[ilbegone]

Swing states, Continued.

But the strategy calls for a brisk timetable -- Congress acting promptly on jobs and the economy before moving on to the other Obama priorities. That won't be easy.

Obama starts 2010 still struggling over healthcare legislation that many voters see as disconnected from what polls show is the central preoccupation of their lives -- the economy. Closing the final deal on healthcare and getting on to other issues is at least several weeks away.

And the protracted nature of the healthcare fight, beset as it has been by relentless Republican attacks and by divisions within the Democrats' own ranks, does not bode well for quick action on other legislation, including the promised jobs bill, immigration or climate change.

How much patience voters will show is a question.

Joseph Nichols, a 25-year-old Democrat from Henderson, said the healthcare debate "has been going on for quite a few months. And they need to stop and realize that Americans are losing houses and families because there are no jobs, no money, no nothing."

Divisions are also hardening over an issue important to organized labor known as "card check," a proposal to make union organizing easier. Obama supports the idea.

John Phillipenas and D. Taylor are both labor leaders whose offices are a few miles apart in Las Vegas. Phillipenas represents a Teamsters local; Taylor, the culinary workers.

Phillipenas believes card check should be a priority. Unions help fortify the middle class, he says, and card check builds unions.

Taylor frets that with unemployment so high, card check could amount to a costly digression. "Nothing else matters," said Taylor. "It's jobs, jobs, jobs."

A similar divergence exists on immigration.

In a recent conference call, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, political director Patrick Gaspard and other White House officials told immigration advocates that Obama was committed to passing a bill in 2010.

Henry Cisneros, a former Clinton Cabinet secretary who was on the call, said: "It was clear that the administration intends to put this in the first rank of their legislative priorities in 2010. It's admirable and courageous, and it addresses a real need."

Delaying could discourage Latino turnout.

Already, a nationwide Daily Kos poll Dec. 14 to 17 showed, only 41% of Latino voters said they would "definitely" or "probably" vote in November, and 47% said they would not vote or were likely to stay home.

Yet many conservative Democrats and independents are less enthusiastic, and that tension is visible in Nevada. Reid can count on the Latino vote, supporters say. But if he becomes the catalyst for an immigration bill, that could anger rural voters, whom Reid also needs.

As Dennis Mallory, an official with the union representing state government workers, said:

Reid "is in for a very, very tough race. And he needs every voting bloc he can possibly pull from. . . . In the political climate such as it is, [immigration reform] is something I would put on the back burner."