If the reception awaiting N.Y. Sen. Hillary Clinton on her Thursday evening “canvas” was any indication, swarms of television cameras and reporters will be a much more frequent sight in Nevada in the coming days, and not just on days that O.J. is set to be deposed.

The satellite trucks’ antennas were already tilting in the breeze an hour before Clinton arrived at 22nd St. and Brady in northern Las Vegas.  The local network affiliates, NBC’s KVBC-3, Fox’s KVVU-5, CBS’ KLAS-8, ABC’s KTNV-13 and Vegas PBS, arrived early, setting their cameras up for ideal shots only to have to move them when Clinton arrived in a different part of the neighborhood.  Besides the local television, HD News and network ABC also awaited Clinton, to be joined by counterparts from CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC, AP TV, and network CBS and FOX when the traveling press bus arrived.  Clinton, unlike less well-financed or nationally-prominent candidates, has a pool of press that travel with her from event to event and state to state.

Photographers are cliquish and stick together, so as the press loitered expectantly, photographers from Getty Images, Corbis, the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Daily News, and the European Pressphoto Agency waited together, commenting on the light and wondering whether it would be gone before Clinton arrived.

Reporters are no less cliquish, but hide it better, so there was no set corner for the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Molly Ball, the Las Vegas Sun’s J. Patrick Coolican and Jon Ralston, or Kathleen Hennessey, the Associated Press’ Nevada correspondent.  For the most part they mingled and chatted, renewing acquaintances born of seeking the same story time and again. 

The London Daily Telegraph's charmingly-accented correspondents inquired about Assemblyman Kihuen and the demographics of the neighborhood.

When the press bus pulled up, only slightly more than forty-five minutes behind schedule, the light was mostly gone, but that seemed to go without notice as nearly a dozen more photographers left the bus to join the rapidly-growing pool.  Exiting the bus with them were correspondents from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and Newsweek and newswire reporters from the Associated Press and Reuters.

Whoever coined the expression “difficult as herding cats” clearly never had to wrangle the press.  As Clinton arrived, accompanied by her daughter, Chelsea, Assemblyman Ruben Kihuen and Clark County Commission Chairman Rory Reid, the press pool quickly overwhelmed those staffers who tried vainly to restrict them to the sidewalks or off the various lawns.  Despite repeated (but progressively feebler) requests to remain in one or another designated portion of the street, cameras, microphones and notepads immediately surrounded the senator as she walked between pre-identified homes, asking pre-identified voters to support her.

“It is very important that a person like Clinton walk here, in Hispanic communities,” said Esperanza Solorio through her son, Christian.  Solorio’s was one of the houses identified for Clinton to “canvas” and applauded Clinton’s effort in coming to her neighborhood.  “Votes are important, but most important to us is having her here in our society,” said Solorio.

Ray Kincaid, 20, of Las Vegas, also had an opportunity to meet Clinton but was unwilling to commit to caucusing for her Jan. 19.  He enjoyed the opportunity to shake hands and speak with Clinton, but his experience of the meeting was focused on another aspect.

“All those paparazzi,” said Kincaid.  “Man, that had to be a headache for her.  How can she survive that?  I’d be like ‘Get that camera out of my face.’”

Leaving the “canvas,” Clinton’s next stop in Las Vegas was the Lindo Michoacan Restaurant for a roundtable on "the Housing Foreclosure Crisis.”  Clinton left Nevada for Los Angeles this evening, but will return for more campaigning Sunday and Monday as well as the second Democratic Las Vegas debate scheduled for Tuesday.