Politics on the Hudson

Sen. John Edwards left Nevada after a Friday morning campaign event in Las Vegas, but the two other leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination have spent the entire day rallying supporters in preparation for Saturday’s caucuses.

It was after midnight in the East when Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton began speaking to hundreds of supporters packed into a school auditorium in Green Valley just outside Las Vegas.

An overflow crowd filled the school’s cafeteria to hear the event. And some people headed home because there was no room left for them.

Former President Bill Clinton introduced by his wife. “We are going to ensure that out economy once again produced jobs with good wages,’’ she said during a speech filled with policy prescriptions for the economy.

Less than an hour earlier Sen. Barack Obama fired up several hundred supporters in a courtyard behind the student union building of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.

“It’s Friday night in Las Vegas,’’ Obama told supporters stood for more than an hour in the cold waiting for his speech. “We’ve got some work to do tomorrow changing America.’’

Obama also touched on economic themes, saying the federal government should stop banks and financial institutions from underwriting fraudulent mortgages and should raise the minimum wage every year.

Clinton and Obama are expected to remain in Nevada most of the day Saturday.

Unlike Iowa and New Hampshire, Nevada does not have a tradition as an early voting state and residents are unfamiliar with the unusual rules of a caucus.

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