Election Guide News, voter information PVT FILE PHOTO Sen. Barack Obama rallies his supporters in Pahrump Jan. 13. Advertisement

A Pahrump organizer for President-elect Barack Obama said the successful campaign was based on hard work in community organizing, as well as "the it factor."

Obama lost Nye County to rival Sen. John McCain but won the state, and local Democrats and political organizers of the Obama campaign poured champagne in a back room of Charlie's Place, formerly Our Bar, after McCain conceded just before 10 p.m. Tuesday night.

At one point, the crowd, seated on couchs and wearing jackets in a back room of the bar, erupted into a chant of "Yes we can! Yes we can!"

More cheers erupted when the map of the U.S. showed Nevada had turned blue.

Across town, at a campaign party for Nevada Assemblyman Ed Goedhart, R-Amargosa Valley, in a large banquet hall at the Pahrump Nugget Casino, guitarists Dan Schinhofen and Jack Lohman almost seemed to be singing prophetically, when earlier in the evening they vocalized the Paul Simon song "Slip Sliding Away" as McCain's chances were evaporating.

The scene at the rally, attended by numerous local Republicans, almost seemed to echo that of the televised scenes of McCain's election night rally at the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix on the CNN network: the sound on giant screen televisions was turned down as increasing numbers of states went for Obama while country-western performer Hank Williams Jr. performed on stage.

Obama supporters Jack Wood and Kelly Almond, of Pahrump, said the campaign started early, way back in August or September 2007.

"I was kind of a Hillary supporter, kind of de facto, because I figured this Obama guy is great, but who the hell is he?" Almond said.

Almond said he became convinced to support Obama after being invited to a campaign event at the Pahrump Winery. Then his strategy changed leading up to the Democratic caucus.

"We were fighting Hillary (Clinton). I mean, Hillary was our enemy, believe it or not," Almond said. "I never even thought he would beat Hillary."

Wood, a Democratic party co-captain for Precinct 28, sponsored an Obama rally at his Pahrump home the night of the Nevada presidential caucus Jan. 19, in which Clinton defeated Obama in Nye County, 57 percent to 39 percent. But Obama won Nevada's caucus votes.

"We both didn't think he would win, we just liked him," said Almond. "We liked him better than Hillary. I figured if he loses, we'll just vote for HIllary. But lo and behold.

"We saw how much he wanted it and the kind of organization he was doing and it dawned on me about December, this guy could do this, take it."

A community organizer for the environmental group Greenpeace in the 1980s who moved to Pahrump two years ago, Almond said the Obama campaign didn't do anything new, just old-fashioned campaigning.

"It's just community organizing. There's nothing new about what he's doing. He's doing it on a national scale with computers and cell phones. So in my opinion it's an old-fashioned technique of going door-to-door, but when you have someone who is intelligent, who is able to put together a database and communication, plus he's an inspiration. He's got 'the it factor,' " Almond said.

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin also had "the it factor," but Almond said she didn't have the right ideas.

A packed crowd at the Rosemary Clarke Middle School gym on Jan. 13 got to experience "the it factor", when Obama talked about how the late Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of reality began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"We can go ahead and tell the lobbyists of Washington their days of setting the agenda are over," Obama told the packed crowd.

Obama spoke about taking tax breaks away from companies that ship jobs overseas, a major part of his national advertising campaign. He also told Pahrumpians about his plan for an immediate $250 tax rebate for every American and a Social Security supplement for senior citizens. At the time Obama promised to withdraw troops from Iraq by the end of 2009.

Pahrump was the focus of the presidential campaign for the first time, with the Nevada caucus moved up to the third in the nation.

U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn, was the first presidential candidate to arrive, with a speech at Pahrump Fire Station No. 1 on April 13, 2007. He was followed by New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson in August, Hillary Clinton in September and former President Clinton himself the day before the caucus.

After the results were in late Tuesday night, Republicans at the Pahrump Nugget could at least bask in the fact Nye County stayed in the GOP column amid a tide of Democratic victories nationwide.

McCain decisively won in Nye County, with 54.5 percent to Obama's 41.3 percent. McCain won all 15 of Nevada's smaller counties.

U.S. Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., won by a similar margin in Nye County in his bid for reelection to the U.S. 2nd Congressional District seat, defeating Democrat Jill Derby 53 percent to 37 percent in a rematch of the 2006 campaign. That was close to his overall margin of victory districtwide, which was greater than Heller's tight finish with Derby two years ago.

"It was a year of the Democrats, so we're very appreciative and happy with the results," Goedhart told the crowd. "We in Nye County did buck the national trend."

He said many Democratic legislators will face term limits in 2012, allowing Republicans to try for a comeback.

"So you know what? Play rope-a-dope, like Muhammad Ali, then come out swinging," Goedhart said.