against Obama -- and the union.

"I was for Hillary, but because of the union, I voted for him today," said a Riviera employee who gave only her first name, Manuela. "We're torn, a lot of us."

"I'm here because my son could not get any money to go to school, so I work two jobs to help my son go to college," said Barbara Hildreth, 48, a kitchen worker at the Hilton who caucused for Obama. "The Republicans have messed up so much for lower-class people."

Beside her, co-worker Alicia Beckhum, 46, said she favored the same candidate for his position on health care. "Definitely," she said. "I feel like he went through it. He went through it with his mom. So he has a clue."